At least $1.6 million in federal funds for projects meant to capture and digitize stories of the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children in boarding schools at the hands of the U.S. government have been slashed due to federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.

A first-of-its-kind federal study of Native American boarding schools that for over a century sought to assimilate Indigenous children into white society has identified more than 500 student deaths at the institutions so far.