A religious group responsible for the forced assimilation of Native youth in Alaska has paid $93,000 in reparations to the Organized Village of Kake, a tribe in Southeast Alaska that was once the site of a Quaker assimilation school for Native kids.
Members of the Alaskan branch of a Quaker group that ran a mission school in Kake from 1819 to 1912 (when the Presbyterian’s took over) delivered the check in person on Jan.19, accompanied by a four page apology.
The Quakers, also called “Friends”, were one of a handful of religious groups that helped the federal government run its more than 500 institutions aimed at eliminating Native culture, language, dress, and customs from 1819 through 1970 through re-education and identity-altering methodologies. Thirty institutions were located in Alaska, according to the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition, the expert source on Indian boarding schools in the U.S. Nationwide, the Quakers ran 30 assimilation institutions for Native youth, the Alaskan Quakers say.