Canadian Indian residential school system
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"Indian residential schools" redirects here. For the residential school system in the United States, see Native American boarding schools. For other uses, see Indian school (disambiguation).
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The Indian residential schools were a network of "residential" (boarding) schools for Native Canadians (First Nations or "Indians"; Métis and Inuit, formerly "Eskimos") funded by the Canadian government's Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and administered by Christian churches, most notably the Catholic Church in Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada. The policy was to remove children from the influence of their families and culture and assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture.[citation needed]The system had origins in pre-Confederation times, but was primarily active following the passage of theIndian Act in 1876, until the late-20th century. An amendment to the Indian Act made attendance of a day, industrial or residential school compulsory for First Nations children and, in some parts of the country, residential schools were the only option.[1] The number of residential schools reached 80 in 1931 but decreased in the years that followed. The last federally operated residential school was closed in 1996[2]}. In total, about 150,000 First Nations children passed through the residential school system,[3] and at least 4,000 of them died while attending the schools.[4] (Approximately 30% of native children were placed in residential schools nationally.)[5]
There has long been significant historiographical and popular controversy about the conditions experienced by students in the residential schools. While day schools for First Nations, Metis and Inuit children always far outnumbered residential schools, a new consensus emerged in the early 21st century that the latter schools did significant harm to Aboriginal children who attended them by removing them from their families, depriving them of their ancestral languages,sterilization, and exposing many of them to physical and sexual abuse by staff and other students, and enfranchising them forcibly. This consensus was symbolized by the June 11, 2008, public apology offered by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on behalf of the Government of Canada and the leaders of the other federal parties in the Canadian House of Commons.[6] Nine days prior, the Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established to uncover the truth about the schools. The commission gathered statements from residential school survivors through public and private statement gatherings at various local, regional and national events across Canada. Seven national events held between 2008-2013 commemorated the experience of former students of residential schools.
Contents
[hide]History[edit]
In the 19th and 20th century, the Canadian federal government's Indian Affairs department officially encouraged the growth of the Indian residential school system as a valuable agent in a wider policy of assimilating Native Canadians into European-Canadian society.[7] A key goal of the system, which often separated children from their families and communities, has been described as cultural genocide or "killing the Indian in the child".[8][9]
Although education in Canada had been allocated to the provincial governments by the British North America BNA act, aboriginal peoples and their treaties were under the jurisdiction of the federal government.[10] Funded under the Indian Act by the then Department of the Interior, a branch of the federal government, the schools were run by churches of various denominations—about 60 per cent by Roman Catholics, and 30 per cent by theAnglican Church of Canada and the United Church of Canada, along with its pre-1925 predecessors, Presbyterian, Congregationalist and Methodist churches. This system of using the established school facilities set up by missionaries was employed by the federal government for economical expedience. The federal government provided facilities and maintenance, and the churches provided teachers and education.[10]
The foundations of the system were the pre-confederation Gradual Civilization Act (1857) and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act (1869). These assumed the inherent superiority of British ways, and the need for Indians to become English-speakers, Christians, and farmers. At the time, many Aboriginal leaders wanted these acts overturned.[11]
Specific laws also linked the apparatus of the residential schools to the compulsory sterilization of students in 1928 in Alberta[12] and in 1933 in British Columbia.[13] Although some academic articles currently offer rough estimates of the numbers of sterilizations[14][15] the review of archival documents that would produce more specific numbers is incomplete and ongoing.[16][17]
In February 2013, research by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed that at least 3,000 students had died, mostly from disease.[3] In 2011, reflecting on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's research, Justice Murray Sinclair told the Toronto Star: "Missing children — that is the big surprise for me, [...] That such large numbers of children died at the schools. That the information of their deaths was not communicated back to their families."[18] In a legal report, the Canadian Bar Association concludes that "Student deaths were not uncommon".[19] See Mortality rates below for more information.
