Presidential Document2024-29459
Establishment of the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument
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Published
December 12, 2024
Signed
December 9, 2024
Issuing agencies
Executive Office of the President
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 89 Issue 239 (Thursday, December 12, 2024)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 89, Number 239 (Thursday, December 12, 2024)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 100289-100297]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2024-29459]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 89, No. 239 / Thursday, December 12, 2024 /
Presidential Documents
___________________________________________________________________
Title 3--
The President
[[Page 100289]]
Proclamation 10870 of December 9, 2024
Establishment of the Carlisle Federal Indian
Boarding School National Monument
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
For a century and a half spanning the early 19th and
mid-20th centuries, the Federal Government removed
American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian
children (Native children) from their families, Tribes,
and homelands, often by force or coercion, and
transported them to institutions across the United
States. These institutions collectively became known as
the ``Federal Indian boarding school system.'' The
Federal Government's goal was to assimilate Native
children by stripping them of their languages,
religions, and cultures. To that end, the children
taken to these institutions were often separated from
their families for years, and many never returned to
their homes. The schools often used physical abuse,
compulsory labor, and corporal punishment to achieve
their assimilative ends. Many Native children were
subjected to sexual abuse at the schools. School staff
cut their hair, made them give up their traditional
clothes and names, provided them with inadequate
medical services, and deprived them of essential
nutrition. According to available records, nearly 1,000
Native youths died in schools across the system, but
the actual number of lives lost is likely much higher.
Many children attempted to flee from schools in the
system; while some managed to escape, those who did not
often faced severe discipline. For the survivors of the
schools, and for the families and Tribes whose children
were taken from them, the trauma and violence inflicted
by the Federal Indian boarding school system have had
profound effects across multiple generations, and those
impacts continue today.
The Federal Government's attempt to control and
assimilate Native children into Anglo-European culture,
society, and religion through the Federal Indian
boarding school system was part of a broader effort to
destroy American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native
Hawaiian political, social, and cultural structures;
stifle opposition and resistance in those communities;
and appropriate Tribal lands, waters, and resources.
This effort was carried out through policies
implemented at Federal Indian boarding schools and
actions taken by multiple executive departments and
agencies across the administrations of 34 Presidents--
from Thomas Jefferson through Lyndon B. Johnson--using
today's equivalent of at least $23 billion in Federal
appropriations.
Despite this system and other destructive Federal
policies, Indian Tribes (Tribes, or Tribal Nations),
including Alaska Native Villages, and the Native
Hawaiian Community retained their identities and
cultures and rebuilt their political and community
institutions, including by taking over and transforming
some of the Federal Indian boarding schools that once
caused widespread and enduring pain.
Founded in 1879, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School
(Carlisle School) in Pennsylvania was the first Federal
off-reservation boarding school for Native children. By
the time it ceased operations in 1918, the Carlisle
School had subjected 7,800 Indian children from more
than 140 Tribes to its coercive form of education. Some
children were as young as 5 years old when they
arrived. The Federal Indian boarding school system,
which continued through the 1960s following practices
first used at the Carlisle
[[Page 100290]]
School, inflicted a legacy of individual, collective,
and multi-generational trauma on Tribes and the Native
Hawaiian Community.
The former campus of the Carlisle School is located
within the boundaries of what is now the United States
Army's Carlisle Barracks (Carlisle Barracks), one of
the Nation's oldest military installations. The
Continental Congress first used the property as a
center for artillery and ordnance supplies for the
Continental Army under General George Washington. In
1863, during the Civil War, Confederate troops torched
buildings on the campus, which functioned at the time
as a central supply center for the Union Army. The
Federal Government rebuilt the barracks between 1863
and 1864 in the original footprint and style.
The Carlisle School campus was designated as a National
Historic Landmark in 1961 and added to the National
Register of Historic Places in 1966. The 24 historic
structures associated with the Carlisle School include
residential, vocational, and athletic buildings that
evoke the Federal Indian boarding school era. Prominent
among these are the historic School Road Gateposts.
