Aboriginal Residential Schools in Canada the History of Human Rights

¶ … History Of Human Rights: Aboriginal Residential Schools in Canada

Aboriginal Residential Schools in Canada: The History of Human Rights

Native residential schools began in the 17th century in New France before spreading to Upper Canada later on in the 18th century. Their main aim was to educate Aboriginal children and assimilate them into the Canadian culture. The schools were, however, faced with massive reports of human rights violations. This text describes those atrocities with the aim of showing why there is need for the Canadian Museum for Human Rights to recognize the same as genocide.

The History of Human Rights: Aboriginal Residential Schools in Canada

The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recently-released report accuses the country's government of committing 'cultural genocide' against some 154,000 Aboriginal children attending residential schools in the country between 1874 and 1996.[footnoteRef:2] The report details that the Canadian government indicted these children into the residential school system, where they were separated from their Aboriginal identity, and subjected to sexual, emotional and physical abuse by those charged with the role of looking after them.[footnoteRef:3] It is estimated that approximately 6,000 children died as a result of human rights violations in these schools. The schools were overcrowded, and children underfed, with most falling vulnerable to communicable diseases such as influenza and tuberculosis.[footnoteRef:4] This didactic describes the history of the residential school system in Canada, with the aim of demonstrating why the atrocities committed against Aboriginal children in native residential schools then ought to be recognized as genocide. It also compares these descriptions to the exhibits presented in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights (CMHR) regarding the issue to determine whether the museum succeeds or fails in its interpretation of the event in question. [2: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, " Honoring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation of Canada, " Commission of Truth and Reconciliation of Canada, accessed November 29, 2015 from http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Honouring_the_Truth_Reconciling_for_the_Future_July_23_2015.pdf, 1] [3: Ibid., 2] [4: Ibid.,3]

What is a Residential School?

Residential schools were religious schools established and sponsored by the Canadian government to assimilate Aboriginal children into the Euro-Canadian way of life.[footnoteRef:5] The first of these schools were established in New France in the 17th century; however, the term is usually used to refer to those established after 1880.[footnoteRef:6] The Canadian government believed that it was its role to educate and care for the indigenous populations.[footnoteRef:7] According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, the government believed that the best way to achieve this was by separating Aboriginal children from their indigenous cultures and according them opportunities to adopt Canadian customs and Christianity, and at the same time learn English.[footnoteRef:8] Multiple sources have, however, questioned the ideology that the residential school system was meant to educate Aboriginal children -- this group of researchers argue that the overriding goal of such schools was to erase the cultural identity of Aboriginal children and disrupt any links that connected them to their cultural heritage.[footnoteRef:9] Ideally, these children would pass the newly-learnt values to the rest of society, and with time, indigenous cultures would be completely abolished. The schools made use of the 'aggressive assimilation' policy, and attendance was mandatory for all Aboriginal children.[footnoteRef:10] The government appointed agents to make sure that all Aboriginal children attended residential schools. [5: Ibid., V] [6: Scott Trevithick, "Native Residential Schooling in Canada: A Review of Literature," The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 18, no. 1(1998), 50.] [7: Truth and Reconciliation Commission, "Honoring the Truth," V. ] [8: Ibid.] [9: Claire et al., Engaging and Empowering Aboriginal Youth: A Toolkit for Service Providers (Victoria, Canada: Trafford Publishing, 2010), 8. ] [10: Ibid.]

Custodial Schools in Upper Canada and New France

The roots of the residential school system, as mentioned in the previous section, lie in New France in the 17th century.[footnoteRef:11] The rationale behind their establishment was very similar to that of their latter-day counterparts -- the acculturation and assimilation of native communities.[footnoteRef:12] Catholic missionaries established the schools in the name of providing care and schooling to First Nations' children.[footnoteRef:13] They, however, failed abysmally because of the Natives' lack of interest. Moreover, since the Europeans depended on these natives militarily and economically, they were reluctant about compelling them to allow their children to participate in the same.[footnoteRef:14] [11: Trevithick, "Native Residential Schooling," 50. ] [12: Ibid.] [13: Ibid.] [14: Ibid. ]

Residential schools did not appear in Upper Canada (Ontario) until the 18th century, when the creation of Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Methodist institutions began.[footnoteRef:15] Significant developments actually began in the 1830s because after the war if 1812, the utility of the natives in the military dwindled, and the White society began to find it easier to compel the natives to participate in the residential schooling system.[footnoteRef:16] These colonial experiments in New France and Upper Canada formed the basis of post-Confederation policies. [15: Ibid.] [16: Ibid. ]