The system was designed as an immersion program: in many schools, children were prohibited from (and sometimes punished for) speaking their own languages or practicing their own faiths. In the 20th century, former students of the schools have claimed that officials and teachers had practiced cultural genocide and ethnocide. Because of the relatively isolated nature of the schools, there was an elevated rate of physical and sexual abuse. Corporal punishment was often justified by a belief that it was the only way to "save souls", "civilize" the savage, or punish runaways who, if they became injured or died in their efforts to return home, would leave the school legally responsible for whatever befell them. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, inadequate heating, and a lack of medical care led to high rates of influenza and tuberculosis; in one school, death rates reached 69%.[20]Federal policy tying funding to enrollment numbers may have made things worse, as it led to sick children being enrolled in order to boost numbers, thus introducing and spreading disease. Details of the mistreatment of students had been published numerous times throughout the 20th century. Following the government's closure of most of the schools in the 1960s, the work of indigenous activists and historians led to greater awareness by the public of the damage which the schools had caused, as well as to official government and church apologies, and a legal settlement. This has been controversial both within indigenous and non-indigenous communities.[21]
The first residential schools were established in the 1840s and the last residential school closed in 1996.[22] Their primary roles were to convert Indigenous children to Christianity and to "civilize them".[23] In the early 19th century, Protestant missionaries opened residential schools in the current Ontario region. The Protestant churches not only spread Christianity, but also tried to encourage the Indigenous peoples to adopt subsistence agriculture as a way to ensure they would not return to their original ways of life after graduation.[24] For graduates to receive individual allotments of farmland, however, would require changes in the communal reservesystem, something fiercely opposed by First Nations governments.
In 1857, the Gradual Civilization Act was passed by the Legislature of the Province of Canada with the aim of assimilating First Nations people. This Act awarded 50 acres (200,000 m2) of land to any indigenous male deemed "sufficiently advanced in the elementary branches of education" and would automatically "enfranchise" him, removing any tribal affiliation or treaty rights.[24] With this legislation, and through the creation of residential schools, the government believed indigenous people could eventually become assimilated into the population. It ignored the matrilineal systems of many tribes, in which property was controlled and passed through the maternal line, as well as the major roles that Aboriginal women typically had in cultivating their crops after men had cleared the fields. After confederation (1867), Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonaldcommissioned Nicholas Flood Davin to write a "Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds"[25] (now known as the "Davin Report"), which was submitted to Ottawa in March 1879 and led to public funding for the residential school system in Canada.[26]
In 1884,[1] school attendance became compulsory by law for status Indians under 16 years of age. Where residential schools were the only option, children were often forcibly removed from their families, or their families were threatened with fines or prison if they failed to send their children.[27] Many had no contact with their families for up to 10 months at a time because of the distance between their home communities and schools, and in some cases had no contact for years. In many of the schools, students were discouraged or prohibited from speaking Aboriginal languages, even among themselves and outside the classroom, so that English or Frenchwould be learned and their own languages forgotten. In some schools, they were subject to corporal punishment for speaking their own languages or for practicing non-Christian faiths, policies that have given rise to allegations of cultural genocide.[28][29][30]
After the Second World War, the Canadian Family Allowance Act began to grant "baby bonuses" to families with children, but ensured that this money was cut off if parents refused to send their children to school. This act further coerced indigenous parents to accept the residential school system.[31]
Compulsory school attendance had ended by 1948, following the 1947 report of a Special Joint Committee and subsequent amendment of the Indian Act; although this did little to improve conditions for those attending residential schools.[32] Until the late 1950s, residential schools were severely underfunded and often relied on the forced labourof their students to maintain their facilities, although it was presented as training for artisan skills. The work was arduous, and severely compromised the academic and social development of the students. In many cases, literacy education, or any serious efforts to inspire literacy in English or French, was almost non-existent. School books and textbooks, if they were supplied, were drawn mainly from the curricula of the provincially funded public schools for non-Aboriginal students, and teachers at the residential schools were often poorly trained or prepared. During this same period, Canadian government scientists performed nutritional tests on students and knowingly kept some students undernourished to serve as the control sample.[33]
When the government revised the Indian Act in the 1940s and 50s, a slim majority of Indian bands, along with regional and national native organizations, wanted residential schools to stay open. Those who supported the schools wanted to keep the religious component as well. Motivations for support of the schools included their role as a social service in communities suffering extensive family breakdown; the significance of the schools as employers; and the seeming lack of other opportunities for children to receive an education. In the 1960s, when the government decided to close certain schools, some Indian bands pleaded to have them to remain open.[34] In 1969, after years of sharing power with churches, the Department of Indian Affairs took sole control of the residential school system.[24]
In Northern Alberta, parents protested the DIA decision to close the Blue Quills Indian School. In the summer of 1970, they occupied the building and demanded the right to run it themselves. Their protests were successful and Blue Quills became the first Native-administered school in the country.[35] It continues to operate today as the Blue Quills First Nations College, a tribal college. The last residential school operated by the Canadian Government, Gordon Residential School, was closed in 1996. White Calf Collegiate, closed in 1998, was run by the Lebret Residential school board.