Constructed by the labor of children and youths at the
Carlisle School, these gateposts were the first
structures that some children taken to Carlisle would
have seen as they walked along the pathway and entered
the campus. The gateposts still stand today as a marker
of the removal and separation of children from their
families, Tribes, and homelands.
The concept of using the education of Native children
and separation from their families and Tribes as
weapons of control and religious conversion echoes back
centuries to early colonial times in the 1600s. In
1819, the Congress laid the groundwork for a general
system of Indian education by enacting the Civilization
Fund Act (3 Stat. 516). The Act authorized the
President to provide for ``[e]mployment of instructors
for Indians,'' including ``for teaching their children
in reading, writing, and arithmetic,'' and provided an
annual appropriation of funds for that purpose. Over
the ensuing five decades, these funds were distributed
to various entities (particularly missionary
organizations) and individuals ``prominent in the
effort to `civilize' the Indians.'' At least 59
religious institutions and organizations received
Federal Government funding to operate or support
schools in the Federal Indian boarding school system.
The more immediate origins of the philosophy of the
Federal Indian boarding school system trace to an
organized ``experiment of enforced civilization'' in
1875. At that time, President Ulysses S. Grant's War
Department, acting on directions from the Congress,
selected Tribal members labeled as ``hostiles'' or
``ringleaders'' to be taken prisoner and transported by
train from the West to Fort Marion, Florida. The United
States Army targeted and arrested 72 members from a
range of Tribes. The War Department then issued Special
Orders detailing 1st Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt of
the 10th Cavalry to accompany the prisoners--a group of
men, women, and children--on their trip and remain in
charge of them upon arrival.
Pratt oversaw all aspects of the Fort Marion
incarceration and treatment of the prisoners: cutting
off their hair, clothing them in military uniforms,
running military drills, selling their crafts and
drawings, teaching them English, and assigning
prisoners to work as laborers. During a speech
delivered in 1892 to the National Conference of
Charities and Corrections in Denver, Colorado, Pratt
expressed his infamous approach to assimilation:
``[T]hat all the Indian there is in the race should be
dead. Kill the Indian in him and save the man.'' This
soon became the blueprint and philosophy for how
children would be treated at Federal Indian boarding
schools.
In 1882, the Congress authorized the Secretary of War
to set aside any vacant posts or barracks for
industrial training for Indian youth and to detail Army
officers for Indian education under the direction of
the Secretary of the Interior. Three years earlier, in
August 1879, the Secretary of War had approved the
first such transfer, of the vacant Carlisle Barracks in
Pennsylvania, to the Secretary of the Interior to be
used as a school for Native children. On October 6,
1879, 83 American Indian and Alaska Native
[[Page 100291]]
children--24 girls and 59 boys--arrived at the newly
founded Carlisle School. The Congress subsequently
passed a law that paid a salary to Pratt, whom the
Secretary of War had placed in charge of the Carlisle
School at the request of the Secretary of the Interior.
For almost 40 years, the Department of the Interior
operated the Carlisle School as an Indian Industrial
School, melding the approach of incarceration with
assimilative education policies.
When children arrived at the Carlisle School, they were
immersed in the practices of so-called ``civilized''
life--a term frequently used to describe the goal of
the Federal Indian boarding schools in Federal
Government reports. Their hair was cut and their
clothing was replaced with military uniforms for boys
and Victorian dresses for girls. One of the children
brought to the Carlisle School in its opening year,
Luther Standing Bear--a child of the Oglala Lakota
Chief Standing Bear--later recounted his experience:
``Now, after having my hair cut . . . I felt that I was
no more Indian but would be an imitation of a white
man.'' Zitkala-Sa, a Dakota woman from the Yankton
Sioux Reservation, recalled the confusion and fear she
felt on her first day as a child at Carlisle, during
which school officials dragged her from her hiding
place under a bed, tied her to a chair, and forcibly
cut her thick braids: ``Then I lost my spirit. . . . In
my anguish I moaned for my mother, but no one came to
comfort me . . . for now I was only one of many little
animals driven by a herder.''
