The Washington Post has documented three times as many deaths of Native American children in Indian boarding schools as the U.S. Interior Department has acknowledged.
The newspaper’s investigation found that 3,104 students died at boarding schools between 1828 and 1970.
That includes at least 279 in Arizona — nearly double what the federal government reported earlier this year.
Arizona had the second-highest number of schools, behind only Oklahoma.
Many students reportedly died from infectious diseases, malnutrition and accidents. Dozens of other deaths were attributed to "suspicious circumstances" or possible abuse.
Federal officials sometimes forcibly removed Native children from their families to attend the schools designed to assimilate them into white culture.
The Washington Post also determined that more than 800 of those students are buried in cemeteries at or near the schools they attended, underscoring how some children’s bodies were never sent home to their families or tribes.
President Joe Biden issued a formal apology for the practice in October.