In the 1990s, investigations and memoirs by former students revealed that many students at residential schools were subjected to severe physical, psychological, and sexual abuse by school staff members and by older students.[36] Several prominent court cases led to large monetary payments from the federal government and churches to former students of residential schools. The settlement offered to former students was implemented on September 19, 2007.[37]
Mortality rates[edit]
In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce, general medical superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), reported to the department that between 1894 and 1908, mortality rates at some residential schools in Western Canada ranged from 30% to 60% over five years (that is, five years after entry, 30% to 60% of students had died, or 6–12% per annum). These statistics did not become public until 1922, when Bryce, who was no longer working for the government, published The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921. In particular, he alleged that the high mortality rates could have been avoided if healthy children had not been exposed to children with tuberculosis.[38] At the time, no antibiotic had been identified to treat the disease.
In 1920 and 1922, Dr. A. Corbett was commissioned to visit the schools in the west of the country, and found similar results to Bryce. At the Ermineskin school in Hobbema, Alberta, he found 50% of the children had tuberculosis.[24] At Sarcee Boarding School near Calgary, all 33 students were "much below even a passable standard of health" and "[a]ll but four were infected with tuberculosis." In one classroom, he found 16 ill children, many near death, who were being made to sit through lessons.[24]
In February 2013, research by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission revealed that at least 3,000 students had died, mostly from disease.[3]
Reconciliation attempts[edit]
In March 1998, the government made a Statement of Reconciliation – including an apology to those people who were sexually or physically abused while attending residential schools – and established the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. The Foundation was provided $350 million to fund community-based healing projects focusing on addressing the legacy of physical and sexual abuse at Indian residential schools. In its 2005 budget, the Canadian government committed an additional $40 million to continue to support the work of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
In the fall of 2003, after some pilot projects launched since 1999, the Alternative Dispute Resolution process or "ADR" was launched. The ADR was a process outside of court providing compensation and psychological support for former students of residential schools who were physically or sexually abused or were in situations of wrongful confinement.
On November 23, 2005, the Canadian government announced a $1.9 billion compensation package to benefit tens of thousands of former students at native residential schools. National Chief Phil Fontaine of the Assembly of First Nations said the package covers, "decades in time, innumerable events and countless injuries to First Nations individuals and communities." Justice Minister Irwin Cotler called the decision to house young Canadians in church-run residential schools "the single most harmful, disgraceful and racist act in our history." At a news conference in Ottawa, Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan said: "We have made good on our shared resolve to deliver what I firmly believe will be a fair and lasting resolution of the Indian school legacy."[40]
This compensation package became a Settlement Agreement in May 2006. It proposed, among other things, some funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, for commemoration and for a "Truth and Reconciliation" program in aboriginal communities, as well as an individual Common Experience Payment (CEP). Any person that could be verified as residing at a federally run Indian residential school in Canada, as well as other criteria, was entitled to this CEP. The amount of compensation was based on the number of years a particular former student resided at the residential schools: $10,000 for the first year attended (one night residing there to a full school year) plus $3,000 for every year resided thereafter.
