Many indigenous people across Canada have been affected by the era of Indian Residential School. It is one of our darkest history, and not many knew about it until the truth and reconciliation came to be. The TRC is the component of the settlement of the Indian residential school. Its mandate was to inform all Canadians about what happened in Indian Residential Schools (IRS). The Commission has documented the truth of survivors, families, communities and anyone personally affected by this traumatic experience. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s goal was to help the former students of the IRS, but also to educate others about the traumatic events that have occurred at these boarding schools. This was not any form of revenge but rather …show more content…
Over 130 schools were located across the country. These boarding schools were set up to eradicate the Indian in the child. During this Era, many of the First Nations, Metis, Inuit children were placed in these boarding schools, often against their parents’ wishes. Many of these children were severely punished if they spoke their language and practiced their own culture. The residential school system was not confirmed until the Indian Act was passed in 1876, which gave the federal government the authority and responsibility of educating (and assimilating) Indigenous People in Canada. In 1894 the Indian Act was modified, making attendance at residential school mandatory. While some of the educators were dedicated, the experience was traumatic for many Indigenous children, who were removed from their families and exposed to harsh discipline, being banned to practice their culture and beliefs, and even endured physical and sexual abuse. In 1969 the government decided to end its association with the churches, and indigenous children were gradually combined into the provincial school systems. The last residential school did not close until 1996. It is estimated that 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools from the 1880s to 1990s, and it was guessed that 80-90,000 survivors would be affected by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. The ongoing impact of …show more content…
Their cases led to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, it was known to be the largest class-action lawsuit recorded in Canadian History. The agreement was aimed for the beginning of repairing the harm caused by residential schools. Aside from granting compensation to former survivors, the accommodation called for the inauguration of The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada with an account of $60-million over five years. Indigenous communities, governments, and church organizations have long struggled to heal the wounds caused by the residential school system. From the 1980s on, former students begun legal campaigns to push the government and churches to admit their wrongs of the abuses in the system, and to implement some compensation. In 1998 the federal government announced a Statement of Reconciliation that acknowledged the abuses suffered by former students, and settled the multi-million-dollar fund that was put into the Aboriginal Healing
Some of the residential school students were so scarred from the way they were treated in the schools, that they even started putting the same abuse that they had received in the schools, onto their own children. The abuse has left the students with mental trauma and many of the students were unable to erase the memories of abuse from their minds. Many the survivors of the Canadian Residential Schools have been inflicting their children and spouses with physical abuse similar to the abuse that they had received previously in the Residential Schools. In an article talking about the victimization of aboriginals they stated, “Males who had experienced abuse as children were found to be at a significantly high risk to repeat the cycle of violence with future spouses” (Scrim as cited in McGillivray and Comaskey 1996). This sad cycle shows that even though the last Residential School closed in the late 1990’s, the experiences that students had during their time is still negatively affecting their lives today. Many of the former students of the Canadian Residential Schools have turned to substance abuse in hopes to try and cope with their struggling mental health. It is shocking to see that a school this harsh could have such long lasting impacts on its students. In an article related to helping people understand the trauma
Though the film mentioned the impact that residential schools had and still has on the aboriginal people, I felt that this issue needed to be stressed further because the legacy of the schools is still extremely prominent in aboriginal communities today. The film refers to the fact that residential schools harmed the aboriginal people because they were not able to learn their culture, which has resulted in the formation of internalized oppression within in the group. “The...
This again shows the traumatic effects of residential schools and of cultural, psychological, and emotional upheaval caused by the intolerance and mistreatment of Aboriginals in Canada. Settlers not only displaced Aboriginal people from their land and their homes, but they also experienced emotional trauma and cultural displacement.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the government began abolishing the compulsory residential school education among Aboriginal people. The government believed that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were integrated into the public school system (Hanson). However, residential schools were later deemed inappropriate because not only were the children taken away from their culture, their families and their people, but the majority of students were abus...
Aboriginal people in Canada are the native peoples in North America within the boundaries of present-day Canada. In the 1880’s there was a start of residential schools which took Aboriginal kids from their family to schools to learn the Roman Catholics way of culture and not their own. In residential schools Aboriginal languages were forbidden in most operations of the school, Aboriginal ways were abolished and the Euro-Canadian manner was held out as superior. Aboriginal’s residential schools are careless, there were mental and physical abuse, Aboriginals losing their culture and the after effects of residential schools.
In the late 1800s, the United States proposed an educational experiment that the government hoped would change the traditions and customs of Native Americans. Special schools were created all over the United States with the intention of "civilizing" Native youth. This paper will explore the history and conditions of Native American boarding schools and why they were ultimately unsuccessful.