The Establishment of Residential Schools after 1880

In the late 1870s and 80s, the Plains Nations and the federal government began to consider means of expanding schooling provisions for Aboriginal communities.[footnoteRef:17] A variety of factors influenced this decision. First, Aboriginal leaders were beginning to view Euro-Canadian schooling as a possible mechanism for their young people to learn crucial skills from the newcomer society, and to consequently make the transition to the civilized world.[footnoteRef:18] Secondly, the government viewed schooling as the most viable way of making the native community economically self-sufficient and hence, less dependent on the public purse. Thirdly, the Indian Act and the British North America Act passed in 1876 and 1877 respectively had placed upon the government, the responsibility to educate native youth and assimilate them into Canadian society. [17: Ibid. ] [18: Ibid. ]

The government figured that custodial (boarding) schools offered better prospects for native children to learn the new culture without the influence of their indigenous cultures.[footnoteRef:19] Residential schools of this nature were, therefore, highly encouraged, with the government using the assistance of Anglican, Methodist and Catholic missionaries to encourage Aboriginal leaders, who were opposed to the idea of custodial schools, to allow their young people to take up schooling in the same as a way of increasing their own self-sufficiency. [19: Ibid. ]

The first boarding industrial schools were established in the Prairies in 1883. By the 1930s, a system of such schools stretching across the country had been developed.[footnoteRef:20] Most of these were in the four western provinces, although there were also significant numbers of the same in northern Quebec and northwestern Ontario. There were no schools in three of the four Atlantic Provinces -- Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Newfoundland. It is hypothesized that this was perhaps because natives in these areas were considered fully acculturated. By 1930, there was a total of 80 residential institutions, three-fifths of which were operated by the Roman Catholic Church, a quarter by the Anglican church, and the remainder by the United Church, which consisted of the Methodist Church and the Presbyterian church). [20: Ibid., 51]

Life in Residential Schools

Up until the 1950s, residential schools operated on a half-day system -- the morning and mid-morning hours were spent in class, whereas the afternoon hours were spent at work (Miller 157).[footnoteRef:21] The reasoning behind this arrangement was that children would acquire skills that would make them economically self-sufficient adults.[footnoteRef:22] In reality, however, the half-day system was intended to cut down on administration costs.[footnoteRef:23] By the 1940s, it had become apparent that the system was not providing any training or vocational benefits to native children; as such, it was abolished.[footnoteRef:24] [21: James Miller, Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 157. ] [22: Ibid.] [23: Ibid.] [24: Ibid., 158. ]

Dora Cardinal, a student at the St. Anthony's Residential School in Ottawa in the 1940s explains what a typical day was like at the school.[footnoteRef:25] She explains that students would wake up at 6:45 AM, dress up, attend chapel and take breakfast hurriedly and in a refectory.[footnoteRef:26] This was then followed by three hours of class (mostly religious studies), after which students proceeded to their chores -- the girls would clean, cook, sew or do laundry as the boys farmed, chopped wood or engaged in basic carpentry and shoe repair. There was one hour of study before supper, before the students went for a prayer session and proceeded to bed.[footnoteRef:27] Holidays were unheard off, and it was only after 1960 that schools began allowing students to go home for holidays. [25: Thomas Thorner and Thor Frohn-Nielsen, A Country Nourished on Self-Doubt: Documents in Post-Confederation Canadian History (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 400. ] [26: Ibid.] [27: Ibid.]

Human Rights Issues in Residential Schools

Some residential school students such as Mrs. Cardinal left with positive memories -- she points out that she liked it in the school because there was a lot of food and positive influence from peers.[footnoteRef:28] However, for most students, the negative memories overshadowed the positive -- students were isolated, separated from their parents and siblings and forced to listen to ill-trained teachers who seemed to find pleasure in denigrating the Aboriginal culture.[footnoteRef:29] Students were, for instance, forbidden to speak their first language, even when writing home to their parents.[footnoteRef:30] [28: Ibid.] [29: Ibid.] [30: Andrew Armitage, Comparing the Policy of Aboriginal Assimilation: Australia, Canada and New Zealand (Vancouver, Canada: UBC Press, 2011), 110. ]