The Settlement Agreement also proposed an advance payment for former students alive and who were 65 years old and over as of May 30, 2005. The deadline for reception of the advance payment form by IRSRC was December 31, 2006.
Following a legal process including an examination of the Settlement Agreement by the courts of the provinces and territories of Canada, an "opt-out" period occurred. During this time, the former students of residential schools could reject the agreement if they did not agree with its dispositions. This opt-out period ended on August 20, 2007.
The Settlement Agreement gave way to the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), a case-by-case, out-of-court resolution process where claims from former Indian Residential School students are examined by an Adjudicator. The IAP became available to all the former students of residential schools on September 19, 2007. All former students (who met certain criteria) had to apply by themselves or through a lawyer of their choice to receive their full compensation. The deadline to apply for the IAP was September 19, 2012. This gave former students of residential schools four years from the implementation date of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to apply for the IAP. Claims involving physical and sexual abuse can be compensated up to $275,000.[41]
Similar forced residential boarding schools for indigenous communities were operated in Australia (where the students are referred to as the Stolen Generation). The Native American boarding schools operated in the United States through the 1970s were far less harsh and not comparable, although its former students have similar complaints, especially about prohibitions against using their own languages and traditions.
Apologies[edit]
Federal government apology[edit]
On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper issued a formal apology, on behalf of the sitting Cabinet, in front of an audience of Aboriginal delegates, and in an address that was broadcast nationally on the CBC, for the past governments' policies of assimilation.[42] The Prime Minister apologized not only for the known excesses of the residential school system, but for the creation of the system itself.
Vatican expression of sorrow[edit]
In 2009, Chief Fontaine had a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI to try to obtain an apology for abuses that occurred in the residential school system.[43] The audience was funded by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Following the meeting, the Vatican released an official statement on the church's role in residential schools:
Fontaine later stated at a news conference that at the meeting, he sensed the Pope's "pain and anguish" and that the acknowledgement was "important to me and that was what I was looking for."[45]
Other apologies[edit]
On Friday, August 6, 1993, at the National Native Convocation in Minaki, Ontario, Archbishop Michael Peers offered an apology to all the survivors of the Indian residential schools on behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada. Archbishop Peers said:
- I accept and I confess before God and you, our failures in the residential schools. We failed you. We failed ourselves. We failed God.
- I am sorry, more than I can say, that we were part of a system which took you and your children from home and family.
- I am sorry, more than I can say, that we tried to remake you in our image, taking from you your language and the signs of your identity.
- I am sorry, more than I can say, that in our schools so many were abused physically, sexually, culturally and emotionally.
- On behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada, I present our apology.[46]
In 2004, immediately prior to signing the historic first Public Safety Protocol with the Assembly of First Nations, RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli veered from his corporate speech and issued an apology on behalf of the RCMP for their role in the Indian Residential School System. "We, I, as Commissioner of the RCMP, am truly sorry for what role we played in the residential school system and the abuse that took place in the residential system".[47]
On October 27, 2011 University of Manitoba president David Barnard apologized to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the institution's role in educating people who operated the residential school system. This is believed to be the first time a Canadian university has apologized for playing a role in residential schools.[48]
Portrayals in media[edit]
In film[edit]
| Year | Title | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 | Wandering Spirit Survival School | National Film Board | This school, organized by concerned parents, broke with tradition by introducing subjects that are of particular relevance to its pupils. The experience of the children is contrasted with the very different life experienced by their parents, educated in the old residential schools. |
