President Biden Establishes Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument as 432nd National Park Site
President Joe Biden today signed a presidential proclamation establishing the Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument in Carlisle, Pennsylvania as the 432nd site in the National Park System.
The presidential proclamation for the new national monument, designated under the Antiquities Act, acknowledges the painful past of forced assimilation of Native children through the implementation of federal Indian boarding school policies.
The announcement comes as the Administration hosts the annual White House Tribal Nations Summit today, which provides an opportunity for federal and Tribal leaders from the 574 federally recognized Tribes to discuss ways the federal government can invest in and strengthen nation-to-nation relationships as well as ensure that progress in Indian Country endures for years to come.
Carlisle Federal Indian Boarding School National Monument Becomes 432nd Site in National Park System
Established in 1879, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was the first off-reservation boarding school for Native children and youth in the continental United States.
By the time it ceased operations in 1918, Carlisle School had subjected more than 7,800 Indian children from more than 140 Indian Tribes, including Alaska Native Villages, to its coercive form of education. Some children were as young as five years old when they arrived.
The school served as the template for more than 400 additional institutions across 37 states that were part of a forced assimilation system designed to eliminate Native languages, religions and cultures.
The proclamation designates a 24.5 acre national monument, to be managed cooperatively by the National Park Service and the U.S. Department of the Army, building on Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland’s Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, the first-ever comprehensive effort by the federal government to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies, address their intergenerational impact, and shed light on past and present trauma in Indigenous communities.
Today’s announcement follows President Biden’s October visit to the Gila River Indian Community with Secretary Haaland where he offered a formal apology to Tribal Nations and Native people on behalf of the U.S. government for the lasting harms caused by the federal Indian boarding school system.
Federal records indicate that tens of thousands of children attended the schools and nearly 1,000 died while in the system – but the actual number of lives lost is likely much higher.
“No single action by the federal government can adequately reconcile the trauma and ongoing harms from the federal Indian boarding school era. But, taken together, the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to acknowledge and redress the legacy of the assimilation policy have made an enduring difference for Indian Country,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, whose great grandfather and grandparents were stolen from their families and taken to boarding schools.
“This trauma is not new to Indigenous people, but it is new for many people in our nation. One of the reasons I launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative was to ensure that this important story was told. Through the National Park Service – America’s storyteller – people can now learn more about the intergenerational impacts of these policies as we, as a nation, continue to take steps to heal from them.”
“The Army is honored to join the National Park Service in preservation of this part of American history for the benefit of future generations,” said Rachel Jacobson, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment. “This collaboration will allow for public access to this important historical site, which is also home to the Army War College. With the designation of the Carlisle School as a National Monument, we take a significant step in preserving and learning from this part of our nation’s history.”
As part of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, Secretary Haaland directed the National Park Service to explore opportunities for enhanced interpretation of this history and preservation of related resources. The National Park Service conducted two nation-to-nation consultations in April 2024.
Per the direction of the President’s proclamation, the National Park Service will work with the U.S. Army on additional consultation and continued collaboration with Tribal Nations on the interpretation, preservation and operation of the new monument.
“This addition to the national park system that recognizes the troubled history of U.S. and Tribal relations is among the giant steps taken in recent years to honor Tribal sovereignty and recognize the ongoing needs of Native communities, repair past damage and make progress toward healing,” National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said, the agency’s first Tribally enrolled director.
“My mother, grandparents and countless more relatives experienced first-hand the impact of Indian Boarding Schools. I couldn’t be more humbled or proud for the National Park Service to be part of charting a new path forward together as we continue to share and recognize our full American history.”
The former Carlisle Indian Industrial School is located within the U.S. Army Carlisle Barracks, one of the nation’s oldest military installations.
The boundary of the new monument is co-extensive with the Carlisle Indian Industrial School National Historic Landmark, which was designated in 1961 and updated in 1985. It includes the residential, vocational and athletic buildings that formed the core of the historical school. Among these are the gymnasium and cinder track, student dormitories, and the Administrator’s residences, which the Army has worked to preserve since the Carlisle School closed in 1918.
The monument designation includes the School Road Gateposts, constructed in 1910 by the children attending the school. The gateposts – the footprint of which the Army is transferring administrative jurisdiction to National Park Service pursuant to the proclamation – marked the main entrance to the boarding school campus and would have been the first structures that some of the children would have seen as they entered the campus, often far from their families and homelands.
Secretary Haaland, Department and Administration officials, and Army leaders toured these sites earlier this year. With the establishment of the new national monument with today’s proclamation, the Army will now transfer the gateposts to the National Park Service, and the agencies will sign a memorandum of understanding to guide the management of the national monument.
The national monument boundary does not include the Carlisle Barracks Main Post Cemetery, where many of the 180 children who died while attending the Carlisle School were buried. The Army is currently implementing its Carlisle Barracks Disinterment Program, which has successfully disinterred and returned 41 children to their families.
The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative included a number of efforts including a two volume investigation of the federal Indian boarding school system; “The Road to Healing,” a historic 12-stop tour across the country that provided Indigenous survivors the opportunity to share with the federal government their experiences in federal Indian boarding schools for the first time; and the launch of an oral history project to document and make accessible to the public the experiences of generations of Indigenous then-children who attended the federal Indian boarding school system.
The new national monument is within an active military installation and access is currently restricted.
The National Park Service and Army will work together over the coming years, in consultation with Tribes, to develop opportunities for National Park Service-led visitation and programming. Information on future park visitation opportunities will be available on NPS.gov.
