Canadian Indian Residential School System - History

History

In the 20th century, the Canadian Indian residential school system was intended to assimilate the children of the Aboriginal peoples in Canada 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 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. 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 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.

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, Aboriginal leaders wanted these acts overturned.

Specific laws also linked the apparatus of the residential schools to the compulsory sterilization of students in 1928 in Alberta and in 1933 in British Columbia. Although some academic articles currently offer rough estimates of the numbers of sterilizations the review of archival documents that would produce more specific numbers is incomplete and ongoing.

Similarly, as of 2011, the Canadian government's own inquiry is uncertain as to the total number of student deaths: in 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." With no source or explanation, the same article suggests the total number of deaths to be "in the hundreds"; many official statements avoid offering any estimate, e.g., in a legal report reviewing an array credible sources, the Canadian Bar Association simply concludes that "Student deaths were not uncommon". Meanwhile, in the absence of other evidence, unofficial sources have extrapolated very rough estimates in excess of 50,000 deaths, using epidemiology from a single medical doctor's report (discussed further below, under mortality rates), and applying it to the whole country. While neither estimate can be accurate, both extremes demonstrate the absence of reliable numbers circa 2011-2012.

The system was designed as an immersion program: 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 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. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and a lack of medical care led to high rates of tuberculosis, 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 children to Christianity and to "civilize them". 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 lifestyles after graduation. For graduates to receive individual allotments of farmland, however, would require changes in the communal reserve system, 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. 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 commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin 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 or French would be learned and their own languages forgotten. 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.

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. The last residential school, Gordon Residential School, run by the Canadian Government was closed in 1996. White Calf Collegiate, was closed in 1998, 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 officials, and older students residing along with teachers. Several prominent court cases led to large monetary payments from the federal government and churches to former students of residential schools. A settlement offered to former students was announced on September 19, 2007.