| 1985 | The Mission School Syndrome | Northern Native Broadcasting | A documentary feature that investigates the effect of residential schools in the Yukon, focusing on former residents of the Lower Post Residential School, the Baptist Indian Mission School (Whitehorse), and the Chaoutla Indian Residential School (Carcross), as well as the Yukon Hall Residence in Whitehorse. |
| 1989 | Where the Spirit Lives | Bruce Pittman | A CBC dramatic portrayal of a young Aboriginal girl, Ashtoh-Komi, who is abducted and taken to a residential school in the 1930s. |
| 1991 | Violation of Trust | Fifth Estate | A compelling documentary about Canada's worst-kept secret, examining the lives of residential school survivors, along with stories of abuse. |
| 1992 | Sleeping Children Awake | Rhonda Kara Hanah | Inspired by Shirley Cheechoo's play Path with no Moccasins, Sleeping Children Awake is both a personal record of Canada's history, and a tribute to the enduring strength of Native cultures. |
| 1993 | Beyond the Shadows | Gryphon Productions Ltd. | A powerful documentary about the legacy of Native residential schools (missionary schools). The video touches on the historical background of these schools, but primarily depicts painful personal experiences; the causes of multi-generational grief and healing processes underway in communities today. |
| 1998 | Kuper Island: Return to the Healing Circle | National Film Board | Like thousands of other Aboriginal people across Canada and the United States, the former residents of Kuper Island are now beginning to break the silence and to speak out about the trauma of their residential school experience. For them, the time for healing has come. |
| 2001 | Childhood Lost | Doug Cuthand | Through interviews, archival photos, and re-enactments, this program illuminates the experiences of four individuals who were sent to residential schools when they were very young. |
| 2005 | A Day at Indian Residential Schools in Canada | Indigenous Education Coalition | This 26 minute documentary, hosted by youth, explores the life at three Indian residential schools. Survivors recollect their daily routines, time spent on chores, and their feelings of isolation. This film features archival images of life at the schools as well as interviews with survivors who had never before spoken on camera about their experiences. |
| 2007 | The Fallen Feather: Indian Industrial Residential Schools Canadian Confederation | Randy N Bezeau | The fallen feather provides an in-depth critical analysis of the driving forces behind the creation of Canadian Indian residential schools. |
| 2007 | Unrepentant: Kevin Annett and Canada's Genocide | Kevin Annett | A documentary describing the crimes committed in church-run residential schools.[49] |
| 2008 | Muffins for Granny | Mongrel Media | Nadia McLaren tells the story of her own grandmother by combining precious home movie fragments with the stories of seven elders dramatically affected by their experiences in residential school. |
| 2008 | Stolen Children | CBC Learning | In this package of documentaries from The National, CBC explores the impact of residential schools on former students and the larger community, presenting ideas for what more can be done to address this painful chapter in Canada's history. |
| 2009 | The Experimental Eskimos | Barry Greenwald | In the early 1960s the Canadian government conducted an experiment in social engineering. Three young Inuit boys were separated from their families in the Arctic and were sent to Ottawa, the nation's capital, to live with white families and to be educated in white schools. |
| 2009 | Unseen Tears | Ron Douglas | Native American families in Western New York and Canada continue to feel the impact of the Thomas Indian School and the Mohawk Institute in Ontario. Survivors speak of traumatic separation from their families, abuse, and a systematic assault on their language and culture. Western New York Native American communities are presently attempting to heal the wounds and break the cycle of inter-generational trauma resulting from the boarding school experience. Unseen Tears documents testimonies of boarding school survivors, their families, and social service providers.[50] |
| 2009 | Kakalakkuvik (Where the Children Dwell) | Jobie Weetaluktuk | Kakalakkuvik recounts the vivid memories of former students from Port Harrison (now Inukjuak, Quebec), the first group of Inuit to sue the federal government for compensation. |
| 2009 | Shi-Shi-Etko | Kate Kroll | Shi-Shi-Etko will soon be taken away from her home to begin her formal western education at a residential school. Her mother, father and grandmother want her to remember her roots and they wait for her return in the spring to continue passing down those ideals to her. |
| 2012 | We Were Children | Tim Wolochatiuk | Documentary film about the experiences of survivors Lyna Hart (Guy Hill Residential School) and Glen Anaquod (Lebret Indian Residential School).[51] |