One student, Basil Johnston, who attended a residential school in northern Ontario, narrates how students' Aboriginal names were suppressed, and how students with only one English name would have their names duplicated (Joe Joseph, Tommy Thomas) just so the Aboriginal name would be completely eliminated.[footnoteRef:31] The supervisory staff were harsh and the modes of punishment extreme. Mr. Johnston makes reference to one situation where a student with a sick student who threw up in the dining area was forced to lick his vomit by the dining area attendant. He mentions that he felt like the residential system underscored students' abilities to reason when the supervisory staff had to use bells and whistles to indicate the end of one activity, the beginning of another, and tell students where they were supposed to be at a particular time.[footnoteRef:32] [31: Ibid.] [32: Ibid., 111. ]

Moreover some of the staff were sexual predators, and a significant number of students reported being sexually abused. In his memoir, for instance, Theodore Fontain narrates how a young priest identified as Father P. would lure him and other boys into his office every week and assault them -- a ritual that the students referred to as the 'ritual of staying clean' (Fontaine 18).[footnoteRef:33] Mr. Fontaine mentions that the abused students preferred not to talk to anyone about the matter because such reports were never taken seriously after all.[footnoteRef:34] As such, they endured such abuses in silence for years until they were older and bigger to protect themselves against their tormentors.[footnoteRef:35] [33: Theodore Fontaine, Broken Circle: The Dark Legacy of Indian Residential Schools: A Memoir (Vancouver, Canada: Heritage House Publishing, 2010), 18. ] [34: Ibid. ] [35: Ibid., 19. ]

Research shows that besides physical and sexual abuse, students in residential schools faced other serious human rights concerns such as being subjected to nutritional experiments without the consent of their parents or their own consent.[footnoteRef:36] A 2013 study by food historian Ian Mosby, for instance, demonstrated how students at some residential schools were subjected to government-approved experiments by nutrition experts without their parents' consent. Some of the experiments entailed restricting such students' access to dental care and essential nutrients in order to assess the effect of specific nutrients or diets on particular populations.[footnoteRef:37] Additionally, the schools were overcrowded, exposing students to communicable diseases such as influenza and tuberculosis; it is estimated that a majority of student deaths in residential schools were caused by such communicable diseases.[footnoteRef:38] [36: Ian Mosby, "Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation on Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942-1952," Social History 46 no. 91 (2013): 146.] [37: Ibid.] [38: Ibid., 151. ]

Resistance and Closure

The harsh regime in Aboriginal residential schools provoked resistance from Aboriginal students and leaders. Children often protested by burning down schools, sabotaging operations and stealing food and other supplies. By the 1940s, it was becoming apparent that the schools were ineffective. The massive protests by the Aboriginal community led to the schools being taken over by the Department of Indian Affairs. The government began to consider phasing the same out altogether. This was, however, faced by massive resistance from the Catholic Church, which felt that segregation was still the best way to civilize the Aboriginal community and integrate it into the Canadian culture. Aboriginal leaders also resisted the government's attempt to phase out Aboriginal residential schools; the leaders believed that the schools could be more effective if they were transferred to the control of their own community. The damage had, however, already been done and by the late 1980s, most residential schools had been closed.

Recovery and Reparations

Beginning in the late 1990s, former students of residential schools began efforts to make the government acknowledge their suffering and compensate them for the same. In 2005, a $1.9 billion dollar program was established to compensate such students for atrocities suffered in residential schools; in 2007, the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, in which the government came together with the churches that had operated the schools, was established to compensate survivors of abuse in such schools.[footnoteRef:39] In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered a public apology to all former students of Aboriginal residential schools in Canada. The apology recognized the effect that the schools had on Aboriginal culture, and presented the government's pledge to forge a new relationship with Aboriginal communities in Canada. [39: Marc Flisfeder, "A Bridge to Reconciliation: A Critique of the Indian Residential School Truth Commission," The International Indigenous Policy Journal 1 no. 1 (2010), 8. ]

Comparison with the CMHR Didactic

Exhibits on the issue of human rights in Aboriginal residential schools are found in the Canadian Journeys gallery in the Canadian Human Rights Museum. The descriptions presented in the didactic in part one match those presented in the CMHR exhibitions, particularly in regard to the human rights atrocities committed against Aboriginal children. On its website, the museum acknowledges that atrocities were indeed committed against Aboriginal children in residential schools -- it avails multiple videos presenting first-hand accounts of survivors of abuse in such schools. In one such video, Karen Chaboyer paints a picture of the degrading conditions in residential schools, and how students were segregated and not allowed to interact freely with other students. I have included the link to this video in the bibliography section of this text.