History Can’t Be Patriotic if It Requires Silence by Levi Rickert
Opinion
The first lesson of Indian boarding schools wasn’t reading or writing.
It was silence.
I was reminded of that during Labor Day weekend 2022 while talking with a tribal leader at a protest against Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline at the Straits of Mackinac. Weeks earlier, she had testified at the Interior Department’s Road to Healing event about surviving a Catholic-run Indian boarding school in northern Michigan.
She described years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse Native children endured there. But what struck me most wasn’t just what happened inside the school. It was that Catholic nuns warned Native children never to speak about what happened inside the school. If they did, terrible things would happen to them.
That conversation came back to me when I read the White House report, Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage. Released quietly during the fireworks over the National Mall as the nation celebrated its 250th Independence Day, the 162-page report wasn’t simply another government publication. Its timing seemed almost symbolic: celebrate the nation’s birth while attempting to mute some of its most painful truths.
The report criticizes the Smithsonian for emphasizing the devastating consequences of the federal Indian boarding school system. It argues that museums devote too much attention to America’s historical injustices and too little to its achievements.
While the report stops short of praising Indian boarding schools, it dismisses the Smithsonian’s emphasis on the documented harms they inflicted on Native children as part of a broader critique of what it considers an overly negative portrayal of American history.
But Indian boarding schools were never simply schools.
They were instruments of federal policy designed to erase Native identity. Children were taken from their families, punished for speaking their languages, forbidden from practicing their cultures, and taught that becoming “American” required abandoning everything that made them Native. The goal was assimilation through erasure.
Today, nearly every major study—including the Interior Department’s own investigation—has documented that painful history. Tribal nations have spent decades gathering testimony from survivors. Elders have relived unimaginable trauma so future generations would know the truth. After generations of denial, the United States has finally begun acknowledging one of the darkest chapters in its history.
Now, the Trump administration appears determined to turn back that clock.
The White House report isn’t simply about museum exhibits. It is also about controlling the nation’s historical narrative.
That argument collapses when applied to Indian boarding schools.
The report criticizes the Smithsonian’s discussion of boarding schools, suggesting that it is inconsistent to acknowledge the destruction of Native languages while presenting America as a nation without a single culture or language. That criticism overlooks a central fact: the federal government deliberately targeted Native languages precisely because language carries identity, culture, ceremony, history, and nationhood.
This isn’t ideology.
It is a historical fact.
The administration also objects to exhibits describing land dispossession, treaty violations, and the reality that America’s expansion came at the expense of Indigenous nations. It dismisses land acknowledgments and challenges exhibits explaining that Native peoples were forcibly removed from their homelands.
Again, these are not political opinions. They are historical facts documented in treaties, acts of Congress, military records, and decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Native people don’t need the Smithsonian to tell us what happened to our ancestors. Our families have carried these stories for generations. But museums serve an essential purpose: they help the broader public understand that America’s story is larger—and far more complicated—than the mythology many of us were taught in school.
Patriotism should never require historical amnesia.
A nation confident in itself should be willing to confront both its triumphs and its failures. Germany teaches about the Holocaust. South Africa teaches about apartheid. Canada continues reckoning with its own residential school system. Strong democracies understand that acknowledging injustice strengthens a nation; it does not weaken it.
The United States should be no different.
As America enters its 251st year, we have a choice. We can embrace a fuller history that includes the voices of Indigenous peoples, African Americans, immigrants, women, and countless others whose experiences shaped this country. Or we can retreat into a sanitized version of the past that celebrates conquest while ignoring its consequences.
Native people have lived through federal efforts to rewrite history before. The first lesson of the boarding schools was silence. The White House report asks Americans to be comfortable with silence once again.
We shouldn’t be.
The truth about Indian boarding schools, broken treaties, stolen lands, and Native resilience does not diminish America. It makes America’s story honest.
And honesty is something every democracy worthy of celebration should be strong enough to withstand.
Thayék gde nwéndëmen – We are all related.
I had the honor of meeting Mr. Rickert years ago at a Native conference.
My family once thought that we had some native ancestry, however no such thing showed up in my own DNA test.
I often wonder about how other our history might have gone if my ancestors had learned more from natives. It is fascinating to learn how early some of them had cities of thousands, before Europe had any. Also in South America ones with huge stone buildings designed to stand up to earthquakes.
Then the huge variety of cultures, and languages, and the ability to change and adapt to sudden changes, often in a generation or two.
I often wonder from the more complex native cultures what they might become if the Americas had not been invaded.
They weren’t that different from the Europeans or other civilizations.
I don't believe any people are better or worse than other people. Each of us have our own mix of good and bad, wisdom and foolishness. Still I wish we had not seen so many people, customs, and traditions overthrown. The possible variety is what make humans so fascinating. The attempt to make us so much the same weakens us as a species and is an attempt to control us.
Perhaps, then, we have some common ground.
Posted by Arwen on July 15, 2026, 7:42 am, in reply to "True of all groups"
Yes, we are all different. But we should be united in our belief that all of us are created equal and have the right to live, be free, and to pursue our dreams.
America’s sins are exceptions to our founding principles.
Government can become oppressive when unchecked. The founders knew this when they authored our founding documents.
Many of the treaty tribes requested and agreed to schools. Some of the boarding schools sponsored by the federal government became examples of government overreach and committed unspeakable atrocities. There are many examples in our history of the federal government losing sight of our founding principles recognizing that all people are created equal and possess the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It too much too long to end slavery, to allow women to vote, and the internment of Japanese-Americans was a stain.
History is neither patriotic nor non-patriotic. Patriotism is reserved for people. We should learn from history. It should not be oppressed. But we should always celebrate our founding principles. A limited government with powers in check should always be our goal.
During the passage of the last past few weeks, I have come to be fascinated by some of the series the History Channel and others are broadcasting.
I’m learning stuff about America that I wasn’t taught in any of the schools: Catholic, Christian, public, primary, private, secondary, technical, or otherwise.
Sometimes I felt I was riding with Tonto, and we all know what that means…