| 2013 | Rhymes for Young Ghouls | Jeff Barnaby | A fictional film about teenager Aila, who runs a drug crew on her reserve, and is assaulted by an Indian Affairs agent who then detains her in a residential school, where other children are frequently abused.[52] |
On paper[edit]
| Year | Title | Author | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | Resistance and Renewal: Surviving the Indian Residential School | Celia Haig-Brown | ISBN 0889781893 | One of the first books published to deal with the phenomenon of residential schools in Canada, Resistance and Renewal is a disturbing collection of Native perspectives on the Kamloops Indian Residential School(KIRS) in the British Columbia interior. Interviews with thirteen Natives, all former residents of KIRS, form the nucleus of the book, a frank depiction of school life, and a telling account of the system's oppressive environment which sought to stifle Native culture. |
| 1992 | My Name Is Seepeetza | Shirley Sterling | ISBN 0888991657 | First published in 1992 in Canada, where it won the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Book Prize, this autobiographical novel is written in the form of Seepeetza's diary in her Grade 6 year in the 1950s. |
| 1998 | Kiss of the Fur Queen | Tomson Highway | ISBN 0385258801 | Jeremiah and Gabriel grow into acclaimed artists attempting to work within white, European traditions while retaining the influence of Native culture. The novel follows the boys from the idyllic innocence of their Cree childhood through a forced relocation to an abusive residential school to their lives as young artists attempting to discover how far their natural talents can take them. |
| 2001 | No Time to Say Goodbye: Children's Stories of Kuper Island Residential School | Sylvia Olsen | ISBN 1550391216 | A fictional account of five children sent to aboriginal boarding school, based on the recollections of a number of Tsartlip First Nations people. These unforgettable children are taken by government agents from Tsartlip Day School to live at Kuper Island Residential School. |
| 2005 | Finding My Talk: How Fourteen Canadian Native Women Reclaimed Their Lives After Residential School | Agnes Grant | ISBN 1894856570 | Fourteen aboriginal women who attended residential schools, or were affected by them, reflect on their experiences. They describe their years in residential schools across Canada and how they overcame tremendous obstacles to become strong and independent members of aboriginal cultures and valuable members of Canadian society.. |
| 2005 | Shi-shi-etko | Nicola I. Campbell | ISBN 0888996594 | Shi-shi-etko counts down her last four days before going away. She tries to memorize everything about her home–tall grass swaying to the rhythm of the breeze, determined mosquitoes, working bumblebees. |
| 2006 | Behind Closed Doors: Stories from the Kamloops Indian Residential School | Jack Agnes (Editor) | ISBN 1894778413 | Behind Closed Doors features written testimonials from 32 individuals who attended the Kamloops Indian Residential School. The school was one of many infamous residential schools that operated from 1893 to 1979. The storytellers remember and share with us their stolen time at the school; many stories are told through courageous tears. |
| 2007 | Moving Beyond: Understanding the Impacts of the Residential Schools | Brent Stonefish | ISBN 1896832814 | The residential school system in Canada continues to have a significant impact on Aboriginal people. We continue to struggle with the trauma of this unwanted legacy. In this book, we take a look at the history but focus on the intergenerational impacts that exist today from the residential school system. These lasting impacts affect learning, education, and family relations. “Moving Beyond” highlights positive approaches and paths to healing and promotes the development of healthy individuals, families and communities. |
| 2008 | Shin-Chi's Canoe | Nicola I. Campbell | ISBN 0888998570 | This moving sequel to the award-winning Shi-shi-etko tells the story of two children's experience at residential school. Shi-shi-etko is about to return for her second year, but this time her six-year-old brother, Shin-chi, is going, too. |
| 2009 | Porcupines and China Dolls | Robert Alexie | ISBN 1894778723 | Enough alcohol silences the demons for a night; a gun and a single bullet silences demons forever. When a friend commits suicide and a former priest appears on television, the community is shattered. James and Jake confront their childhood abuse and break the silence to begin a journey of healing and rediscovery. |
| 2010 | Blue Saltwater | Dan Green | ISBN 1451581246 | Haida teen, Blue Saltwater, exposes the evil underbelly of the St. Ignatius Residential School before making a daring escape to return to his island home of Haida Gwaii. |
| 2010 | Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools: A Memoir | Theodore Fontaine | ISBN 192661366X | Sense the oppression and marginalization of culture through an author's 'Healing Journey'. |