All children at the Carlisle School experienced a
regimented daily schedule starting at 6:00 a.m. and
concluding with Taps and room inspection at 9:00 p.m.
Sunday school, chapel services, Catholic instruction,
and Bible study classes were required. Carlisle School
instructors also imposed strict rules about teaching
English and prohibited the children from speaking their
native languages--a rule that was often enforced with
corporal punishment.
``Vocational'' or ``industrial'' training in the form
of compulsory labor was a central component of the
Carlisle School throughout its operation. Boys were
assigned mechanics, blacksmithing, tin-smithing, wagon-
making, carpentering, tailoring, shoemaking, harness-
making, baking, painting, printing, and farming. Girls
were assigned cooking, laundry, and housekeeping. In
what became known as the ``outing system''--an
arrangement intended to ``impart[ ] the lesson of
Americanism''--Carlisle School administrators regularly
sent children and youths to spend a portion of each
year living with and working for white families. School
administrators then deposited the children's
compensation ``to their credit'' with the school.
Carlisle School leaders also used the children's labor
to perform maintenance, construction, and operations
work on the campus. Several buildings--including a
large brick printing office, a gymnasium, a hospital,
doctor's quarters, a model home, a laundry building,
the Leupp Indian Art Studio, and a warehouse--were
primarily constructed by the youths of the Carlisle
School.
The Carlisle School's start as a Federal Indian
boarding school coincided with the rise of American
football. Although students also participated in other
athletics, the Carlisle School used the football team
as a means to earn publicity and garner support for the
boarding school approach to assimilation. In 1899, the
Carlisle School hired a well-known football coach,
Glenn ``Pop'' Warner, and in the ensuing years the
Carlisle football team boasted an impressive win-loss
record, including victories over colleges such as
Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. Newspapers
published articles with sensational stories and
photographs of the Carlisle School games, spotlighting
Carlisle student athletes Dennison Wheelock, Gus Welch,
and Jim Thorpe. For a small number of players, like
Thorpe, football provided access to higher educational
opportunities and athletic success. But for most
players, the Carlisle football team did not lead to
additional opportunities.
Indeed, for the student body more generally, the
athletic program amounted to another form of
exploitation by the school. To fund the gymnasium, the
Carlisle School took purported donations from the
children's Individual Indian Money Accounts, which were
trust accounts created and managed
[[Page 100292]]
by the Federal Government. The school also used sales
of items made by children and gate receipts from
athletic events held on the Carlisle School's fields
and cinder track for its own uses. A congressional
investigation in 1914 received testimony that Warner
used the Carlisle football game proceeds for his
personal gain.
Conditions at the Carlisle School--located in a remote
area over a thousand miles away from many children's
homes--were unfamiliar and harsh. Children lived in
close quarters and were exposed to diseases they had
not encountered previously. More than 180 children died
while attending the Carlisle School; many of them are
buried in marked gravesites at the Carlisle Barracks
Main Post Cemetery.
The Carlisle School's tenure as a Federal Indian
boarding school ended in 1918, at the end of World War
I, when the War Department took back control of the
post and opened a hospital to care for wounded
soldiers. At that time, 279 children left the Carlisle
School and were transferred to other Federal Indian
boarding schools.
The Carlisle School's legacy extends far beyond its
almost 40 years of operation. The Carlisle School
became a model replicated in more than 417 federally
supported Indian boarding schools in 37 States and
then-territories over the course of the next century.
In addition, some Indian boarding schools were operated
by religious institutions and organizations that did
not receive Federal Government support. Across the
Federal Indian boarding school system, the Federal
Government's policies of cultural disruption and
assimilation resulted in a collective loss of language,
religion, and identity, and inflicted intergenerational
trauma that persists today and remains a painful but
important part of our Nation's story.
