Canadian Indian residential school system

The residential school system was set up by the Government of Canada in the late nineteenth century to educate Indigenous children and assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. These schools were operated by the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Churches. The schools took children by force from their families to live in settings where they were not permitted to speak Indigenous languages or acknowledge their culture or history. Residential school survivors have described physical, emotional, sexual, and psychological abuse by school staff.

There were several investigations of residential schools before the final school closed in 1996. In 1907, a government medical inspector, Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce, criticized the living conditions at residential schools. In 1958, regional inspectors from the Department of Indian Affairs recommended closing residential schools. The schools began to close, but from the 1960s through the 1980s child welfare agencies engaged in large-scale efforts to take Indigenous children from their families in what became known as the Sixties Scoop. In 1991, the federal government initiated the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which investigated the residential school system and its impacts on Indigenous communities.

Survivors of the residential school system experienced long-term effects that impacted Indigenous family life, culture, and language. These events contributed to educational, economic, social, and health disparities between Indigenous communities and mainstream Canadian society. In the 1980s, survivors demanded justice for the treatment that they experienced in the residential school system. They reached a landmark settlement in May 2006 with the federal government and churches to compensate survivors. The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement created a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to document the history and effects of Canada’s residential school system.

The human costs of the residential school system received mainstream media attention in 2021, when First Nations searchers discovered hundreds of unmarked mass graves at the Kamloops and Marieval residential school sites. At the time of the discoveries, only nine of the ninety-four TRC calls to action had been fully implemented. The federal government lowered flags and declared that September 30 would be the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Overview

The first Canadian residential school was the Mohawk Residential School established in Brantford, Ontario, in 1831. In the 1860s, the federal government began building day schools for Indigenous children operated by church groups. Children in these schools continued to live at home. Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, hired Nicholas Flood Davin to write a report about the US system of industrial schools for Indigenous children. Davin’s 1879 report recommended Canadian boarding schools for Indigenous children to mirror the “aggressive civilization” of US institutions. In 1883, the residential school system was created by the federal government and administered by the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Churches.

Canadian residential schools were located primarily in western provinces, northwest Ontario, and northern Québec. Most children reported the schools provided low-quality food; poorly fitting, threadbare, and inadequate clothing for winter months. Disease and death from malnutrition, tuberculosis, and influenza were commonplace, and Indigenous cultures were routinely criticized and mocked. In 1907, Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce, a government medical inspector, exposed a high mortality rate for Indigenous children in residential schools. Despite Bryce’s report, the federal government mandated residential school attendance for all Indigenous teenage children in 1920. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, over three thousand children died in the residential schools.

Resistance and protests against the schools began in the 1940s, with the schools being taken over by the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, which then ended any religious involvement. Eventually, there were 140 federally run residential schools in Canada. In 1958, federal government inspectors recommended the abolition of residential schools. The movement away from residential schools in the late 1950s marked the Government of Canada’s new approach to the assimilation of Indigenous children. In the following decade, the federal government empowered provincial child-welfare systems to remove Indigenous children from their families. The agencies then had White families adopt the children in an effort to assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. In 1970, fifty-six residential schools were still operating, but by 1980, there were only sixteen schools.

The 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples exposed the impacts of the residential school system on Indigenous communities. Children were removed from their parents, and siblings were not allowed to speak to each other. Girls were trained to be domestic servants, and boys were taught manual skills such as carpentry and farming. Beatings and strappings were common, as well as sexual and psychological abuse. There was overcrowding, poor food, and inadequate health care. In 1996, Canada’s last residential school, the Gordon Reserve Residential School in Saskatchewan, was closed.

Survivors of residential schools had to deal with their own personal trauma as well as the loss of their families, culture, and language. In the late 1980s, residential school survivors turned to the legal system for accountability. Initially, there were fewer than fifty convictions from 38,000 claims of physical and sexual abuse. In 2002, residential school survivors filed a class-action suit against the federal government and churches seeking compensation. In 2006, litigants signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA), a settlement that established a $1.9 billion fund for survivors—the largest class-action settlement in Canadian history—and created the TRC. It also provided for a Common Experience Payment for former residential school students, a processing system for claims of sexual or physical abuse, support and funds for health programs, and activities to commemorate surviving students, their families, and their communities. The Anglican, United, and Presbyterian Churches paid the reparations agreed to in the settlement. However, the Catholic Church did not, and questions were raised about the way that the settlement money was spent. On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized on behalf of Canada’s government for the residential school system and acknowledged the impacts of this system on Indigenous peoples.

In 2015, the TRC estimated that from 1883 to 1996, 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their homes and forced to give up their language, culture, and history. In that period, between five and ten thousand Indigenous children died. In the TRC’s Final Report, issued at the end of 2015, the commission called the residential school system an example of cultural genocide and noted that the harmful impacts of these schools had affected generations of Indigenous peoples. The TRC’s ninety-four calls to action included looking for burial sites of missing residential school children and resolving outstanding compensation issues. In 2019, the Canadian Human Rights tribunal ruled that the federal government had discriminated against Indigenous children on reserves by not adequately funding child and family services; compensation was awarded but never paid.

In May 2021, the unmarked graves of 215 residential school students were discovered at the Kamloops Residential School site in British Columbia, and in June 2021, 751 unmarked graves were discovered at Marieval Residential School in Saskatchewan. These discoveries reverberated across Canada and highlighted the fact that only nine of the ninety-four calls to action of the TRC had been implemented. Flags were lowered, and memorials were placed in public places and on the steps of churches. Indigenous groups and other activist groups called on Canadians to cancel celebrations of Canada Day on July 1, 2021. Although individual citizens still celebrated Canada Day, business-sponsored and governmental celebrations were cancelled or substantially scaled back in recognition of the discoveries of unmarked graves at residential schools.

On September 29, 2021, just days after an official apology was issued by the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, a judicial review ruled that the federal government must pay compensation to Indigenous communities. In 2022, further investigations of former residential school sites had uncovered evidence of many more unmarked graves. In May, it was announced that a papal visit to Canada, including to some residential school sites, would take place in July. Starting early on in his visit, Pope Francis apologized for the "evil" committed against Indigenous peoples by Christians, as well as for the lasting cultural and psychological damage caused by the support of the residential school system and assimilation policies.

To aid in the management of unmarked burial sites related to the residential school system, the federal government appointed an interlocutor to oversee any decisions made and practices or laws pursued to preserve and protect the sites. In October 2022, the Canadian government officially recogized the Indian Residential School System as genocide.

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Bibliography

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