Canadian residential school system - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

History

Founded in the 19th century, the Canadian Indian residential school system was intended to assimilate the children of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada

Aboriginal peoples in Canada

Aboriginal peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" have fallen into disuse in Canada and are commonly considered pejorative....

into European-Canadian society. The purpose of the schools, which separated children from their families, has also been described as cultural genocide or "killing the Indian in the child."

Although Education in Canada

Education in Canada

Education in Canada is for the most part provided publicly, funded and overseen by federal, provincial, and local governments. Education is within provincial jurisdiction and the curriculum is overseen by the province. Education in Canada is generally divided into primary education, followed by...

had been allocated to the provincial governments by the British North America

Constitution Act, 1867

The Constitution Act, 1867 , is a major part of Canada's Constitution. The Act created a federal dominion and defines much of the operation of the Government of Canada, including its federal structure, the House of Commons, the Senate, the justice system, and the taxation system...

BNA act, aboriginal peoples and their treaties were under the jurisdiction of the federal government. 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 the Anglican Church of Canada

Anglican Church of Canada

The Anglican Church of Canada is the Province of the Anglican Communion in Canada. The official French name is l'Église Anglicane du Canada. The ACC is the third largest church in Canada after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada, consisting of 800,000 registered members...

and the United Church of Canada

United Church of Canada

The United Church of Canada is a Protestant Christian denomination in Canada. It is the largest Protestant church and, after the Roman Catholic Church, the second-largest Christian church in 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.

The foundations of the system were the pre-confederation Gradual Civilization Act

Gradual Civilization Act

The Act to Encourage the Gradual Civilization of Indian Tribes in this Province, and to Amend the Laws Relating to Indians was a bill passed by the 5th Parliament of the Province of Canada in 1857....

(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, Aboriginal leaders wanted these acts overturned.

The system was designed as an immersion program: children were prohibited (and sometimes punished) for speaking their own languages or practicing their own faiths. In the 20th century, survivors of the schools claimed that officials and teachers had practiced cultural genocide

Cultural genocide

Cultural genocide is a term that lawyer Raphael Lemkin proposed in 1933 as a component to genocide. The term was considered in the 1948 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples juxtaposed next to the term ethnocide, but it was removed in the final document, replaced with...

and ethnocide. Because of the relatively isolated nature of the schools, there was an elevated rate of physical and sexual abuse. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a lack of medical care led to high rates of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...

, and death rates of up to 69 percent. Details of the mistreatment of students had been published numerous times throughout the 20th century. Following the government's closure 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.

The first residential schools were established in the 1840s and the last residential school closed in 1996. Their primary roles were to convert Indigenous

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

children to Christianity

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

and to "civilize them". In the early 19th century, Protestant missionaries opened residential schools in the current Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

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 lifestyles after graduation. For graduates to receive individual allotments of farmland, however, would require changes in the communal reserve

Indian reserve

In Canada, an Indian reserve is specified by the Indian Act as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." The Act also specifies that land reserved for the use and benefit of a band which is not...

system, something fiercely opposed by First Nations

First Nations

First Nations is a term that collectively refers to various Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are neither Inuit nor Métis. There are currently over 630 recognised First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. The...

governments.

In 1857, the Gradual Civilization Act

Gradual Civilization Act

was passed by the Legislature of the Province of Canada

Province of Canada

The Province of Canada, United Province of Canada, or the United Canadas was a British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham in the Report on the Affairs of British North America following the Rebellions of...

with the aim of assimilating First Nations

First Nations

people. This Act awarded 50 acres (202,343 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. 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. Macdonald

John A. Macdonald

Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC , QC was the first Prime Minister of Canada. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, his political career spanned almost half a century...

commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin

Nicholas Flood Davin

Nicholas Flood Davin Nicholas Flood Davin was a lawyer, journalist and politician, born at Kilfinane, Ireland. The first MP for Assiniboia West , Davin was known as the voice of the North-West....

to write a "Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds" (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.

In 1884, attendance became compulsory by law for status Indians under 16 years of age. Children were often forcibly removed from their families, or their families were threatened with prison if they failed to send their children willingly. Students were required to live on school premises. Most 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 sometimes had no contact for years. They were prohibited from speaking Aboriginal languages, even among themselves and outside the classroom, so that English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

or French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

would be learned and their own languages forgotten. They were subject to corporal punishment

Corporal punishment

Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...

for speaking their own languages or for practicing non-Christian faiths

Paganism

Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....

