PD402 - L1-Q1

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Lesson 1 – The Impact of Assimilation – Residential Schools and Intergenerational Trauma Required Readings 1. Chapter 7: The Impact of Assimilation: Residential Schools and Intergenerational Trauma (123-142) The Horrors of Indian Residential Schools In Canada, - Indian residential schools were in operation for well over a century (MacDonald and Hudson, 2012, p. 431). - Yet some of the first boarding schools aiming to “civilize” Indigenous children and indoctrinate Christianity were in operation as early as the 1600s and 1700s - The 1880s , is when the large majority of residential schools began to open, with the last federally run residential schools not closing until the late 1990s - The government’s purpose of implementing these schools was made very clear by officials, that is, assimilation into “the body politic” For instance, in 1883, Canada’s first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald told the House of Commons the following: “When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men” (TRC, 2015, p. 2). The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) released their final report in December of 2015. - This report is over two million words and spans six volumes. - The commission collected statements from over 6000 witnesses, many of whom were survivors of the schools - In describing children’s experiences of leaving home to attend the schools, the TRC (2015), notes how children “were torn from their parents, who often surrendered them only under threat of prosecution” - They note how parents dreaded this day, not wanting to have their children taken away. Even if parents were warned beforehand, when the day came, it was still very much a shock. - As officials would come to their home, and in some cases forcefully take children away to these residential schools. These officials who came for the children included local Indian Agents, priests, as well as the Mounted police A story of how this unfolded in Manitoba is as follows:

“It is near the turn of the century. Indian agents, RCMP constables, and on-Native farmhands encircle a Manitoba Indian reserve. One of the Indian agents and an RCMP constable approach the house of an Indian family, bang on the door, and loudly demand the parents give up their children to them. The Indian agent instructs the RCMP constable to break down the door. They rush into the house, pry the frightened, screaming children from their parents’ arms and rush them to a holding area outside. The constable and agent go to the next house and the next and in ensuing few days this scene is repeated many times on this reserve and in most reserves in Southern Manitoba. All children captured during the ‘Fall round-up’ are marched to the nearest CPR station, assigned a number and unceremoniously herded into cattle cars for transport to the residential school at Winnipeg” (Miller, 1996, p. 289) In some cases , children were taken before they could even say goodbye to their parents or loved ones. - This was the case for Frederick Ernest Koe, who had an Anglican minister, and the Mounted Police arrive in the morning at his home in Aklavik in the Northwest Territories, as he stated, “And I didn’t get to say goodbye to my dad or my brother Allan, didn’t get to pet my dogs or nothing” (TRC, 2015, p. 37). - Upon arrival to the schools, children’s clothing they arrived in were taken away, and in some cases were even burned (TRC, 2015, p. 39). Hair was cut short or shaved off. o Rather than calling students by their names, children were assigned a number, and largely referred to by the number they were assigned. o Children were also separated from any other family members which were at the same schools as them. o Older and younger sisters were separated, the same as older and younger brothers. The same rules applied to brothers and sisters—all were forced to remain separated o As stated by the TRC (2015), “Taken from their homes, stripped of their belongings, and separated from their siblings, residential school children lived in a world dominated by fear, loneliness, and lack of affection” (p. 41). At these schools’ children were forbidden to speak in their own languages or engage in their cultural practice s - If caught, children would be punished. - In fact, children faced physical, sexual, psychological, and emotional harms and traumatic abuses in residential schools which have been well documented by survivor’s coast to coast across the country. - Children faced many degrading and traumatizing abuses.

o For instance, at St. Anne’s Indian Residential School in Fort Albany, Ontario, children were forced to eat their own vomit, and there was also a homemade electric chair used to torture children o Edmund Metatawabin was put in this electric chair at St. Anne’s. He explains how when he was seven years old, his feet couldn’t even touch the ground, and how “There was a metal handle on both sides you have to hold on to” (Roman, 2013). He was further cited as stating: "And there were brothers and sisters sitting around in the boys' room. And of course, the boys were all lined up. And somebody turned the power on and you can't let go once the power goes on. You can't let go." "And my feet were flying in front of me, and I heard laughter. The nuns and the brothers were all laughing. Thought it was funny that my feet were flying around, I guess" (Roman, 2013). In some cases , children would run away from the schools to try and escape the abuse. - However, if they were found, they could face severe punishment. o For instance, a very common punishment for running away was hair cutting and head shaving o “Wikew,’ a Sister of Charity at Shubenacadie school in Nova Scotia, would lock runaways into a soap closet, keeping them there for long hours, only to be let out briefly for bread and water o This same staff member would also lash out at children and youth with her fists, or sometimes with an object, and when doing so she would yell “Get out you little savages (or wild Indians, or heathens)” o Insults and other racially charged language was a reality many children faced. - Some school staff would indoctrinate messages of personal and cultural inferiority into children - Sometimes degrading language would be used as common place language directed either at children or said in front of children. - At the United Church’s Edmonton school, a United Church report on issues at the school in the 1960s noted that “…statements like “stupid Indians” said by staff in front of children are common These tortures and abuses experienced by children were at the hands of adults who were supposed to be caring for them and educating them - Miller (1996) points out that many of the people hired to work in these schools had inadequate training and residential schools became a “dumping ground for missionary workers who were a problem for the evangelical bodies” - He further contends that there were “outright sadists” and “people who found it necessary or pleasurable to exert their power over small children by the use of force” (p. 325).

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