For decades First Nations people1 faced abuse in Canada's residential school system. Native children had their culture and families torn away from them in the name of solving the perceived “Indian Problem” in Canada. These children faced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of residential school supervisors and teachers. Since the fazing out of residential schools in the 1960's the survivors of residential schools and their communities have faced ongoing issues of substance addiction, suicide, and sexual abuse.2 These problems are brought on by the abuse that survivors faced in residential schools. The government of Canada has established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to address these issues but it has been largely ineffective. Though the Government of Canada has made adequate efforts towards monetary reparations for the survivors of residential schools, it has failed to provide a means to remedy the ongoing problems of alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse, and suicide in the communities of residential school survivors.3
The Indian Residential schools and the assimilating of First Nations people are more than a dark spot in Canada’s history. It was a time of racist leaders, bigoted white men who saw no point in working towards a lasting relationship with ingenious people. Recognition of these past mistakes, denunciation, and prevention steps must be taking intensively. They must be held to the same standard that we hold our current government to today. Without that standard, there is no moving forward. There is no bright future for Canada if we allow these injustices to be swept aside, leaving room for similar mistakes to be made again. We must apply our standards whatever century it was, is, or will be to rebuild trust between peoples, to never allow the abuse to be repeated, and to become the great nation we dream ourselves to be,
Despite the overwhelming use in political rhetoric, it is difficult to establish the Government of Canada’s precise definition of reconciliation. It is equally unclear as to what reconciliation entails substantively— as either a process or an outcome —in reconceiving the colonial relationship between Indigenous peoples, Settlers, and the Canadian government. For my Reconciliation Essay, I intend to problematize the very term of reconciliation as used in Canadian politics by drawing primarily on its use in the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s 2008 Residential Schools Apology. I will argue that the concept reconciliation as exercised in the political discourse of federal government is neither a meaningful gesture, nor consistent with Indigenous conceptions of same term. In fact, reconciliation as presented by the Government of Canada serves only as a tool to recolonize Indigenous peoples, in that its connotations leave the colonial relationship largely
...rtwine between education and politics. Unlike public schools during the same period which were separate and disconnected from federal power, Indian schools were a site where U.S. policy directly influenced the students. Under rule by the B.I.A., Indian schools were alike in architecture and landscaping, and all structured military-style regime (Student Body Assembled). They all also had a common curriculum which involved English, farming and manual trades for men and domestic work for women. The goal of the boarding schools thus went far beyond industrial training, gender role socialization and even the creation of capitalist desires. Re-socialization of Native Americans was to be accomplished by institutions: removal of personal possessions, loss of control over their own schedule, uniforms, haircuts and the inability to escape from organizational rules and policy.
David Garneau’s article on “Imaginary Spaces of Conciliation and Reconciliation” offers a refreshing outlook on the term and implantation of reconciliation in post-colonial culture. He argues that conciliation would evoke an individual transformation of the settler if Aboriginal history was accepted as independent yet in union with the history of Canada. Garneau’s vison of conciliation is centered on this idea of an imaginary space between the settlers and Aboriginals and, within this space, settlers are separated from Aboriginals to naturally reflect on the Aboriginal’s experiences of colonialism. However, the implications of this space also created a void in society because the residential schools are the imaginary spaces in which settlers are reconciling. The direction of Garneau’s article is insightful to understanding how reconciliation has failed in countries and how it’s practice, in accordance with religious connotations, has created an underlying tone of “charity” and “pardon” opposed to restorative justice (35).
The over-representation of Aboriginal children in the Canadian Child Welfare system is a growing and multifaceted issue rooted in a pervasive history of racism and colonization in Canada. Residential schools were established with the intent to force assimilation of Aboriginal people in Canada into European-Canadian society (Reimer, 2010, p. 22). Many Aboriginal children’s lives have been changed adversely by the development of residential schools, even for those who did not attend them. It is estimated that Aboriginal children “are 6-8 times more likely to be placed in foster care than non-Aboriginal children (Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel, 2010, p. 2).” Reports have also indicated that First Nations registered Indian children make up the largest proportion of Aboriginal children entering child welfare care across Canada (Saskatchewan Child Welfare Review Panel, p. 2). Consequently, this has negatively impacted Aboriginal communities experience of and relationship with child welfare services across the country. It is visible that the over-representation of Aboriginal children in the child welfare system in Canada lies in the impact of the Canadian policy for Indian residential schools, which will be described throughout this paper.
Miller, J.R.. "Residential Schools". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Toronto: Historica Canada, 2012. Web. 11 Oct 2012.
The creation of the Residential Schools is now looked upon to be a regretful part of Canada’s past. The objective: to assimilate and to isolate First Nations and Aboriginal children so that they could be educated and integrated into Canadian society. However, under the image of morality, present day society views this assimilation as a deliberate form of cultural genocide. From the first school built in 1830 to the last one closed in 1996, Residential Schools were mandatory for First Nations or Aboriginal children and it was illegal for such children to attend any other educational institution. If there was any disobedience on the part of the parents, there would be monetary fines or in the worst case scenario, trouble with Indian Affairs.
Justice has began to commence for many of Canada’s Indigenous people now that considerably one of our Nation’s darkest secrets has been spilled. The Residential School system was a collection of 132 church-run, government-funded boarding schools that was legally required for all Indigenous Canadian children. Canadian Residential Schools ran up until 1996 and, for decades, the secrets from within the walls of the institutions have been hidden. But now, the truth has finally come to light.