New York Gov. Kathy Hochul formally apologized Tuesday for the “atrocities” she says were committed at an upstate boarding school where Native American youths were forcibly separated from their families and forced to assimilate into American society. The Democrat, speaking on Seneca Nation land alongside tribe leaders, said students that attended the Thomas Asylum of Orphan and Destitute Indian Children were subjected to “unimaginable physical, emotional and sexual assaults” during the school’s more than 100-year existence. “Instead of being a haven for orphan children, it became a place of nightmares,” Hochul said. “A place some would call a torture chamber, the site of sanctioned ethnic cleansing. That’s what was going on here.
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