Residential School System

During this time, The Government of Canada and the Roman Catholic Church enforced all Aboriginal children to be taken away from their homes (Fontaine, 2010). This process was not for welfare concerns, however, for the process of assimilation. The practice would include: the forbidding of speaking and language that is not English, inability to participate in cultural/spiritual rituals, being treated with lack of human dignity and death. At the Fort Alexander Indian Residential School children were subjected to physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect, forced labour, and unfortunate segregation from families (Fontaine,

In the nineteenth century, the government of Canada felt it had an obligation to the nations people to educate the Indigenous population of the country. The federal government sought to pursue this task through the development of residential schools. Under this system, framed by the Davin Report, Congregations of Christian missionaries were responsible for providing compulsory education to Indigenous children within governmentally constructed schools. They were charged with assimilating these children into mainstream culture and convert them into members of “civilized society”. The resulting actions on part of the Canadian government and acting missionaries have caused detrimental psychological and emotional trauma to survivors of these residential schools; trauma that has crossed intergenerational boundaries since the induction of the system. The direct outcomes of the residential school system have resulted in a form of trauma with cross-generational effects among contemporary Indigenous societies, known as historical trauma.

With the passage of the British North American Act in the 1867 and the implementation of the Indian Act in 1876, the “government was required to provide Indigenous youth with an education to integrate them into Canadian society” (Brady 1995). The first residential schools were set up in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s. After the residential school system was established, children were stripped away from their parents and had no freedom to choose whether they wanted to attend. In these schools heavily controlled by catholic churches, children were forced to pray to whom they had no connection with and forbidden to practice their own culture. The goal was to “convert the children to Christianity and

Residential schools were the one of the worst decisions the Canadian government had made. As they planned this idea with the churches across Canada, it became unforgettable for the native people. These schools changed the way native people lived in Canada. The children in these schools were abused and neglected everyday

Residential schools are a dark past of Canadian history which many people are not educated about. Residential schools were the extremity of day schools and were traumatizing and disturbing. A residential school was an institution for the first nations children where the child was forced to attend to learn about Christianity, and be taught the English language and the European ways. The residential schooling system was run by the Canadian government. The idea of the schools was to “kill the Indian in the child”. The meaning of this assimilation is that the purpose of the establishments was to take away all of the culture and identity of the First Nations children. In the peaks of residential schools, the Europeans believed highly that the first

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Canadian Government EBook Collection, & Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2012). They came for the children: Canada, aboriginal peoples, and residential schools. Winnipeg: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. This resource is a book depicting and exposing the traumas faced by the victims of residential schools. It includes major headings with subheadings containing a mixture of research, personal accounts, and actual photographs with captions of the residential schools. The sections I focus on are Arrival: “Now you are no longer an Indian”; Discipline: “He never should have gotten a licking

This research explores how the residential schools established in the 19th century affected the Native population and the Canadian government. This has been done by examining primary sources such as digital archives, books, statistics and reports. Upon examination of these events, it becomes clear that residential schools had a long term negative impact on the Aboriginal communities and created a negative image to the Canadian government. Despite the government’s goals of assimilating the Native population, that nation was able to survive and will keep passing on their beliefs to the future generations.

Residential schools were educational institutions controlled by the church, which were established in the 1800s. These schools were designed to assimilate Aboriginals into Canadian culture. This included coercing the Aboriginals to dress and act like Canadians as well as follow Canadian belief in Christianity. Ottawa enforced all indigenous children to attend a residential school. In the 1950s, the Aboriginals began complaining to the government about the lack of education being delivered. As a result the Federal government took over 58 of the schools, leaving the residences under the control of the church. This is known as the “administrative split”. After the last Residential school closed in 1996 due to longterm sexual and physical abuse

In the 19th century, the Canadian Government believed it was responsible to educate and care for the aboriginal people in Canada. They thought their best chance to success was to learn English and adopt Christian and Canadian customs. They would then pass their new lifestyle on to their children, and the native traditions would eventually be forgotten. The result was the creation of residential schools.

Residential schools play a vital role in Canada’s history. In the late 1800’s, the federal government created church-run residential schools to assimilate Aboriginal children to European and Christian ways and in doing so robbed them of their cultural identity. Many children were subject to sub-standard living conditions, barely edible food, disease, emotional, physical and sexual abuse and even death. As a result of these dreadful experiences, there arose a movement aimed at healing the survivors of residential schools. The main concept of this healing is reconciliation. To reach the goal of reconciliation one must agree to gain knowledge and understanding of survivors experiences and accept that a mistake was made by the government

Since the birth of Canada, there has been a constant cultural separation between the Indigenous peoples and European settlers. One of the major reasons for this separation came as a result of the residential school system which was put in place in the 1880s, and lasted for over a hundred years. The overall goal of these school systems was to aid in the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into Canadian culture, ignoring all aspects of indigenous culture and religious freedoms up until that point. Despite dismantling indigenous culture in the process, the government believed that these schools were a step in the right direction in reaching peace with the indigenous as it allowed a chance for them to begin to identify as Canadians. However, instead

‘residential schools refer to an extensive school system set up by the Canadian government and administered by churches that had the nominal objective of educating Aboriginal children but also the more damaging and equally explicit objectives of indoctrinating them into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of living and assimilating them into mainstream Canadian society’ (Hanson)

As previously stated, the main goal of the residential school system was to assimilate aboriginal children and was thought to make them more functional in Canadian society. Children ranging from 4-16 were taken from their homes and families and re-homed in institutions with the goal of assimilation in mind (Nagy, 2012). These institutions were often incredibly harmful to the students because they were not well kept or staffed, and were severely underfunded. These issues resulted in malnutrition, diseases, abuse, and even death. Children who attended were subject to abuse emotionally, physically, and sexually (Chansonneuve, 2012). Along with these issues, the absence of family, native language, and tradition caused the children to feel

The official reasons given to the country for establishing residential schools was that the Canadian government believed that it had the responsibility of educating and caring for the aboriginal people. They believed that learning English and adopting christianity was their best chance for success.

Residential Schools were systems set in place by the Government of Canada and enforced by Christian churches as a way to approach the “issue” of the First Nations. They were used by the government to assimilate the Aboriginal children into European culture. It is significant that Canadians remember this time in history because it's not so far in the past. We see the repercussions to this day. This source shows the perspective of the Government, and supporters of the Government. On the other hand Aboriginal people may disagree, they are still greatly struggling with misfortune due to Residential Schools. The perspective shown in the source should be looked into considering the government's insufficient response to the legacies left behind by Residential Schools. For example we see higher prison rates, more drop outs, and family abuse more than most cultural groups in