Nearly a thousand children died at Indian boarding schools funded by the U.S. From 1819 to 1969, the federal government financed more than 400 Indian boarding schools. A building on the campus was part of a federal Indian boarding school from 1887-1909. “And to help us understand what our parents, grandparents — all of our relatives — went through.” Several members of her family attended boarding schools. The horrors experienced in the boarding schools in the U.S. were for decades hidden or seldom acknowledged.