In the dimly lit rooms of the National Archives, Joe Maxwell recalled digging through what he described as “the bowels” of the U.S. government as he and other student research assistants sifted through boxes full of paperwork as a part of Project Return, a nationwide project set to launch officially in October.
The project’s goal is to return documents to the survivors of Native American boarding schools who were taken from their families and attended abusive classrooms.
These residential schools, which were located across the U.S., Canada, and more than 526 of which were federally funded, according to The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, were often the site of abduction, acculturation, abuse, and death, with the U.S. Department of the Interior reporting at least 973 children died while attending these schools…