Scope. Affected population is defined as people under U.S. jurisdiction — not strict legal citizenship — which deliberately includes enslaved people before the 14th Amendment, Native Americans before 1924, and residents of U.S. territories including Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines (1898–1946), and the Pacific Trust Territory. Perpetration means government action or documented official complicity; privately committed harm appears only under the government-funded or government-enforced categories, or is marked not applicable.
Standard of evidence. Every entry rests on official documentation: government records, official commissions, court findings, or statutes. Death tolls and scale figures are estimates and are recorded as ranges where sources disagree. A "none located" apology status means none was found as of June 2026 — never that none is confirmed to exist.
Weight of apologies. Apologies vary enormously in legal force — a statute with payments (Civil Liberties Act, 1988) is not a single-chamber resolution (H.Res. 194, 2008), and most congressional apologies expressly disclaim legal claims. The instrument is recorded for each entry; read it before drawing equivalences.
Working draft · 256 entries · companion dataset: us_atrocities_apologies_starter.xlsx