| 2010 | Fatty Legs: A True Story | Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton | ISBN 1554512468 | Taunted and humiliated by Raven, the unkind nun in charge of the young girls, Margaret is willing to endure almost anything as long as she can learn to read. The unpleasant chores do not daunt her, but the teasing of other students and the unfair punishments do. When she is the only girl forced to wear ugly red stockings, however, Margaret has had enough, and fights back. |
| 2010 | From Lishamie | Albert Canadien | ISBN 1894778650 | Albert Canadien fondly recounts his boyhood years in Lishamie, a traditional Dene camp north of the Mackenzie River, and reflects on the devastating and long-lasting impact residential schooling had on him, his family and his people. |
| 2011 | A Stranger at Home: A True Story | Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton | ISBN 1554513618 | Travelling to be reunited with her family in the Arctic, 10-year-old Margaret Pokiak can hardly contain her excitement. It has been two years since her parents delivered her to the school run by the dark-cloaked nuns and brothers. |
| 2011 | Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada | Paulette Regan | ISBN 077481778X | Unsettling the Settler Within argues that non-Aboriginal Canadians must undergo their own process of decolonization in order to truly participate in the transformative possibilities of reconciliation. Settlers must relinquish the persistent myth of themselves as peacemakers and acknowledge the destructive legacy of a society that has stubbornly ignored and devalued Indigenous experience. A compassionate call to action, this powerful book offers a new and hopeful path toward healing the wounds of the past. |
| 2012 | Indian Horse | Richard Wagamese | ISBN 9781553654025 | A young Ojibway boy named Saul Indian Horse is taken to St. Jerome's Indian Residential School in White River, Ontario. The novel focuses on Saul's experiences at the school and the escape he finds through playing hockey. |
| 2012 | They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School | Bev Sellars | ISBN 0889227411 | In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St. Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school's lasting effects on her and her family-from substance abuse to suicide attempts-and eloquently articulates her own path to healing. |
| 2014 | Back to the Red Road | Florence Kaefer and Edward Gamblin | ISBN 1927575370 | In 1954, when Florence Kaefer was just nineteen, she accepted a job as a teacher at Norway House. Unaware of the difficult conditions the students were enduring, Florence and her fellow teachers nurtured a school full of lonely and homesick young children. Many years later Florence unexpectedly reconnected with one of her Norway House students, Edward Gamblin. Motivated to apologize on behalf of the school and her colleagues, Florence contacted Edward. |
| 2014 | Indian School Road: Legacies of the Shubenacadie Residential School | Chris Benjamin | ISBN 1771082135 | In Indian School Road, journalist Chris Benjamin tackles the controversial and tragic history of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, its predecessors, and its lasting effects, giving voice to multiple perspectives for the first time. |
| 2014 | On the Goose: A Labrador Metis Woman Remembers | Josie Penny | ISBN 1459719123 | Josie Penny's life as part of a loving Métis family in an isolated corner of Labrador changed dramatically when she was taken away to a residential school. Abused by the students, Josie became increasingly angry and isolated from her family and community as she grew into her teens. At seventeen she left for Goose Bay to make her fortune and start her own life. |
| 2014 | Up Ghost River: A Chief's Journey Through the Turbulent Waters of Native History | Edmund Metatawabin and Alexandra Shimo | ISBN 0307399877 | In the 1950s, 7-year-old Edmund Metatawabin was separated from his family and placed in one of Canada’s worst residential schools. Fuelled by alcohol, the trauma from his past caught up with him, and his family and work lives imploded. Now Metatawabin’s mission is to help the next generation of residential school survivors. |
| 2015 | The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir | Joseph Auguste (Augie) Merasty with David Carpenter | ISBN 0889773688 | Merasty attended St. Therese Residential School in the community of Sturgeon Landing, Manitoba, from 1935 to 1944. As Merasty recounts, these schools did more than attempt to mold children in the ways of white society. They were taught to be ashamed of their native heritage and, as he experienced, often suffered physical and sexual abuse. Even as he looks back on this painful part of his childhood, Merasty’s generous and authentic voice shines through. |
On stage[edit]
| Year | Title | Writer | Director | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008, 2012 | "Where the Blood Mixes" | Kevin Loring | Bradley Moss | "Winner of the 2009 Governor General’s Award, Where the Blood Mixes is a beautiful play about family, loss, redemption and healing. Floyd and Mooch, raised in residential schools, must confront their past when Floyd’s daughter Christine returns to Kumsheen after 20 years, to discover her past and her family"[53] |