Many Tribal leaders resisted the Federal Indian
boarding school system and took steps to try to protect
Native children and reunite families. After the United
States military entered Third Mesa of Hopi in 1890 and
took 104 children from their families into the Federal
Indian boarding school system, Hopi leaders refused to
send additional Hopi children to the school. In
response, in November 1894, the Federal Government
arrested 19 Hopi leaders and held them as prisoners for
nearly a year at Alcatraz Island in California, a
former United States military installation. The names
of these Hopi leaders were: Heevi'ima, Polingyawma,
Masatiwa, Qotsventiwa, Piphongva, Lomahongewma,
Lomayestiwa, Yukiwma, Tuvehoyiwma, Patu-pha, Qotsyawma,
Sikyakeptiwa, Talagayniwa, Talasyawma, Nasingayniwa,
Lomayawma, Tawalestiwa, Aqawsi, and Qoiwiso.
On May 23, 1881, Chief Spotted Tail and parents from
the Rosebud Sioux Tribe requested that the Federal
Government return the human remains of Rosebud Sioux
Tribe children buried at the Carlisle School to their
Indian Reservation in South Dakota. On July 14, 2021--
over 140 years later--the Army transferred the human
remains of nine children to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe to
return them to their homelands. The names of these nine
children were: Dennis Strikes First (Blue Tomahawk);
Rose Long Face (Little Hawk); Lucy Take The Tail
(Pretty Eagle); Warren Painter (Bear Paints Dirt);
Ernest Knocks Off (White Thunder); Maud Little Girl
(Swift Bear); Alvan, aka Roaster, Kills Seven Horses,
One That Kills Seven Horses; Friend Hollow Horn Bear;
and Dora Her Pipe (Brave Bull). The Army is currently
implementing its Carlisle Barracks Disinterment
Program, which, consistent with Army regulations and
policy, promotes engagement with the Tribes and
families of the children who died at the Carlisle
School to return their remains to their ancestral
homelands. This program has successfully disinterred
and returned the remains of 41 children to their
families.
Many buildings that made up or are connected to the
original Carlisle School campus remain. Twenty-four
historic structures associated with the Carlisle School
have been preserved by the Army and stand today within
the National Historic Landmark district at Carlisle
Barracks. In addition to those structures mentioned
above, the site also includes living quarters, the
Superintendent's residence, the ``Pop'' Warner House,
Washington Hall,
[[Page 100293]]
the Hessian Powder Magazine (built in 1777 and known
since 1870 as a guard house), and athletic fields that
parallel the original Carlisle School track. The four
School Road Gateposts, when constructed in 1910, marked
the main entrance to the boarding school campus.
Designating the former campus of the Carlisle School,
with boundaries consistent with the National Historic
Landmark, as a national monument will help ensure this
shameful chapter of American history is never forgotten
or repeated. Establishing a national monument at the
historic Carlisle School and acknowledging the Federal
Government's policies aimed at destroying Tribal and
Indigenous political structures, cultures, and
traditions--including through the Federal Indian
boarding school system--takes a step toward redress and
national healing in the arc of the survival,
resilience, and triumph of Indian Tribes (including
Alaska Native Villages) and the Native Hawaiian
Community.
