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Page Number: 48

6 

HAALAND v. BRACKEEN 

GORSUCH, J., concurring 

State  officials  played  a  key  role  in  foiling  those  efforts. 
“[P]olice  from  a  variety  of  jurisdictions”  assisted  in  “cap-
tur[ing] and return[ing] runaway school children.”  Histori-
ans Brief 11–12.  For “the runaways,” school administrators 
believed  “a  whipping  administered  soundly  and  prayer-
fully, helps greatly towards bringing about the desired re-
sult.”  BIA  Report  55  (internal  quotation  marks  omitted). 
As one Commissioner of Indian Affairs put it, while “[t]he 
first wild redskin placed in the school[s] chafes at the loss
of freedom and longs to return to his wildwood home,” that
resistance  would  fade  “with  each  successive  generation,” 
leaving a “greater desir[e] to be in touch with the dominant 
race.”  Id., at 51–52 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Adding  insult  to  injury,  the  United  States  stuck  Tribes
with a bill for these programs.  At points, as much as 95% 
of the funding for Indian boarding schools came from “In-
dian trust fund monies” raised by selling Indian land.  Id., 
at 44.  To subsidize operations further, the boarding schools 
frequently required children not even 12 years old to work 
on the grounds.  Id., at 62–63.  Some rationalized this expe-
rience  as  a benefit  to  the  children.    Id.,  at  59–63.    But  in 
candor,  Indian  boarding  schools  “could  not  possibly  be
maintained . . . were it not for the fact that students [were] 
required to do . . . an amount of labor that ha[d] in the ag-
gregate a very appreciable monetary value.”  L. Meriam, In-
stitute  for  Government  Research,  The  Problem  of  Indian 
Administration 376 (1928) (Meriam Report).

To  lower  costs  further  and  promote  assimilation,  some
schools created an “outing system,” which sent Indian chil-
dren to live “with white families” and perform “household
and farm chores” for them.  R. Trennert, From Carlisle to 
Phoenix:  The Rise and Fall of the Indian Outing System,
1878–1930, 52 Pacific Hist. Rev. 267, 273 (1983).  This pro-
gram  took  many  Indian  children  “even  further  from  their 
homes, families, and cultures.”  Fletcher & Singel 943.  Ad-
vocates  of  the  outing  system  hoped  it  would  be  “extended