At least 78 Native American children died at Colorado boarding schools designed to strip them of their Indigenous language, culture and heritage, according to a new investigation recently published by the Washington Post.
The newspaper’s yearlong reporting project — relying on government and boarding school records, newspaper obituaries, death certificates and other documents — found three times as many students died at these schools nationwide than the federal government previously had identified.
In Colorado, the Washington Post found 13 more children died at the state’s five schools than History Colorado identified in 2023, though that organization’s 139-page report focused only on the two most prominent schools.
History Colorado found at least 65 children died at Fort Lewis Indian Boarding School and the Grand Junction Indian Boarding School, also known as the Teller Institute.
The new investigation found an additional nine students died at the Ute Mountain Boarding School in Towaoc, six died at the Southern Ute Boarding School in Ignacio and two died at the Good Shepherd Industrial School in Denver.
The U.S. government established more than 400 of these schools across the country in the early 1800s through the mid-20th century, with the express goal of removing Native American, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian children from their homes and communities and forcibly assimilating them into American life.
President Joe Biden in October issued the first formal apology for the government’s role in the boarding school system, calling it “a sin on our soul.”
The Washington Post’s reporting also shed light on how Colorado’s Native students died, as well as their tribal affiliations.
Seventeen of the 78 deaths in the state stemmed from tuberculosis, making it the most common cause of death. Seven suffered from pneumonia. Three drowned. One died from injuries sustained while playing baseball, records compiled by the newspaper show.
These students came to the schools from a variety of tribes: Southern Ute (11), Navajo (10) and White Mountain Apache (5) represented the most frequent tribes reflected in the records.
The Washington Post documented the deaths of 3,104 students at Native American boarding schools in the United States between 1828 and 1970, three times as many deaths as reported by the U.S. Department of the Interior earlier this year.
Raven Payment, co-chair of the Denver American Indian Commission, said sadness and heartbreak marked her initial impressions of the recent reporting. She’s a descendant of boarding school survivors. Every Native person she knows is a descendant of boarding school survivors, she said.
“I see firsthand how these schools impact the entirety of their lives,” said Payment, an Ojibwe and Kanien’kehá:ka citizen. “I know how this history has impacted my own family and our own traumas.”
Still, Payment said she also felt a modicum of relief.
“This truth is starting to come to light,” she said. “There’s a freedom in doing that for Native people. People are starting to understand what has happened to our community. Now we have to ask: How do we rectify this?”
The History Colorado report stemmed from HB22-1327, signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in 2022, establishing the federal Indian Board School Research Program. Its task: Research and make recommendations for Coloradans to understand the physical and emotional abuse and deaths that occurred at the state’s boarding schools.
The report marked the first in-depth look at the state’s boarding school legacy, finding children were kidnapped and coerced into the schools, where they faced neglect and unsanitary conditions, as well as forced labor and even sexual abuse.
Lawmakers last legislative session reenacted the program, which had expired, directing $1 million for History Colorado to continue to research these schools.
The program is now looking for a leader to handle the research and has formed a committee to guide it.
The 15-member commission has five open seats, said Luke Perkins, a History Colorado spokesperson. The seats are earmarked for survivors of Indian boarding schools in Colorado, descendants of survivors and a trauma-informed mental health professional.
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