Begun in the 1870's and persisting until the 1970's, the Canadian Residential School System was supposedly intended to "get rid of the Native problem" by beginning a policy of assimilation that would ultimately result in the loss of Aboriginal language, culture and economy. What it turned out to be, in essence, was Cultural Genocide.
In the early years, children in the care of the schools were often abused and neglected. My husband always told me that no one has ever truly documented how many children who attended residential school died as a result of disease, neglect, physical abuse -- or even from broken hearts. Some children escaped and died trying to get home to their parents. Young girls were raped and gave birth to babies that either died at birth or allowed to die and then were buried in unmarked graves. There were stories told by my husband's people of tearing down the old school buildings and finding tiny skeletons hidden in the walls or under the foundations. There was even a time when young native girls at some schools were sterilized so they could not give birth to more "savages."
In later years, the schools were cleaned up and the less abuse went on. Eventually the Residential School System was transformed into a social welfare system where Aboriginal people are still considered to be like "wards of the state."
There have been many books written about it and the history of Canada's subjugation and marginalization of its Indigenous Peoples-- here are some titles from my personal library:
A National Crime -- by John S. Milloy
No End of Grief: Indian Residential Schools in Canada -- by Agnes Grant
Indian Residential Schools: The Nuu-Chah-nulth Experience -- Report of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council
Accounting for Genocide: Canada's Beurocratic Assault on Aboriginal People -- Dean Neu & Richard Therrien
Thanks for listening -- my late husband would be happy that I shared this information with people of "open minds and hearts."