, policies that have given rise to allegations of cultural genocide

Cultural genocide

.

After the Second World War, the Canadian Family Allowance Act began to grant "baby bonuses" to families with children, but ensured this money was cut off if parents refused to send their children to school. This act added more coercion to have indigenous parents to accept the residential school system.

Compulsory attendance at the residential schools 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. Until the late 1950s, residential schools were severely underfunded, and relied on the forced labour of 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. Literary education, or any serious efforts to inspire literacy in English or French, were 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 considered to be under-trained.

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. In 1969, after years of sharing power with churches, the Department of Indian Affairs took sole control of the residential school system.

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. It continues to operate today as the Blue Quills First Nations College, a tribal college.

In the 1990s, investigations and memoirs by former students revealed that many students at residential schools were subjected to severe physical, psychological

Psychological abuse

Psychological abuse, also referred to as emotional abuse or mental abuse, is a form of abuse characterized by a person subjecting or exposing another to behavior that may result in psychological trauma, including anxiety, chronic depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder...

, and sexual abuse

Sexual abuse

Sexual abuse, also referred to as molestation, is the forcing of undesired sexual behavior by one person upon another. When that force is immediate, of short duration, or infrequent, it is called sexual assault. The offender is referred to as a sexual abuser or molester...

by teachers and school officials. Several prominent court cases led to large monetary payments from the federal government and churches to former students of residential schools.

The last residential school, White Calf Collegiate, was closed in 1996. A settlement offered to former students was announced on September 19, 2007.

Mortality rates

In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce

Peter Bryce

Dr. Peter Bryce was an official of the Ontario Health Department , Canada. He released his famous book in 1922 titled The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921, which exposed genocide of the aboriginals in Canada.Bryce was...

, general medical superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), reported to the department that between 1894 and 1908, mortality rates at 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 were frequently deliberate, with healthy children being exposed to children with tuberculosis. At the time, no antibiotic had been identified to treat the disease.

In 1920 and 1922, Dr. F. 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

Hobbema, Alberta

Hobbema is an unincorporated community in central Alberta, Canada, a portion of which is designated a hamlet within Ponoka County. It is located near the intersection of Highway 2A and Highway 611, approximately south of the City of Edmonton....

, he found 50% of the children had tuberculosis. At Sarcee Boarding School near Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, 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 sixteen ill children, many near death, who were being made to sit through lessons.

Reconciliation attempts

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 survivors of abuse at native residential schools. National Chief Phil Fontaine

Phil Fontaine

Larry Phillip Fontaine, OM is an Aboriginal Canadian leader. He completed his third and final term as National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations in 2009....

of the Assembly of First Nations

Assembly of First Nations

The Assembly of First Nations , formerly known as the National Indian Brotherhood, is a body of First Nations leaders in Canada...

said the package covers, "decades in time, innumerable events and countless injuries to First Nations individuals and communities." Justice Minister

Justice Minister

A justice ministry is a ministry or other government agency charged with justice. The ministry is often headed by a minister for justice or secretary of justice or secretary for justice; sometimes the head of a department of justice is entitled attorney general.Specific duties may relate to...

Irwin Cotler

Irwin Cotler, PC, OC, MP was Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until the Liberal government of Paul Martin lost power following the 2006 federal election. He was first elected to the Canadian House of Commons for the constituency of Mount Royal in a by-election...

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

Deputy Prime Minister

A deputy prime minister or vice prime minister is, in some counties, a government minister who can take the position of acting prime minister when the prime minister is temporarily absent. The position is often likened to that of a vice president, but is significantly different, though both...

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."

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

Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission

The Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an impending truth commission organized by the parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The commission is part of an overall holistic and comprehensive response to the Indian residential school legacy...

" 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 CEP became available to all the former students of residential schools on September 19, 2007. All former students (who met certain criteria) had to apply to receive their full compensation. The deadline to apply for the CEP was September 19, 2011. This gave former students of Indian Residential Schools four years from the implementation date of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement to apply for the CEP.

Similar forced residential boarding schools for indigenous communities were operated in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

(where the students are referred to as the Stolen Generation

Stolen Generation

The Stolen Generations were the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments...

). The Native American boarding schools

Native American boarding schools

An Indian boarding school refers to one of many schools that were established in the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries to educate Native American children and youths according to Euro-American standards...

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.

