NEW YORK — New York’s governor plans to visit the Seneca Nation on Tuesday to formally apologize for the state’s role in running an upstate boarding school that separated Native American students from their families with the goal of assimilating them into American society.
Gov. Kathy Hochul is also expected to meet with survivors of the Thomas Indian School, which operated from 1875 to 1957 in western New York near Lake Erie.
Seneca President J. Conrad Seneca, whose father attended the school, said the apology is overdue. He said his family and countless others have quietly borne their pain for generations.
“The atrocities that our children suffered at the Thomas Indian School have remained hidden in the shadows for far too long,” he said in a statement announcing the visit. “At long last, our people will hear, directly from the Governor, the words we have waited lifetimes for the State of New York to say — ‘We’re sorry’.”
But some tribe members are skeptical of the goodwill gesture.
Lori Quigley, a Niagara University professor whose mother attended the Thomas school for 10 years as a young child, said she hopes the governor offers more than words.
“An apology is one thing,” she said by phone ahead of the visit. “What actions is she going to take in acknowledging this? These traumas are still impacting our communities.”
Originally established by Presbyterian missionaries in 1855 before the state took ownership in 1875, the Thomas Indian School was among more than 400 government-supported schools established throughout the country with the goal of assimilating Native American youths.
But the schools, which operated for roughly 150 years, had a devastating impact on Native American communities. Staff at the schools worked to strip Native children of their traditions and heritage. Teachers and administrators cut their hair, forbade them from speaking their own languages and forced them into manual labor.
Students, forcibly separated from their families, endured torture, sexual abuse and hatred from school officials. More than 900 children died at the schools, the last of which closed or transitioned into different institutions decades ago.
Former President Joe Biden in October 2024 visited the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona to formally apologize to Native Americans for the “sin” of the nation’s government-run boarding school system.
But at least $1.6 million in federal funds destined for research projects on the boarding schools have been among the casualties of President Donald Trump’s efforts to rein in the federal bureaucracy.
Tribe officials say Hochul’s visit appears to be the first by a sitting New York governor to the federally recognized tribe’s lands.
“No words or actions will ever be able to undo the pain and suffering of the Seneca people and other Indigenous peoples across the State, but by visiting the Seneca Nation and the site of the Thomas Indian School we will mark a new day in our relations,” Hochul said in a statement Friday.
Matthew Hill, a tribe member whose father was among the last class of students before the school was shuttered, dismissed the visit as “empty words.”
After all, he said, the Hochul administration and the tribe have been negotiating for years over how much if any of the tribe’s casino revenues the state should be allowed to collect.
“They’re saying sorry for the school, but they’ll continue extorting money from us in the form of gaming revenues,” said Hill. “It’s a joke.”