Residential schools were government funded, Church run schools, that were established for the purpose of transforming indigenous children into Euro-Canadians. Residential schools were both to teach the children but also convert them into the new Canadian society. The Mohawk institute in Brantford, Ontario was the first boarding school to be opened and it was opened in 1831. There were about 139 recognized residential schools that were open all around Canada between 1831- 1997: that's not including the schools that were not government funded. An estimated 150,000 Indegounous, Metis ,and Inut children were forced into attending Residential schools, and during that time an estimated 6,000 kids died (but the files are incomplete so there could be more or less deaths). Most of the deaths happened from sickness or malnutrience.
The Sixties Scoop
The “Sixties Scoop'' refers to the 1960’s when the government removed Indigenous children from their families of birth, homes and communities without parental or band consent to go to a Residential school or to a non-indigenous family. From the 1960’s to 1980’s the government would “scoop” newborns and infants and rehome them to a non-Indigenous family, calling this the “Indigenous child welfare”. Between 1960 and 1990 the Indigenous Affairs implies that about 20,000 kids were taken into provincial care. Finally, in 1985, adoption laws and “justice Edwin Kimelman’s No Quiet Place” led to change where before kids could be given to non-indigenous families, they'd be given to extended family and/or community families. As of the 2016 census 52.2 percent of Canada's foster care are indegounous kids, but they aren't being “scooped” anymore.
Daily Life at Residential schools
Residential schools were split up by boys and girls. Girls were responsible for housekeeping such as cooking,cleaning, sewing and laundry, where the boys were responsible for more hands-on activity such as carpentry, construction , farming ,and maintenance. Half the day consisted of school and the other half for chores and a little bit of recreational play. Throughout the whole day kids were not allowed to speak their traditional languages or perform any traditional dances/activities,and if they did there would be serious punishment. The meals were also very limited. The meals consisted of:Oatmeal, porridge and bread for breakfast;Soup,meat,fish,bread and dessert for dinner [lunch]; and for supper the working kids would receive meat and vegetables when the rest received bread. Due to all the malnutrition in Residential schools, it was one of the biggest things that killed kids at the schools.
Orange Shirt Day
September 30th is Orange Shirt day all over Canada. The annual Orange Shirt day opens the topic to everyone about Residential schools. The day allows the discussion about the effects of residential schools, the legacies left behind by people who didn't make it out; a day for the survivors to be reassured that they matter.
The reasoning of Orange Shirt day is that in 1973 a 6 year old girl by the name of Phyllis webstat went to her first day of residential school wearing a new orange shirt that her grandma was able to get her (they didn't have much money), but when she got to the school she was stripped of everything including the new orange shirt. In 2013 a vision was started to show justice for Phyllis and every indigenous child that was taken away from their families and put into residential schools. September 30th was chosen as the day because it was the time of year the children were taken to go to residential schools; it is a great opportunity to set a tone for anti-racism and anti-bullying for the new school years.
Abuse, Sexual assault and Death at Residential schools
At Residential schools many students experienced abuse. Impatience and correction were the main reasoning behind the excessive abuse. Kids were physically abused and in some cases the kids were heavily abused, chained up or confined. Many students were even sexually abused. A survivor named Gordon had a few things to say about the sexual abuse: “During the day, we had normal classes, we had good playground, everything looked normal, but at night, these animals came out and abused us all the time," Recently 215 children were found buried on residential school properties. For other communities that was a big surprise, but for the indigenous community they were not surprised about all the dead bodies found. For years the indigenous community were reporting missing kids and family members but no one did anything about it. Now that the government is finding the bodies of the children they are starting to realize that these missing cases were/are actually real.
Recent apology
Prime minister Justin Trudeau recently apologized for residential schools, “Specifically to the members of the Cowessess community and Treaty Four communities, we are sorry. It was something that we cannot undo in the past, but we can pledge ourselves every day to fix in the present and into the future,” . Now, some differ on if that was a proper apology for everything that happened, but what's more important than a forced apology is to mourn,remember,pay your respects to all the families that saw their kids killed, your respectsto kids that were abused,to kids that were raped or sexually assaulted and to every kid that was ripped out of their homes to go to these Residential schools. So on September 30th it is a day to remember that “Every child matters”.
This was so powerful, Kaitlin. I particularly liked that you included the statistics of the proportion of indigenous children in the foster care system today because it highlights that we still have so far to go and many children are still being taken from their families.