RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL LEGACY Green text is important! WEEED

Where Were They? Residential Schools were located all across Canada. In total there were 130 schools located across Canada.

“The White Man’s Burden.”  The first residential school was set up in the 1890s by the missionaries.  They wanted to Christianize and educate the natives, and get them to read the bible.  The government helped support the residential school system as far back as  In 1856, the first Indian Act was enacted which gave the Federal government the authority to the Minister of the Department of Indian Affairs to control Indian Education.

Indian Act 1867  Policy of assimilation: make them as ‘white’ as possible  Created residential schools  Were allowed to vote ONLY IF they gave up their aboriginal status  “aggressive civilization”

The Schools  The schools were located in almost every province in Canada. Except for PEI, New Brunswick and Newfoundland.  There were 130 of them.  The Government Of Canada took over the residential schools officially on April 1, 1941, with the help of the churches.  Most schools closed by the mid 1970s.  The last school closed in 1996.

The strategy: Reprogram the children “They are in general very lazy, even more so than the Negroes, who have a great heat as their excuse; but the Indians living in the most healthy climate in the world, in a bracing air, have only neglected their mental as well as their bodily powers, and a good discipline is wanted to change them in a lapse of time to really useful working people.“ (Mme. Capelle, Superintendent of an all-girls' school, 1877, quoted in Barman, Hebra, & McCaskill, 1986 p. 78 )

Establishing Mind Control 1.You are evil, sinful 2.Your soul needs the Church’s salvation 3.You must obey without question, your own reasoning is faulty and cannot be trusted

Attending The Schools  The Indian Act stated it was mandatory for status Indians to attend residential school.  Children as young as 6 would be removed from their families to attend school.  They would have to stay there for 10 months every year.  In some cases, the children did not get to go home for the summer and had to stay at the school for the whole school year.

Residential school life

They Could Not…  Speaking their own languages was forbidden.  They could not practice any of their cultural activities.  They could not speak to other family members.  If they did any of these things they would get physically punished.

When They Arrived…  The students were only given one set of school clothes and one set of work clothes.  The students were assigned daily chores.  They were forced to get their hair cut very short, even for girls.  The children got their names changed and they had to go by the names the staff gave them.

"At the mission, the truck backed-up and off we went. Right away, boys were separated from girls. We were lined up, sat on chairs, and had our long, beautiful braided hair chopped off. We were thrown into the shower, then had DDT sprinkled all over. It stunk. They gave me a number 79. My name was gone. I was only a number now. We all had the same little bundle of clothing, pinafores, back clothes, socks. You couldn't tell one kid from the other; they transformed individuals into a group. I don't understand how my Shuswap language was turned into English in just one day.“ (Elder, Agnes Snow, 1999)

What Is The Indian Act?  The Indian Act of Canada is an act that establishes the rights of registered First Nations and of their bands.  The act is administrated from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Chronology from Assembly of First Nations Webpage: Gradual Civilization Act passed to assimilate Indians Period of assimilation where the clear objective of both missionaries and government was to assimilate Aboriginal children into the lower fringes of mainstream society Compulsory attendance for all children ages 7-15 years. Children were forcibly taken from their families by priests, Indian agents and police officers There were 80 residential schools operating in Canada – There were 72 residential schools with 9,368 students – There were 12 residential schools with 1,899 students. 1980’s - Residential School students began disclosing sexual and other forms of abuse at residential schools The last federally run residential school, the Gordon Residential School, closes in Saskatchewan.

A Typical Day At Residential School  5:30 A.M: The boys got up to do morning chores such as milking cows, feeding animals.  6:00A.M: Everyone else got up and washed.  Breakfast: A hard porridge, made the night before with a piece of bread and milk.  Morning cleaning chores  Classes: 1 hour Religious studies, 2 hours academic studies.  Lunch: mused potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage and meat chunks.  Chores and work time  (cont’d)

A Typical Day (Continued)  Study hour  Supper  Clean up  Recreation time  Prayers  Bed time

Milestones in Residential School History  "By % of Treaty Indian children between the ages of 7 and 16 were enrolled in residential schools  50% of the children who passed through the residential schools did not survive to adulthood (Census Canada, 1941)  In 1948 children were allowed to spend Christmas with their parents

Pelican Lake Day School Sioux Lookout Ontario Opened: 1911 Closed: 1973

Residential Schools All Of The Beds Were Very Close Together

Classrooms

These Images Show A Young Boy Before And After Attending Residential School.

The Girls Chores The Girls Were Expected To Sew

The Boys Chores The Boys Had To Do Chores Such As Farming

Some Children Never Returned Home  Some of the children ran away and never returned.  When there was a virus going around a lot of children caught it because of the poor living conditions. This is a picture of a girl who never returned home. She passed away when cholera struck her school in 1907.

The Survivors  There are about survivors left in Canada  Each year this number decreases as a lot of them are in their late 70’s  A lot of them missed their families and wanted to go home  Some even tried to run away, most were found and returned to school  Some suffered physical abuse and for others mental abuse  Some survivors tell horrid stories such as staff physically and sexually abusing them

When They Grew Up…  When the survivors grew up and had their own families, many of them did not know how to parent for their own families  They were not taught any of this while at school  The school did not show love to the children, and with this some of the survivors do not know how to show love towards their families.  Many of the survivors have problems with drugs, alcohol, anger, depression and loss of culture and language.

Effects of residential school abuse on survivors Sample of 127 British Columbia survivor-litigants:  Ninety percent experienced sexual abuse at residential school  3/4 of the respondents reported that they had abused alcohol  Half of the subjects reported that they had a criminal record  Thirty one percent reported that they had assaulted police officers (Corrado & Cohen, 2003)

Effects of residential school abuse on survivors Only two of the participants did not suffer from at least one diagnosable mental disorder. The most common mental disorders were:  PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) (64.2%)  Substance Abuse Disorder (26.3%)  Major Depression (21.1%)  Dysthymic Disorder (20%)  Anxiety Disorder (7.4%)  Borderline Personality Disorder (7.4%)  Residential School Syndrome (6.3%)

Redress  In 2008, The Canadian Government, Assembly of First Nations and the Churches have agreed to sign a “Agreement in Principal” to financially apologize to the survivors.  The payment the survivors get ($1.9 billion in total) is based on how many years they attended school.  Many survivors are still looking for healing while others do not like to talk about their experiences at residential school.  The payments the survivors get, does not erase the wrong- doing that the federal government and churches did.

Case Vignette: Daniel Nippi  Abused sexually by two nuns, a priest and an older youth; also suffered physical beatings  Spent the majority of his time from age 16 to 40 in prison for alcohol related offenses, assault and sexual assault  Lost his first family including estrangement from his children  Turned to Native spirituality following the religious teachings of Saulteaux elders, credits this with saving his life