| 2014 | "Going Home Star - Truth and Reconciliation" | Joseph Boyden | Mark Godden | Commissioned by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, with the support of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, "Going Home Star - Truth and Reconciliationexplores the world of Annie, a young, urban First Nations woman adrift in a contemporary life of youthful excess. But when she meets Gordon, a longhaired trickster disguised as a homeless man, she’s propelled into a world she’s always sensed but never seen. Not only do they travel the streets of this place but also the roads of their ancestors, learning to accept the other’s burdens as the two walk through the past and toward the future. Together, both Annie and Gordon learn that without truth, there is no reconciliation."[54] |
Lasting effects of residential schools[edit]
Over 150 000 students attended the residential schools. (Approximately 30% of native children were placed in residential schools nationally.)[5] The legacy of the schools on aboriginal people of today has been referred to as a “collective soul wound.”[55] A sample of 127 survivors revealed that half of these survivors have criminal records, 65% have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, 21% have been diagnosed with major depression, 7% have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and 7% have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.[56]
Many survivors of the residential schools also suffer from historic trauma (the above-mentioned “collective soul wound.”[56] Historic trauma explains the Aboriginal trauma more completely than residential school syndrome.[56] It is the idea that the “military, economic, and cultural conquest of people aboriginal to the American continents was a form of genocide,” and that, much like in the inter-generational trauma caused by the Holocaust, the Aboriginal people of Canada are suffering across more than just one generation.[56] Historic trauma refers to the way in which the entire culture has been hurt and even those not directly related to the residential school experience are suffering from it. Historic trauma is like psychological baggage that gets passed on from generation to generation, and spans across many lifetimes.[56] Historic trauma is passed on the same way that all other aspects of the culture are passed on; along with the traditions and values of the culture, the hardships and wounds are transmitted to younger generations.[56]
Some native people feel that no amount of time would be enough to heal this wound, such as the thousands of families of missing children. Some children attended residential school in the late sixties disappeared from them never to be heard from again.[57] Their families are unable to move on from this because the missing children’s fate is still a mystery.[57] The families feel that without finding out what happened to their missing members, they will not receive the closure they need to move on and no amount of compensation from the government will be enough to repair the damage.[57]
Some survivors that were sexually abused kept their suffering a secret for decades after their time in the residential schools.[57] One survivor has been quoted saying “you can’t forget everything in five years, in ten years,”[57] and many aboriginals feel that though the Canadian government has made a start in reconciliation, it will be a long process, because they cannot instantly feel better.[58]
The lasting impact that the schools have had is also manifested in the rate of drug and alcohol abuse among survivors. As an attempt to hide from the memories and the pain many aboriginal people found themselves turning to substance abuse,[58] which means that the suffering continues as they and those around them are forced to deal with addiction on a daily basis. It is both because the residential schools continue to cause harm, and because the hardships they created in the past continue to haunt survivors, that the aboriginal people are simply unable to be consoled at present time.
Survivors of the residential schools have difficulty receiving compensation because they must prove that they attended the schools.[59] This is difficult and sometimes impossible to do because the schools kept little to no records.[59]
Healing[edit]
The healing process is a long and difficult one.[57] Many Aboriginals find it difficult to talk about their experiences, but when they do, healing slowly begins.[57] The national event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission allows the survivors to share their stories and put them on record.[57] Some survivors say that this allows them to see that their suffering is shared and allows them to find joy and laughter with one another which demonstrates that it is a healing process.[57]
