Department Of The Interior Secretary To Collect Oral History On Tribal Children Abuse

The federal government acknowledges mistreatment of tribal children in Indian Boarding Schools in a newly released investigative report.

Related Story: Interior Department Releases Report Detailing Abuse Of Tribal Children In Boarding Schools

76 of those schools were in Oklahoma.

The abuse is not news to many tribal citizens, whose grandparents were among the thousands taken away from their parents.

The 106-page first volume of the report, released by the Department of the Interior, identifies more than 400 schools in 37 states.

Oklahoma by far had the most.

The report summarizes a nearly two-century-long practice that ended only 50 years ago.

The purpose of the school was assimilation.

Tribal children had their hair cut and they were given new names and identities.

When children didn't obey the rules, the reports states they were, "subject to corporal punishment, including solitary confinement, flogging, withholding food, whipping, slapping and cuffing."

”For more than a century, tens of thousands of indigenous children were taken from their communities and forced into boarding schools run by the U.S. government,” said Secretary Deb Haaland of the Department of the Interior.

The Department of the Interior also says it identified 53 marked and unmarked graves at the facilities nationwide.

While it is not publicly releasing the locations, it is working to notify tribes.

“Our children deserve to be found. Our children deserve to be brought home,” said Deborah Parker, CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.

CBS News reports Secretary Haaland will begin a year-long tour across the country in order to collect a permanent oral history.