Funding cuts stall boarding school digitization project

About 75,000 pages of Indian boarding school records are locked in digital storage following federal budget cuts that halted the National Indian Boarding School Digital Archive project, according to Montana Free Press. The National Endowment for the Humanities rescinded $282,000 of a $500,000 grant after the Trump administration implemented cuts, leading to staff layoffs, canceled partnerships, and a suspended archive initiative.

The digitized letters include emotional exchanges between children and families, including a 1954 letter from Thomas Wall asking Chemawa Indian School to send his daughter, Irene Wall, home. Fallon Carey, digital archives manager at the coalition, said the records “can’t be touched until we get new funding.” Mark Macarro, president of the National Congress of American Indians, called the funding cuts “a betrayal.” Tribal leaders say the cuts disrupt the healing process for boarding school survivors and keep the general public from learning the truth.