Only the Truth Can Heal, and Only the Powerful Can Tell the Truth

By Morgan Pulliam 

Introduction

“I just–just need a lot of healing myself, and just want you, as our leaders, to help us to heal,” Holy White Horse, a member of the Nakota Tribe, pleaded with Assistant Secretary of the Interior Bryan Newland and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland at the Road to Healing stop in South Dakota (1). The Department of the Interior launched the Road to Healing Tour in order to create an oral history of the Indian schools that the federal government ran from 1819 to 1969. These schools came to the forefront of the Department of the Interior’s agenda upon the discovery of mass graves of students at Indian schools in Canada and the Canadian government’s subsequent plea to the Catholic Church to investigate their role in Indian schools (2). The government’s rediscovery and reevaluation of Indian schools culminated in the publication of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report on May 11, 2022, a landmark document in which the United States government admitted that they created Indian schools to decimate Native communities (3). Until the publication of this report, Native communities’ claims that Indian schools were weapons of genocide, and not the “benevolent” (4) institutions that the government had continuously claimed them to be, sounded like, and received the treatment of, a conspiracy theory against the government (5).This report, however, finally gave credence to the dominant understanding of Indian schools within Native communities. This led me to question why the government finally admitted its role in this conspiracy against Native communities—when Natives have understood the truth on their own for centuries—and why did its confession promote healing for Native communities and individuals like Holy White Horse?

Through an analysis of Native communities’ reactions to the publication of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report in news articles and transcripts from the Road to Healing Tour, and through an analysis of the Secretary of the Interior’s intent behind launching this investigation in press releases and op-eds, this paper will explore why the government admitted to its role in a conspiracy against Natives now, and how the government’s admission affected healing within Native communities. Specifically, this paper will highlight how powerful institutions influence other institutions to admit to conspiracies given the role of a conspiracy theory as a label. This paper will also explore how relabeling of a claim from a conspiracy theory to “astute historical analysis” validates such claims and contributes to the healing of marginalized groups (6).  

A Timeline Towards Confession

Federally run Indian schools operated for over a century, causing irreparable damage to Native communities. While the government overtly stated throughout the entire operation of Indian schools that they would “civilize” Native Americans and fold them into American society, the government was more ambiguous about the reason why they wanted to assimilate Natives (7). During the operation of Indian schools, the American government repeatedly framed these schools as “benevolent institutions” that were intended to save Natives from themselves (4). Since the schools have closed, the government has shifted their approach in favor of not acknowledging or reckoning with the truly nefarious intent behind these schools at all (8). Meanwhile, Native communities have long recognized that Indian schools were attempts to disenfranchise and eliminate Natives through territorial dispossession and cultural genocide (4). This knowledge is reflected in the creation of The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition by the Navajo Nation in 2012, an organization that has attempted to understand how the malicious intent behind Indian schools have impacted Native communities (9). Thus, the government and Native communities have approached labeling and understanding Indian schools in entirely different ways. So, what changed to make the US government verify Native claims about Indian schools?

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report came about in a whirlwind of institutions of power confronting Native claims about the intent of Indian schools. In May of 2021, the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan found the remains of 751 children at the Marieval Indian Residential school in Canada (10). Shortly after, the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation discovered the remains of 215 people at Kamloops Indian Residential School (10). Although the Canadian government had already apologized to Indigenous communities for their role in Indian schools prior to this discovery, Canadian government officials confirmed Native claims about the malicious intent behind their Indian schools once again upon unearthing these mass graves (10). The Canadian government then pressured the Catholic Church to apologize and confirm Native understandings about the Church’s intent behind Indian schools, with Canada’s Indigenous Services Minister admonishing the Church’s failure to apologize, stating, “It should be done. There is a responsibility that lies squarely on the shoulders of the Council of Bishops in Canada” in early June 2021 (11). The reckoning with the truth behind Native claims about Indian schools compelled Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland to announce that the United States government would also be investigating their Indian schools. This investigation would finally validate Native claims about the evil purpose of these institutions (1).

Power and the Label of “Conspiracy Theory”

Several times throughout this paper I’ve referred to Native claims about the intent behind Indian schools as conspiracy theories, but what exactly is a conspiracy theory?  In Conspiracy Panics, Richard Bratich argues that conspiracy theories are increasingly intangible and a composite of ambiguous characteristics, ultimately stating, “when it comes to conspiracy theory we ‘know it when we see it’” (12). Indeed, conspiracy theories exist beyond the content that they describe, highlighting how a conspiracy theory is a label. When a conspiracy theory is proven to be true, the claim that underlies it typically goes from being a “conspiracy theory” to being an example of “astute historical analysis” in the mind of the public (6). This change in perception occurs despite there being no change in the claim underlying the “conspiracy theory” (6). The quick and superficial transformation of the categorization of a claim indicates that the term “conspiracy theory” does not always signify the content of a claim, but rather how individuals perceive and label that claim. The label of a conspiracy theory also carries negative connotations, with the term being “a category not just of description but of disqualification” and paranoid thinking (12).

The label of a conspiracy theory is also frequently reserved for claims made by less powerful groups. This dynamic is clear in categorizations of the government’s agenda for invading Iraq after 9/11. Despite the existence of an abundance of evidence that President Bush lied to convince the American people that the United States invaded Iraq with the genuine hope of finding weapons of mass destruction, claims that the government invaded Iraq for nefarious reasons are labeled as conspiracy theories (13). This is the case because “Theories of conspiracy produced by those who are not in power tend to remain ‘conspiracy theories,’ no matter their location along the truth-axis” (13). This means that “the label ‘conspiracy theory’ will only stick” when less powerful groups are the ones that produce the claims behind the label (13).