Federal government apology

On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

Stephen Harper

Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...

apologized, on behalf of the sitting Cabinet

Cabinet of Canada

The Cabinet of Canada is a body of ministers of the Crown that, along with the Canadian monarch, and within the tenets of the Westminster system, forms the government of Canada...

, in front of an audience of Aboriginal delegates, and in an address that was broadcast nationally on the CBC

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

, for the past governments' policies of assimilation. The Prime Minister apologized not only for the known excesses of the residential school system, but for the creation of the system itself.

Other apologies

On October 27, 2011 University of Manitoba

University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba , in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the largest university in the province of Manitoba. It is Manitoba's most comprehensive and only research-intensive post-secondary educational institution. It was founded in 1877, making it Western Canada’s first university. It placed...

president David Barnard apologized to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Indian Residential Schools 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.

Vatican expression of sorrow

In 2009, Chief Fontaine had a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...

to try to obtain an apology for abuses that occurred in the residential school system. The audience was funded by Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

The Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development is the department of the government of Canada with responsibility for policies relating to Aboriginal peoples...

. Following the meeting, the Vatican released an official statement on the church's role in residential schools:

His Holiness recalled that since the earliest days of her presence in Canada, the Church, particularly through her missionary personnel, has closely accompanied the indigenous peoples. Given the sufferings that some indigenous children experienced in the Canadian Residential School system, the Holy Father expressed his sorrow at the anguish caused by the deplorable conduct of some members of the Church and he offered his sympathy and prayerful solidarity. His Holiness emphasized that acts of abuse cannot be tolerated in society. He prayed that all those affected would experience healing, and he encouraged First Nations Peoples to continue to move forward with renewed hope.

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."

Portrayals in film

The Mission School Syndrome (Northern Native Broadcasting, 1985) is 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

Whitehorse, Yukon

Whitehorse is Yukon's capital and largest city . It was incorporated in 1950 and is located at kilometre 1476 on the Alaska Highway in southern Yukon. Whitehorse's downtown and Riverdale areas occupy both shores of the Yukon River, which originates in British Columbia and meets the Bering Sea in...

), and the Chaoutla Indian Residential School (Carcross), as well as the Yukon Hall Residence in Whitehorse.

"Unrepentant: Kevin Annett and Canada's genocide" is a documentary describing the crimes committed in church-run residential schools.

Older Than America (2008) is a dramatic portrayal of residential schools and conflict with the church.

Where the Spirit Lives
Where the Spirit Lives
Where the Spirit Lives is a drama film about Aboriginal children in Canada being taken from their tribes to attend residential schools for assimilation into majority culture. Written by Keith Ross Leckie and directed by Bruce Pittman, it aired on CBC Television in 1989.The film starred Michelle St...

(1989) is a CBC

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

dramatic portrayal of a child who is abducted to a residential school.

Lasting Effects of Residential Schools

Residential schools have had lasting effects on aboriginal communities. The schools had a negative impact on aboriginal culture and has led to the partial loss of aboriginal languages as a result of systemic cultural genocide.. As a fallout of the residential schools, post-traumatic stress disorder, drug abuse and alcoholism, violence and domestic abuse, and incarceration are much more prevalent in Aboriginals than in other cultures within Canada. Further, the children of those who attended residential schools are also more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than children in other cultures.

Discovery of Human Remains at Mohawk Institute in Brantford, Ontario

Since October 1 2011, Archaeological surveys and test digs authorized by the elders of the Kanien'keha:ka Nation, have been conducted at the former Mohawk Institute Indian residential school. A test dig in a twenty square foot area on grounds adjoining the former Mohawk Institute have revealed a considerable number of bones, as well as buttons which have been confirmed to be part of the children's school uniforms. Large deposits of coal were also found associated with these remains, all at a depth of barely two feet. Several of the bones have also been cut up, suggesting that the bodies may have been deliberately dismembered, while other bones were broken.

External links

Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds
Aboriginal Healing Foundation
Legacy of Hope Foundation
National Residential School Survivors'Society
CBC Digital Archives – A Lost Heritage: Canada's Residential Schools
Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada (Government of Canada)
Residential Schools Photos – Assembly of First Nations
Assembly of First Nations
The Assembly of First Nations , formerly known as the National Indian Brotherhood, is a body of First Nations leaders in Canada...
Hidden from History
Official Residential School Settlement website
List of residential schools
Testimonies on Isuma TV
Description of Letter re: Brandon Indian Residential School at the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections

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