Indian Boarding Schools
Truth Seeking & Truth Telling Initiative
This initiative is intended to organize Lutherans for truth-seeking and truth-telling about Lutheran and broader Christian involvement in Indian boarding schools in the United States and their impact on Native peoples.
In September 2022, we launched the work with an initial 15 synods across four midwestern states. In May 2023, efforts expanded to 27 synods across ten additional midwestern states, covering all of ELCA Regions 3, 5, and 6. In 2026, we will expand to all ELCA synods across all 50 states.
A nationwide network of ELCA members who . . .
- Conduct research to identify Indian boarding schools and day schools sponsored or supported by Lutherans (approx. 1820-1970) and secure all records.
- Educate other Lutherans about Indian boarding schools through worship, learning opportunities, and communications.
- Participate in an ongoing truth and healing process for both Native peoples and white ELCA Lutherans.
. . . with the goal of members throughout the ELCA knowing and claiming our complicity in the history of church-sponsored Indian boarding schools and these schools’ deliberate, devastating impacts on Native people and their communities, then and now.
- Many white Christians, including Lutherans, participated in the physical and cultural genocide of Native peoples in the U.S., settling on stolen Indian land and actively supporting Indian boarding and day schools that deliberately stripped Native children of their language, culture, and family/community ties.
- Most white people don’t know that they need to heal. White people carry a type of perpetrator trauma that often leads to shock, disbelief, denial, and blocking of the truth-telling necessary for healing.
- Many Native people experienced verbal, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of staff at Indian boarding schools. Some children died or were murdered at these schools.
- The terrible legacy of Indian boarding schools lingers in the bodies and minds of direct survivors and their descendants. They suffer tremendous trauma that impacts their well-being — spiritual, economic, and more.
- Native people deserve to heal. Truth is one piece that allows healing to happen.
- More than 200 unmarked graves containing children’s bodies were found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada in 2021 (see this archived copy of a New York Times article). With this news, the white public’s awareness of the existence and impact of Indian boarding schools has risen sharply over the past few years. We in the ELCA are asking ourselves: What was our involvement here in the United States? What can we do about it?
- Federal legislation moving through Congress would establish a truth and healing commission on Indian boarding school policies in the U.S. We must anticipate that churches will be asked to produce information about our involvement in Indian boarding schools. We want to conduct that research now so that we can promptly provide crucial information to this commission. (See complete legislation or a summary.)
- Education —There is much to learn about the history of Indian boarding schools in the United States and their devastating impact on Native American peoples and communities. We engage with reading materials, videos, online events, and critical discussions as part of our ongoing process of understanding.
- Research — We work to identify archives, plus other primary and secondary sources of information about Lutherans involved with Indian boarding schools. We collect information and strive to make meaning of what we find. We will share our findings with the impacted Tribal Nations, the church, and the federal government.
- Identified one Indianboarding school in Wittenburg, Wisconsin, operated by Lutherans (ELCA predecessors) with federal funding. The ELCA holds extensive archival materials and is in the process of digitizing and adding metadata labels to all items.
- Identified several other boarding and day schools that Lutherans operated. Research on these schools isin its early phases.
- Engaged over 100 lay and clergy people in quarterly gatherings, online book/film discussions, research, and education efforts.
- Created an extensive Learning Toolkit and other resources for education about Indian boarding schools in congregations, synods, educational institutions, and other contexts. Initiative participants are now facilitating sessions in their various contexts.
- Presented in several national webinars about the work and findings to date.
- Passed a memorial at the 2025 Churchwide Assembly to equip congregations, synods, and affiliate ministries to observe the National Day of Remembrance for Indian Boarding Schools (September30) and to carry out ongoing education and communication about Indian boarding schools.
We have need for skillsin research, data collection, education, organizing, leadership, and more – all backgrounds and experiences are welcome.
Participating in theInitiative means
- Attending online quarterly gatherings where we educate, organize, and build relationships with one another
- Learning,learning, and more learning - through online discussions, readings, listening, witnessing.
- Educating others in your context and through everyday conversations.
- Working on a project that fits with your skills and availability.
For more information or to express interest in participating, please fill out an interest form. We will contact you within a few weeks.
