INDIGENOUS CHILDREN’S REMAINS RETURNED

The disinterred remains of nine Native American children who died more than a century ago while attending a government-run school in Pennsylvania were headed home to Rosebud Sioux tribal lands in South Dakota on Wednesday after a ceremony returning them to relatives.

The handoff at a graveyard on the grounds of the U.S. Army’s Carlisle Barracks was part of the fourth set of transfers to take place since 2017. The remains of an Alaskan Aleut child were returned to her tribe earlier this summer.

“We want our children home no matter how long it takes,” said Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who in June announced a nationwide investigation into the boarding schools that attempted to assimilate Indigenous children into White society.

Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, said at the event that “forced assimilation practices” stripped away the children’s clothing, their language and their culture. She said the government aims to locate the schools and burial sites and identify the names and tribal affiliations of children from the boarding schools around the country.