The dark history of federal Indian boarding schools

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By Olivia B. Waxman Staff Writer On May 11, the U.S. Department of the Interior released a report cataloging wrongdoing at more than 400 Indian boarding schools, institutions that were designed to assimilate Native Americans in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The report tracked at least 500 deaths and countless incidents of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. To put this report in context, and to talk about the origins of these schools, I called up the historian Brenda Child, who was born on the Red Lake Ojibwe Reservation in northern Minnesota, and who wrote a book on these institutions. She explained that the dispossession of Indian lands is the great tragedy of the boarding-school era. “People at the time thought Native people could just abandon their homes and reservations and tribal ways and wouldn’t need a homeland anymore,” she tells TIME. Click here to read the full story. Here’s more history to know:

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FROM THE TIME VAULT This week in 1978: Prince Charles “Given the robust good health of his mother Queen Elizabeth, chances are that it will be some years before Bonnie Prince Charlie becomes King. But as he approaches his 30th birthday (Nov. 14), this scion of the House of Windsor has clearly come into his own, not so much a monarch in waiting as a mature royal Prince who is a man of his times despite those anachronistic titles. Relaxed and at ease in his ceremonial chores, Charles has worked to extend the influence and interests of the royal family during a time of change for Britain.” (May 15, 1978) Read More » This week in 1980: Star Wars: Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back “While [George Lucas] was writing the script for Star Wars, he read books on mythology, fantasy and anthropology. ‘I wanted Star Wars to have an epic quality,’  he says, 'so I went back to the epics. Whether they are subconscious or unconscious, whatever needs they meet, they are stories that have pleased or provided comfort to people for thousands of years. The basic fears and mysteries go all the way back to the cave men. What is the mystery of life? What is this world we are trapped in? All you have to do is see the possibilities and you can reiterate them.’” (May 19, 1980) Read More » This week in 1997: Steven Spielberg “Still, one can ask how a half-century of living and nearly a quarter-century's reign as the most successful moviemaker in history affect the man who took out a patent on perennial childhood. From the films he made as a 12-year-old, through such defining blockbusters as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, to the darker Empire of the Sun and the harsh, self-critical Hook—which behind the raucous derring-do sounds like a cry for help from a man afraid that his personal fountain of youth has run dry—Spielberg has analyzed kids' loneliness, tested their innocence and celebrated their resilience in what amounts to cliff-hanging chapters in the most sweetly confessional autobiography of any mainstream director. ‘I feel I'm all over my movies,’ he says. ‘I know my movies are all over me.’” (May 19, 1997) Read More »

HIGHLIGHTS FROM AROUND THE WEB Education: In a CNN.com op-ed, historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela looks at the historical parallels to conservative backlash regarding “social and emotional learning” in public schools. Society: For Slate, English professor Molly Farrell writes about why Ben Franklin included abortion instructions in an 18th century math textbook. Press: Former Chicago Tribune TV critic Steve Johnson writes about the history of Amerika, a magazine published in the Soviet Union during the Cold War that was designed to paint a favorable picture of the U.S. Thread: On Twitter, The Root’s Michael Harriot offers a history lesson in allyship by zeroing in on a Boston-area anti-slavery group. Photos: The New York Daily News features a photo essay on the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

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