WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday delivered remarks at his fourth White House Tribal Nations Summit, where he touted his work to invest in the communities and announced a new national monument at the site of a former boarding school where Native American children were forced to attend.

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden on Monday delivered remarks at his fourth White House Tribal Nations Summit, where he touted his work to invest in the communities and announced a new national monument
  • The new monument at the site of a former boarding school in Pennsylvania will recognize the oppression faced by Native families, whose children were forced to attend the school
  • It was a part of a broader 150 year era in U.S. history in which the federal government took Indigenous children from their parents and sent them to boarding schools for forced assimilation
  • Biden also announced several additional actions to bolster Indigenous tribes, including new guidance that seeks to make it easier for Tribal Nations to receive disaster declarations and a 10-year plan to address the loss of Native languages
  • The president on Monday also used the summit to laud what he has already accomplished for Native communities, including putting $45 billion toward improving infrastructure and expanding healthcare and education in Indian Country

The new monument at the site of a former boarding school in Carlisle, Pa., will recognize the oppression faced by Native families, whose children were forced to attend the school. It was a part of a broader 150 year era in U.S. history in which the federal government took Indigenous children from their parents and sent them to boarding schools for forced assimilation. 

The move follows Biden’s trip to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona in October in which he formally apologized for the period in U.S. history, which ended in 1969 and saw at least 18,000 children separated from their parents, according to an Interior Department investigation. The stop fulfilled a nearly two-year-old promise made by the Democratic president to visit Indian country. 

“By making the Carlisle Indian School a national monument, we make clear what great nations do: we don’t erase history, we acknowledge, we learn from it and we remember so we never repeat it again,” Biden said on Monday at the summit. “We remember so we can heal, that’s the purpose of memory.” 

Along with the new monument, Biden on Monday announced several additional actions to bolster Indigenous tribes, including new guidance that seeks to make it easier for Tribal Nations to receive disaster declarations and a 10-year plan to address the loss of Native languages. 

“Part of the tragedy of Indian boarding schools is that they deliberately tried to erase the culture of tribes by ensuring that children lost their language and their traditions,” Biden said. “That’s why the next chapter of healing requires revitalizing Native languages.” 

The president on Monday also used the summit to laud what he has already accomplished for Native communities, including putting $45 billion toward improving infrastructure and expanding healthcare and education in Indian Country. It comes as Biden, set to leave office in six weeks, is looking to cement his legacy after a more than five-decades-long career in Washington. 

The president was introduced at Monday’s summit by his Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary. Haaland presented Biden with a blanket from a tribally owned business that read “Joe Biden Champion for Indian Country.”

Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks at the summit earlier on Monday, speaking about the administration’s efforts to address health within the community, particularly maternal mortality.  

“I believe, of course, that the bonds between our nations are sacred, they are sacred,” Harris said “and that the federal government has a duty to safeguard and strengthen those bonds; a duty to honor Tribal sovereignty; to ensure Tribal self-determination and to uphold our trust and treaty obligations.”