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The
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In British Columbia, the first Indian Residential School was established in 1861 at Mission and was operated by the Roman Catholic Church. It would also become the last operating school in the province, finally closing in 1984. Elsewhere in Canada, Indian Residential Schools dotted the nation. Around 130 residential schools herded aboriginal children like cattle to teach them how to become productive members of "white society." The former Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Matthew Coon Come, calls this system genocide. "Basically, the goal was to take the Indian out of the Indian," he says. This bold state-funded enterprise was for the most part carried out in western Canada with tremendous bureaucratic and missionary zeal for over a century. Christian ideology insisted it was acceptable to "obliterate" indigenous peoples’ distinct cultural "habits and associations" while simultaneously fostering the colonial "process of nation building." "Children
were frequently beaten severely with whips, rods and fists, chained
and shackled, bound hand and foot and locked in closets, basements,
and bathrooms." In 1920, Canada amended the Indian Act, making it mandatory for aboriginal parents to send their children to Indian residential school. "Every Indian child between the ages of seven and fifteen years who is physically able shall attend such day, industrial or boarding school as may be designated by the Superintendent General for the full periods during which such school is open each year." The children were sent thousands of miles away where their parents could not reach them. These schools would become institutions of horror for aboriginal boys and girls. Forced to learn and speak english only or risk being beaten, many suffered because they only knew how to speak their aboriginal languages. For many of these children, their lives literally changed overnight. Gone were the meals made from wild game, fresh fish and nutritious berries. Instead they starved on a diet of lumpy cream of wheat while their instructors ate meals fit for a king. |
"After a lifetime of beatings, going hungry, standing in a corridor on one leg, and walking in the snow with no shoes for speaking Inuvialuktun, and having a heavy, stinging paste rubbed on my face, which they did to stop us from expressing our Eskimo custom of raising our eyebrows for 'yes' and wrinkling our noses for 'no', I soon lost the ability to speak my mother tongue. When a language dies, the world it was generated from is broken down too." Mary Carpenter Department of Indian Affairs' policy that aboriginal children must not be educated "above the possibilities of their station", were upheld. As such, the schools' curriculum included moral training (through physical labour), academic training (although many teachers were insufficiently educated) and industrial training (for farming and menial jobs). Engaged in the classroom for only half a day, the children were responsible for the complete maintenance (cooking, cleaning, laundry, grounds keeping, farming, etc.) of the school for the remainder of their day. Grade three was the acceptable standard of education. Psychological and emotional abuses were constant: shaming by public beatings of naked children, vilification of native culture, constant racism, public strip and genital searches, withholding presents and letters from family, locking children in closets and cages, segregation of sexes, separation of brothers and sisters, proscription of native languages and spirituality. In addition, the schools were places of profound physical and sexual violence: sexual assaults, forced abortions of staff-impregnated girls, needles inserted into tongues for speaking a native language, burning, scalding, beating until unconscious and/or inflicting permanent injury. They also endured electrical shock, force-feeding of their own vomit when sick, exposure to freezing outside temperatures, withholding of medical attention, shaved heads (a cultural and social violation), starvation (as punishment), forced labour in unsafe work situations, intentional contamination with diseased blankets, insufficient food for basic nutrition and/or spoiled food. Estimates suggest that as many as 60% of the students died (due to illness, beatings, attempts to escape, or suicide) while in the schools. "The Sisters didn't treat me good. They gave me rotten food to eat and punished me for not eating it. I was locked in a room, fed bread and water and beaten with a strap, sometimes on the face, and sometimes [they] took my clothes off and beat me. This is the reason I ran away." Christine Haines, St. Joseph's |
Despite
having signed the United Nations genocide convention 40 years before
the last residential school closed, Canada continued to commit acts
of genocide:
"with the intent to destroy in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: ... (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." (United Nations Convention on Genocide, 1946) In 1948, despite a joint (House of Commons and Senate) committee recommendation that the schools be abolished, the churches' vigourous lobbying for the system to continue and the fact that it was being used as a social welfare placement kept the schools alive for 40 more years. By the 1970s, when the Native Indian Brotherhood called for native control of native education, the federal government had begun to wind down the residential school system. Today, approximately 90,000 survivors in their thirties and older are trying to understand, heal from, and move beyond this devastating experience. About 14% are involved in some form of litigation while the other 86% are living out their lives as best they can. "What I remember of that time was passing Muncho Lake on the trip up north, [to residential school] and imagining I was drowning. That is where I left my life; I drowned in Muncho Lake. I haven't forgiven my parents to this day because...they weren't there to protect me." Survivor, Kamloops
School It is generally accepted that the forced removal of children from their families was devastating for Aboriginal individuals, families, communities and cultures. This is regularly being confirmed by researchers today. First Nation communities experience higher rates of violence: physical, domestic abuse (3x higher than mainstream society); sexual abuse: rape, incest, etc. (4-6x higher); lack of family and community cohesion; suicide (6x higher); addictions: drugs, alcohol, food; health problems: diabetes (3x higher), heart disease, obesity; poverty; unemployment; illiteracy; high school dropout (63% do not graduate); despair; hopelessness; and more. The Indian Residential School Survivors
Society was formed to provide help, hope, healing and honour
for those adult children who are still seeking resolution in their
lives. If you wish to email any of our staff please go to
our staff and email page. |