In 1946, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) established the Special Navajo Program to rapidly educate and assimilate Navajo children between the ages of 12 and 18. Between 1946 and 1959, nearly 50,000 Navajo children were taken from their homes and sent to eleven off-reservation boarding schools across the U.S. Navajo students began enrolling at the Stewart Indian School in 1949, and by the time the program ended a decade later, almost 4,000 Navajo students had attended the school.

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