For more than 150 years, thousands of Native American children were, or are, being sent to boarding schools. These boarding schools shouldn’t be allowed, because they take almost all of their belongings away from the Native American children. U.S. government researchers are revealing more of an understanding of how difficult and deadly some of the kid’s experiences have been. Some kids attending a boarding school are most likely forced out of their homes. 

At Carlisle Indian Industrial School almost 7,800 kids attended. The kids were renamed and stripped of their tribal clothing and hairstyles. They had to do before and after portraits of the students. The children also had to go through many different types of abuse. For example, these boarding schools rely on child labor, the kids face multiple beatings and they don’t have enough to eat. Some Native families willingly send their kids to these boarding schools hoping different schools would offer better conditions.

For Thomas Indian School, as part of the application process, parents must give up full custody of their children. But if the parents resisted the boarding school system, they would also be punished. In 1895 a mother of a 3-year-old from the Tlingit tribe was imprisoned after refusing to return her daughter to boarding school. Hundreds of kids have died and more kids are dying as researchers uncover more information. These kids who have entered the boarding school system most likely won’t come out alive.