WHEREAS, section 320301 of title 54, United States Code
(the ``Antiquities Act''), authorizes the President, in
the President's discretion, to declare by public
proclamation historic landmarks, historic and
prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic
or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands
owned or controlled by the Federal Government to be
national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof
parcels of land, the limits of which shall be confined
to the smallest area compatible with the proper care
and management of the objects to be protected; and
WHEREAS, the Department of the Interior, at the
direction of the Secretary of the Interior, who is
herself a descendant of survivors of the Federal Indian
boarding school system, established the Federal Indian
Boarding School Initiative, which has helped bring to
light the extensive breadth and depth of the role the
Federal Government played in creating the Federal
Indian boarding school system; and
WHEREAS, I issued a long-overdue Presidential apology
to Tribal Nations and Native people on behalf of the
Federal Government acknowledging the lasting harms
caused by the Federal Indian boarding school policy and
recognizing the need to learn from this history and
advance the goal of healing; and
WHEREAS, the Carlisle School was the Nation's first
off-reservation Federal Indian boarding school,
provided a template for institutions across the Nation
and internationally for its assimilation practices, and
today remains one of the Nation's best-preserved
examples of the Federal Indian boarding school era; and
WHEREAS, the Department of the Army (Army) has taken
steps to preserve part of the Carlisle School campus
and the historic objects it contains, ensuring that its
history can be told; and
WHEREAS, the historic buildings and pathways that are
part of the Carlisle School campus--where thousands of
Native children lived, and in some cases died, far from
their families, Tribes, and homelands; were compelled
to participate in school activities designed to
separate them from their cultures and identities; and
performed compulsory manual labor--are important
historic objects that reflect and embody the Carlisle
School's years of operation and the similar practices
of other institutions in the Federal Indian boarding
school system; and
WHEREAS, the School Road Gateposts are a nationally
significant passageway and an historic object on the
site through which Native children walked after being
removed from their homes and families during the
Federal Indian boarding school era, and are
contributing features of the Carlisle Indian Industrial
School National Historic Landmark first designated by
the Secretary of the Interior in 1961 and updated in
1985; and
WHEREAS, designation of the monument will further the
efforts of the United States to aid in recovery,
reconciliation, and healing for Indian Tribes, the
Native Hawaiian Community, and survivors and their
descendants
[[Page 100294]]
affected by the Federal Indian boarding school system,
while honoring and mourning the lives of Native
children lost and celebrating those who persisted; and
WHEREAS, I find that all the objects identified above,
and objects of the type identified above within the
area described herein, are objects of historic interest
in need of protection under section 320301 of title 54,
United States Code, regardless of whether they are
expressly identified as objects of historic interest in
the text of this proclamation; and
WHEREAS, I find that the boundaries of the monument
reserved by this proclamation represent the smallest
area compatible with the proper care and management of
the objects of historic interest identified above, as
required by the Antiquities Act; and
WHEREAS, it is in the public interest to preserve and
protect the objects of historic interest associated
with the Carlisle School and its prominent role in the
story of Federal Indian boarding schools instituted
under the United States policy of forced assimilation
of Native children;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of
the United States of America, by the authority vested
in me by section 320301 of title 54, United States
Code, hereby proclaim the objects identified above that
are situated upon lands and interests in lands owned or
controlled by the Federal Government to be part of the
Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National
Monument (monument) and, for the purpose of protecting
those objects, reserve as part thereof all lands and
interests in lands that are owned or controlled by the
Government of the United States within the boundaries
described on the accompanying map, which is attached to
and forms a part of this proclamation. The reserved
Federal lands and interests in lands within the
monument's boundaries consist of approximately 24.5
acres, which are coextensive with the boundaries of the
Carlisle Indian Industrial School National Historic
Landmark and lie within the approximately 520-acre
boundary of Carlisle Barracks. The boundaries described
on the accompanying map are confined to the smallest
area compatible with the proper care and management of
the objects to be protected.
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the
boundaries of the monument are hereby appropriated and
withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection,
sale, or other disposition under the public land laws
or laws applicable to the Army, including withdrawal
from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws,
and from disposition under all laws relating to
mineral, solar, and geothermal leasing. The
establishment of the monument is subject to valid
existing rights.
The Secretary of the Army is hereby directed to
transfer to the National Park Service (NPS)
administrative jurisdiction over the approximately 258
square feet (0.006 acres) identified by the Army as the
School Road Gateposts. In furtherance of the
Antiquities Act and pursuant to their respective legal
authorities, the Secretary of the Interior and the
Secretary of the Army shall manage the monument through
the NPS and the Army, respectively. The management of
the monument shall be conducted in a cooperative
manner, in accordance with the terms, conditions, and
direction provided by this proclamation, and consistent
with an agreement between the NPS and the Army that
details their respective duties and responsibilities
for management of the monument.
Following transfer of administrative jurisdiction over
the School Road Gateposts, the NPS shall administer
that portion of the monument, and the Army shall
continue to administer the remaining portion of the
monument. The NPS shall be responsible for
interpretation of and education regarding the entirety
of the monument in consultation with the Army.