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report changed the label of Native claims about the intent behind Indian schools. When the Department of the Interior released the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe, stated, “We [the Department of the Interior] are uniquely positioned to assist in the effort to undercover the dark history of these institutions that have haunted our families for far too long” (14). Haaland’s comments reflect how the government’s report would merely “assist” in uncovering the “dark history” that Native communities have long felt and understood about “Indian schools,” meaning that the government’s report would only be confirming the claims of Native communities that the government worked in secret to steal their lands. So, confirmation from the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report “that the United States directly targeted American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian children in the pursuit of a policy of cultural assimilation that coincided with Indian territorial dispossession” (3) through Indian schools did not represent any new information to the intent behind “Indian schools,” but rather marked a shift in the labeling of this information from a conspiracy theory, to historical “truth” (15).

The context behind the United States government’s confirmation of Native claims about Indian schools in the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report exposes the influence of powerful institutions on each other to validate conspiracy theories. Although Native communities had been advocating for the validation of their knowledge about Indian schools for decades, the United States only launched the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report against the backdrop of other powerful institutions—like the Canadian government and Catholic Church—confronting their similar role and intent behind Indian schools. Given that the United States began to admit to its role in a conspiracy against Natives only when other powerful institutions did the same highlights how entrenched the label of a conspiracy theory is in power. Since claims made by powerful individuals or groups rarely receive the label of a conspiracy theory, or the disqualification that comes from it, it was only when other governments and Western religions claimed that Indian schools had an intent to dispossess Native populations that the United States government could take those claims seriously. This means that powerful institutions play an outsized role in influencing their peers to confirm conspiracy theories made by disenfranchised groups, as their claims are nearly immune to the discredit that comes with the label of a conspiracy theory.  

The Healing Power of a Confession

The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report has opened the door to healing within Native communities. When launching the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, Secretary Deb Haaland stated that “The first step to healing is acknowledging the painful truths of federal boarding school policies and gaining a fuller understanding of their impacts,” (15). There were also several mentions of healing in the testimonies of Native individuals on the Road to Healing Tour, as many Natives cited the publication of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report as the beginning of a healing process within Native individuals, families, and communities (1). One individual noted to Assistant Secretary Newland, “I always had a really bad relationship or a bad relationship with my mom. I thought, I just thought she was mean.” But upon hearing about the report, she could finally talk with her mom and begin to heal that relationship (16). Many Native individuals note that since the publication of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, the cone of silence around Native experiences of Indian schools has been lifted (1).

Reframing the intent behind Indian schools from a conspiracy theory explains the observed sense of healing that the publication of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report brought within Native communities. When a claim is labeled as a conspiracy theory, it receives very different treatment than if it is considered to be “astute historical analysis,” (6). Conspiracy theories often operate as signs of paranoid or unsophisticated thinking, but when they are relabeled they become “the product of proper investigative journalism,” (6). This means that the claims underlying a conspiracy theory, in this case that Indian schools were meant to dispossess Native people of their land, go from being meritless and disqualified suppositions to credible and important historical understandings when a conspiracy theory is relabeled (6). As a label then, conspiracy theories may invalidate the claims of an individual or group as they quantify such claims as the product of delusional or paranoid thinking. Invalidation can often silence victims of trauma, as many Indian school survivors are, which in turn leads to feelings of isolation, shame, and depression (17).  

This phenomenon is observable in the reaction of Native communities to the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report. At the Road to Healing stop in Michigan, Linda Cobe of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians noted that there was a great deal of emotion at the meeting. She explained the root of this cathartic release of feeling by saying, “It’s something that we’ve been saying all along happened” but that few had felt that they could speak out loud given the invalidation of their experiences (18). Thus, the government’s relabeling of Native claims about Indian schools validated the experiences of Natives and opened the door for Native individuals and communities to address the trauma that they incurred at the hands of these merciless institutions. In turn, discussing their experiences of Indian schools has directed Natives towards healing, as the previous invalidation and silence that they felt led to isolation and depression for many.

Conclusion 

The government’s admission to their role in a conspiracy against Natives through the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report validated the knowledge that Native communities have known and promoted for decades. Since the government relabeled the claims of Native communities from being a conspiracy theory to historical truth, Native claims about the intent behind Indian schools could finally be taken more seriously. This opened the door to healing for Native communities in an essential way. The government’s confession about their nefarious intent behind Indian schools only came after similarly powerful Western institutions, like the Canadian government and Catholic Church, faced and created pressure to acknowledge Native claims about Indian schools. This conveys the instrumental role that powerful institutions play in influencing other powerful institutions to confirm conspiracy theories that they have been accused of, a confession that attributes validity to the claims of marginalized groups and helps lead them towards healing.  

There is no shortage of examples in American history in which the government or other powerful institutions have worked in secret to bring about harm. From the history of the Dulles brothers secretly overthrowing foreign leaders to the government’s invasion of Iraq, there are victims of the United States government’s conspiracies all around the globe (19). This paper highlights the power and importance of the government’s validation of such conspiracy theories. It grappled with both the healing that validation provides for oppressed groups, and in the pressure that they put on other powerful institutions to confess to their own crimes and bring about healing for the victims of their atrocities.

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