I've followed along without commenting until this post. Everyone is aware that world wars, epidemics, poverty and a global depression affected everyone during this time period.
I walked through my village cemetery a couple of years ago to see the sheer impact the Spanish flu had on the population. Whole families wiped out within weeks. And in a village of 1000 people on Remembrance Day the number of flags that identified veterans of two world wars as well as the Korean War.
The point is, I could view those deaths because they have all been acknowledged with death certificates. They were known and their deaths acknowledged by family and friends. A place of remembrance marked their passing with loving tributes.
Where is the acknowledgement of these deaths? Who advised the families that their children had died? Were they even told that their children were no longer alive? They weren't acknowledged because they were deemed nothing more than a failure of the plan to "beat the Indian out of them". Please don't suggest that there is a rational reason for rubbing out of the existence of these children, regardless how they died.
John A MacDonald, Canada's first Prime Minister made this statement when he introduced the Indian Residential Schools and the rationale behind their locations. “When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with his parents who are savages; he is surrounded by savages … He is simply a savage who can read and write,” Macdonald told the House of Commons.
Canada's Food Guides were created by experimenting on Indigenous kids in these residential schools. Why them? Because they were expendable.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved...us-children-shaped-nutrition-policy-1.5989785
One of WS recently identified John Doe's 'Septic Sam' has been identified as a FN individual who along with his brother and sister were part of the 60s Scoop. He entered the residential school system after the experiments ended but his autopsy still showed he had evidence of malnutrition. While you and I may have been listening to the Beach boys or the Beatles these kids were removed from their homes without ever having contact with their parents for years. And many never returned home.
It's disingenuous to suggest there are rational reasons why these children have no names. There is nothing rational about systemic racism.