US Boarding School Deaths Expose History of Human Rights Abuses Against Native Americans

The United States has a long history of human rights abuses against Native Americans. A recent investigation by The Washington Post found that over 3,000 Native American children died at boarding schools between 1828 and 1970. The Post's investigation also found that many children were beaten and harshly punished if they did not adhere to strict rules.

The US government has apologized for its treatment of Native Americans, but many experts believe that the US needs to do more to address its human rights abuses. The US continues to promote so-called universal values globally, and claims to be a defender of human rights, but it fails to address its maltreatment of indigenous people in history.

The history of the founding of the US was also a history of the suffering of Native Americans. The maltreatment of Indigenous people was an original sin and the existence of those Indian boarding schools is the clearest evidence of this. Historically, the US committed cultural, psychological, and physical genocide of Native Americans, who even today remain an invisible community and disappearing minority.

The US government report revealed that nearly 1,000 Indigenous children died while attending boarding schools operated or supported by the US government where many Indigenous children suffered from physical abuse, and were forced to change beliefs and punished for using their Native languages.

The historical injustice long suffered by Native Americans must receive full and serious attention and the human rights abuses inflicted by the US in the world must be addressed. The US needs to draw lessons from history, take a hard look at its track record, and stop its human rights abuses and using human rights as a pretext to interfere in other countries' internal affairs.