[MUSIC] I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think, as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are unable to stand alone. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question and no Indian Department. [MUSIC] >> Now that we understand the relevance of kinship and relationships that were critical to teaching and learning for Indigenous people, the next part of this lesson will discuss the history of residential schools, the intergenerational impact, and the healing and reconciliation initiatives happening today. The first missionary-operated schools for Indigenous children were established in the early 1600s. But it wasn't until the end of the war of 1812 when residential schools became of keen interest to the government. With the war's conclusion, British forces no longer saw the value of Indians in the fur trade or the need of their military alliances. Almost overnight, the status of Indigenous people went from valued allies to burdens. Worst of all, they were seen as barriers for a new nation to flourish. Strong, sovereign, Indigenous nations were now the Indian problem. To fix this problem, the British government decided to assimilate Indigenous peoples. Targeting Indigenous children who were easier to coerce and manipulate, the government had a mission to kill the Indian in the child. Over the course of 125 years, more than 150,000 children were forcibly removed from their homes and placed into residential schools. The majority were held captive and isolated from their families, and all their kinship ties for the entire time they attended. Others stayed 10 months of the year. Many children never returned home at all. Children as young as 3 years and as old as 17 attended residential schools. Education was a mechanism to colonize and assimilate all Indigenous children, to destroy their cultures, beliefs, languages, and sense of pride. Early European-style schools run by Catholic missionaries during the 1600s were established by new France near Quebec City. However, they had a difficult time recruiting children to these boarding schools from their reluctant parents. Even when they were able to recruit children, the children would run back to their families and communities. This boarding school system failed, and was not re-enacted again until the 1830s, when the New England Company founded the Mohawk Institute, which boarded First Nations students in Brantford, Ontario. Several other boarding schools were opened. Prior to 1883, these boarding schools were church-led initiatives, which received federal government grants, but were not organized or run as a government structured school system. However, in 1883 the government became much more involved when they built and funded three schools. The model for these schools used the framework of industrial schools in the United States. Industrial schools were more similar to manual labor camps than educational institutions, and had aggressive assimilation tactics. In 1892, the federal government entered into a legal agreement with the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church, to run these Indian residential schools, which extended into the western Prairies: from Cross Lake in Manitoba, Prince Albert in Saskatchewan and Blue Quills in Edmonton, Alberta. [MUSIC] >> If anything is to be done with the Indian, we must catch him very young. The children must be kept constantly within the circle of civilized conditions. [MUSIC] >> Residential schools were based on a church operated and state financed system. From the government's perspective, it wanted to guide children out of their current savage state to become more civilized. The mission of the churches, however, was to Christianize the children. So the church educated the children and the government covered the costs. This historical church government relationship was based on the regulation, administration, and control of Indigenous peoples' lives through the education system. This would disintegrate the parenting process, taught children foreign values and customs, and shamed them into rejecting their own culture, traditions, spirituality and language. Residential school pedagogy was based on authority, control and force. As such, in order to survive this harsh environment, children learned to depend on themselves, act in an individualistic manner, and be competitive. These values were in opposition of their parents' and grandparents' cultural pedagogies of discovery and interdependency. The Indian Act in 1876, and the education policy within, solidified the goal of assimilation in federal legislation. The release of the Davin Report in 1879 changed the pace of assimilation and standards of boarding schools. Nicholas Flood Davin's recommendations included the segregation and isolation of Indigenous children from any and every influence of their cultural traditions. [MUSIC] >> The residential school is the principal feature of the policy known as that of aggressive civilization. Indian culture is a contradiction in terms. They are uncivilized. The aim of education is to destroy the Indian. [MUSIC] >> In 1883 Prime Minister John A Macdonald took action on these recommendations to speed up the process of assimilation. Boarding schools were then set far from students' communities to prevent any interactions and interference from their families. This strategy would eliminate any trace that the children had of their former lives. Later, in 1920, an amendment in the Indian Act made it mandatory for all Indian children from the age of 7 to 15 to attend residential schools. Residential schools were primarily established for all First Nations, Métis and Inuit children who were transported far away from their communities. The parents who refused to send their children to residential schools were prosecuted under the truancy provisions of the Indian Act. Punishments included fines and even imprisonment. >> Indian children lived in fear and isolation. And from the stories of those who survived, we understand that the effects of the psychological trauma of the residential school experience was often permanently damaging. But what of the physical state of the children in residential schools? What of the ones who did not survive residential schools, the ones who never returned to their families? In 1907, Dr. Peter Bryce, medical inspector for the Department of Indian Affairs, visited 35 Western Canadian residential schools to investigate their sanitary conditions. The horrific conditions Bryce discovered made national headlines. From an article in the newspaper, Saturday Night: Indian residential schools should compel the attention of Parliament. Indian boys and girls are dying like flies in these situations or shortly after leaving them. Even war seldom shows as large as a percentage of fatalities as does the education system we have imposed on our Indian wards. Bryce found that unsanitary conditions, including the lack of ventilation and overcrowding, encouraged the spread and contamination of tuberculosis. Bryce also sent out surveys to the 35 schools. The 15 surveys he received back revealed grave statistics. In stark black and white numbers, the survey showed that of the 1,537 children in the 15 schools, 368, or 24%, died of tuberculosis. However, when Bryce analyzed the data further, he found, in most circumstances, that the death rate increased the longer the school was open. For instance, Old Sun Residential School opened in 1890. 75% of Old Sun Residential School students died during or shortly after being discharged. Keeseehousee Residential School opened in 1905 and Bryce's investigation revealed that one student died. Analyzing the data this way, Bryce projected that the death rates stemming from residential schools were closer to 42%, much higher than originally thought. This meant that for every 100 children that attended residential school, only 58 would live to see their families again. Bryce's conclusive results from the investigation garnered support from local officials, but did not compel the government to launch a full investigation. When his report was ignored by the Department of Indian Affairs, he published his own book, The Story of a National Crime, and described how the churches, with government approval, deliberately ignored the health issues stemming from unsanitary conditions. In 1922, the living standards Indigenous children endured were labeled by the medical community as a national crime. Survivor accounts are chilling, and even difficult to comprehend. These narratives recite experiences of sexual assault, beatings, poisonings, electric shock, starvation, freezing, and medical experimentation. Survivors have verified that at least one school used an electric chair to punish students. St. Anne's Catholic Residential School, open from 1904 to 1973, had an electric chair in the basement until the school was closed. Overall, the lack of federal funding for housing, food, and clothing, the assimilationist policies, along with the unregulated and unchecked behaviour of the religious organizations in charge, created a system of severe abuse and neglect. [MUSIC]
