1 History
The residential schools system ran for over a hundred years in Canada, starting in formally in the 1870’s and lasting until 1996. Mission schools, industrial homes and hostels dated back even further into the 1830’s. It is estimated that 150,000 indigenous children from different nations, including the Inuit and Métis, went through the residential schools system. These schools were administered and run by religious orders in Canada with monetary sponsorship from the Canadian government. Legislation put in place ensured that it was a legal requirement for all indigenous children to attend these schools; consequences of refusal ranged from a loss of First Nations Status, heavy fines, or even jail time.
“When the school is on the reserve, the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits and training mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly impressed upon myself, as head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”- John A. Macdonald
The goals of this system were primarily concerned with culture and language, students would be required to speak English or French while at residential schools and the punishments for speaking their indigenous languages would have been severe. On their arrival to the school students would be first split by gender, forcibly washed, have their hair cut, have any personal items removed, receive a new uniform and sometimes t a new name if theirs was not in English. Student’s connection to their home community was severed through the long distances between communities and the schools, through the removal of cultural possessions, the removal of language, and through forced separation from siblings they had at the institution.
“I am confident that the Industrial School now about to be established will be a principal feature in the civilization of the Indian mind. The utility of Industrial Schools has long been acknowledged by our neighbours across the line [in the United States], who have had much to do with the Indian. In that country, as in this, it is found difficult to make day schools on reserves a success, because the influence of home associations is stronger than that of the schools, and so long as such a state of things exists I fear that the inherited aversion to labour can never be successfully met. By the children being separated from their parents and properly and regularly instructed not only in the rudiments of the English language, but also in trades and agriculture, so that what is taught may not be readily forgotten, I can but assure myself that a great end will be attained for the permanent and lasting benefit of the Indian.”- E. Dewdney, Indian Commissioner. Dominion of C