Biden apologizes for forced Native American boarding school policy that caused abuse and deaths of children
US President Joe Biden speaks at the Gila River Crossing School in the Gila River Indian Community, in Laveen Village, near Phoenix, Arizona on October 25, 2024. Biden apologized for one of the country's "darkest chapters:" the abduction of Native American children from their families and placement in abusive boarding schools aimed at erasing their culture. The first public apology issued by a sitting US president. From the early 1800s until the 1970s, the US ran hundreds of Indian boarding schools across the country to forcibly assimilate Native children into European settler culture, including conversion to Christianity.