Within 3 years of the date of this proclamation, or as
soon as practicable to incorporate Tribal views,
knowledge, and expertise, as appropriate, for the
purpose of preserving, interpreting, and enhancing the
public understanding and appreciation of the monument,
the NPS, in consultation with
[[Page 100295]]
the Army, shall prepare a management plan for the
monument. The management plan shall ensure the monument
fulfills the following purposes for the benefit of
present and future generations: (1) to preserve the
historic resources within the boundaries of the
monument; (2) to interpret the story of the Carlisle
School and its significance to the history of the
Federal Indian boarding school system; and (3) to
commemorate the efforts and resilience of Tribal
Nations and Indigenous Peoples, including survivors of
the Carlisle School and others affected by Federal
Indian boarding schools, who are working to advance
healing and reconciliation, to recover Native languages
and cultures, and to chart a vibrant future for all
Native children.
In recognition of the centrality of Tribal
participation to tell this story, to inform
interpretation of the objects that are part of the
monument, and to enhance public understanding and
appreciation of the monument, the Secretary of the
Interior, through the NPS and in coordination with the
Army, shall meaningfully engage Tribal Nations and the
Native Hawaiian Community in the development of the
management plan and ongoing management of the monument.
The Secretary of the Interior, through the NPS, shall
also take steps to ensure that management decisions
affecting the monument incorporate Tribal expertise and
Indigenous Knowledge in an appropriate manner
consistent with Tribal Nations' concerns for protecting
Indigenous Knowledge and expertise. The Secretary of
the Interior, through the NPS, shall enter into an
agreement with interested federally recognized Indian
Tribes to set forth terms, pursuant to applicable laws,
regulations, and policies, for co-stewardship of the
monument. The Secretary of the Interior, through the
NPS, shall also provide for consultation with any
federally recognized Indian Tribe with historical
connections to any part of the Federal Indian boarding
school system regarding the interpretation of that
system's history at the monument.
As the Federal Indian boarding school system affected
nearly every Indian Tribe (including Alaska Native
Villages) and the Native Hawaiian Community, and in
view of the wide array of resulting experiences and
perspectives, the Secretary of the Interior, through
the NPS, is also directed, as appropriate, to use
applicable authorities to seek to enter into agreements
with other entities to address common interests related
to the interpretation of and education regarding the
monument, and care and preservation of historic objects
therein. These entities may include Dickinson College;
the Cumberland County Historical Society; Phoenix
Indian School; Haskell Indian Nations University;
Stewart Indian School Cultural Center and Museum;
Sheldon Jackson Museum; Fort Apache Heritage
Foundation, Inc.; Kamehameha Schools; and existing
National Park System units with resources related to
the Federal Indian boarding school system.
Nothing in this proclamation shall affect or diminish
the Army's authority to administer Carlisle Barracks,
including the Army's ability to execute its mission at
Carlisle Barracks, or the Army's obligations to comply
with environmental protection and historic preservation
laws or engage in appropriate Tribal consultation.
Further, nothing in this proclamation shall limit the
Army's ability to control public access to Carlisle
Barracks or take all necessary measures to ensure
emergency preparedness, safety, and security.
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke
any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation;
however, the monument shall be the dominant
reservation.
Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not
to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature
of the monument and not to locate or settle upon any of
the lands thereof.
If any provision of this proclamation, including
application to a particular parcel of land, is held to
be invalid, the remainder of this proclamation and its
application to other parcels of land shall not be
affected thereby.
[[Page 100296]]
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
ninth day of December, in the year of our Lord two
thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-
ninth.
<GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT>
(Presidential Sig.)
Billing code 3395-F4-P
[[Page 100297]]
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] TD12DE24.020
[FR Doc. 2024-29459
Filed 12-11-24; 8:45 am]
Billing code 4310-10-C
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</html>Indexed from Federal Register on December 12, 2024.
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