Indian Residential Schools

• First Nations people wanted to educate their children to ensure that their cultures survived in a changing world

• The federal government wanted to assimilate First Nation’s peoples. A rich First Nation’s culture was seen as an obstacle to building the Canadian nation.

• All aspects of First Nations Culture was eliminated from the schools

• Children were forbidden to speak their native language and were punished for doing so.

Children were required to wear school uniforms. Hairstyles were cut short in European style. The children ate primarily Euro-Canadian foods.

• Boys were separated from girls. Siblings were intentionally separated in order to weaken family ties.

• Students celebrated Christian holidays and learned to play European sports such as soccer and cricket.

• The school day was divided between religious instruction and training for manual labour. They were taught practical skills such as sewing, woodworking, reading and writing. They didn’t get academic subjects such as history, geography, math, and science.

• When an Indian comes out of these places it is like being put between two walls in a room and left hanging in the middle. On one side are all the things he learned from his people and their way of life that was being wiped out, and on the other are the white man’s way which he could never fully understand since he never had the right amount of education and could not be part of it. There he is, hanging in the middle of the two cultures and he is not a white man and he is not an Indian. They washed away practically everything an Indian needed to help himself, to think the way a human person should in order to survive.

-John Tootoosis, senator, political activist, and former student in a residential school

Cultural genocide

• Little or no contact with families• When they returned home their family

relationships were distant.• Not much in common with families.• Didn’t speak language so couldn’t communicate• Didn’t have same beliefs• Didn’t practice same traditions and customs• Children were caught between two cultures.

Timeline1857 - Gradual Civilization Act passed to assimilate Indians.

1870-1910 - Period of assimilation where the clear objective of both missionaries and government was to assimilate Aboriginal children into the lower fringes (non-educated) of mainstream society

1920 - Compulsory attendance for all children ages 7-15 years. Children were forcibly taken from their families by priests, Indian agents and police officers.

1931 - There were 80 residential schools operating in Canada.

1948 – There were 72 residential schools with 9,368 students.

1979 – There were 12 residential schools with1,899 students.

1980s - Residential School students began disclosing sexual and other forms of abuse at residential schools.

1996 - The last federally run residential school, the Gordon Residential School, closes in Saskatchewan.

CBC Archives

• http://archives.cbc.ca/society/native_issues/topics/692/