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. For more than a century, well over 100,000 Aboriginal children attended the schools, jointly run by Ottawa and four canadian churches. In all, around 20% of natives went to the schools. For generations, the highly underfunded system subjected defenceless children to emotional, physical and sexual abuse. There were children burned with cigarettes, punched at and sexually harassed. The residential school called The Gordon, reserve lies 100 km north of Regina. The school was torn down shortly after it closed in 1996, but it had been no luck in the horrid game of a lawsuit. About 230 plaintiffs received between $25,000 and $150,000 each because of sexual abuse they say they suffered at the school. One who was brought to justice was the school administrator still referred to respectfully as “Mr. Starr” by many of his former students. He worked at Gordon from 1968 to 1984, he had a free 16-year run of pedophilia at Gordon by alluring poor boys into having sex, then buying their silence with money, arcade games and clothes. Also it was claimed that many native workers at the school knew Starr was sexually assaultin... ... middle of paper ... ...e families results in broken homes, repeating the cycle of abuse over generations. Many native people became alcoholics and drug addicts to cope with the trauma. This caused their children to go to foster homes because their parents were not able to take care of them. Residential schools did not think what they were doing was going to effect the natives in the future, therefor, makes them careless. The aftermath of residential schools made native people have nightmares of their past, losing their identity and being abusive themselves. The only good matter that came out of this whole episode was the truth. Justice came to ones that were guilty and the embarrassment to the Canadian government and the churches. In conclusion, residential schools were careless for the ministration staff they put in control to take care of the Aboriginal children.
...ciety. The Canadian government, to assimilate and Europeanize the Indigenous people, implemented the schools. Treaty 6 was not considered when the schools were created. The treaty was broken when the schools were taken off of reserve land and placed in churches. Indigenous children were not allowed to practice their traditions, see their families, or learn about their Indigenous heritage. The following quote from Robertson sums up residential schools perfectly “In essence, the churches were attempting to eliminate the influence of Aboriginal families and communities on the minds of their children.” The Canadian government created the schools to try and force the Indigenous people into a European society. Although the Canadian government has apologized for the brutality and severity of the residential schools, they scars that have been left behind will never fade.
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...
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...
in the process of trying to rid the child of their Indian culture and ethnicity, residential
The most harmful to the Indigenous society was the residential schools because the young Aboriginal children were taken from their homes, told their language and customs were not allowed, unacceptable and there would be consequences if they did. The Indigenous were separated from their families to assimilate the Indigenous into the so called “white culture.” There was a residential school called the Mohawk Institute Residential School in the area of Branford run by the government. It started as a day school for boys on the Six Nations reserve, then accepted female children later. Former students of the schools described suffering sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. There was low quality food, and they cut some Indigenous peoples hair off. This subject always changed the way I saw these schools because they were the most harmful the Indigenous underwent and I could never understand what it felt like or what happened
Living in Canada, there is a long past with the Indigenous people. The relationship between the white and First Nations community is one that is damaged because of our shameful actions in the 1800’s. Unnecessary measures were taken when the Canadian government planned to assimilate the Aboriginal people. Through the Indian Act and Residential schools the government attempted to take away their culture and “kill the Indian in the child.” The Indian Act allowed the government to take control over the people, the residential schools took away their culture and tore apart their families, and now we are left with not only a broken relationship between the First Nations people but they are trying to put back together their lives while still living with a harsh reality of their past.
During the 19th century the Canadian government established residential schools under the claim that Aboriginal culture is hindering them from becoming functional members of society. It was stated that the children will have a better chance of success once they have been Christianised and assimilated into the mainstream Canadian culture. (CBC, 2014) In the film Education as We See It, some Aboriginals were interviewed about their own experiences in residential schools. When examining the general topic of the film, conflict theory is the best paradigm that will assist in understanding the social implications of residential schools. The film can also be illustrated by many sociological concepts such as agents of socialization, class inequality, and language as a cultural realm.
Residential schools were first established in the 1880's to solve Canada's “Indian Problem”. Settlers in Canada thought of the First Nations people as savages, and the goal of the residential schools was to civilize them and integrate them in to white Canadian society. The first operators of residential schools thought of their forced integration as a benefit to native peoples. One of the overseers of residential schools wrote to the Sisters in charge of St. Joseph's Mission at Williams Lake that “It now remains for ...
“To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.
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,
Brave Heart clarifies, “when we talk about historical trauma I am referring to the theory that lifespan trauma is passed down generation to generation” (2011). Brave Heart illustrates that any trauma that is passed down generation to generation is historical trauma and therefore the trauma will continue, unless some interferes to stop the trauma affecting the next generation. The trauma that came out of the boarding schools is the trauma that was caused by Native American children being taken from their loving homes and placed into institutions that all they did was to take every cultural connection they had to their home and forced them to learn the American culture and the language. If that was not enough what the Native American children went through in the boarding schools when they came home was worst. This children felt like they did not belong because they had learn some of the American culture and at the same time they lost their own culture. As a result of the changes it made it hard for them to go back to the way it was before the went to boarding school. Brave Heart mensions, “ boarding school attendance affected entire family systems; individuals and family relationships; family, community and cultural attachments; and interpersonal communication” (2011:287). Brave Heart enlightens us that the damage of boarding schools caused Native American children to feel disconnected to their own community. Many of the children in boarding schools do not know how a family should be or how they should behave with their parents and loved ones. In addition, to the family relationships these children lack parenting skills that are thought throw them see how their parent treat them and their siblings, but for someone who was at a boarding school for the majority of their childhood they did not learn this skills. Brave Heart emphasis “ clinical
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.
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.
The government’s goal of the Residential School System was to remove and isolate the children from their families and their culture in order to assimilate the Indigenous race to the dominant new Canadian culture. What the citizens did not know about was the
Residential Schools & First Nations In Canada , there were Aboriginal residential schools, a network of residential (boarding) schools for indigenous Canadians. Funded by the Canadian government's Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and administered by Christian churches, The act was to remove children from the influence of their families and culture and to completely eliminate it. They were taught the Catholic religion and forced to “believe” in it. The Impact of this abuse has affected generations.