By Terence Ho | Foundation of HKPLTW
Terence is a Research Coordinator for the Foundation of HKPLTW with interests in history & traditions, social organization & inter-group relations, culture & religion, and economics & politics of Canadian Indigenous People and Visible Minorities. Follow him on Twitter: @hkpltw
Terence is a Research Coordinator for the Foundation of HKPLTW with interests in history & traditions, social organization & inter-group relations, culture & religion, and economics & politics of Canadian Indigenous People and Visible Minorities. Follow him on Twitter: @hkpltw
The recent discoveries of 215 unmarked graves at former residential schools in Kamloops, BC, horrified all Canadian communities, from the English-speaking, First Nation, the Québécois, Asian, and Black. This discovery shows this country’s history of violent oppression and the horror of the residential school system, which included the disappearance of children in suspicious circumstances, widespread illnesses, abuses, and malnutrition. The escalating number of recovered unmarked graves points the Residential School system to something even darker than an attempted “cultural genocide.”
Poor Living Condition: Leading Factors of Death Rates
The health and quality of life in the residential school was poor, as abuse was widespread and living condition was unhealthy. The primary purpose of the residential school was to europeanize or eliminate all aspects of First Nation culture. Students were strictly forbidden to speak Indigenous languages or to practice Indigenous customs.
First Nation children lived every day in fear that they might be abused or someone they know die and robbed of their identity. Abuses, both sexual and physical, were given out as punishments for speaking their native languages or disobeying orders. Education was non-existent in the schools, as most time were spent on practical skill trainings and forced labor rather than focusing on advancement in the classrooms.
On top of that, the schools were underfunded and overcrowded, so student well-being was the school’s lowest priority. The inadequate food and medical facilities, along with improper ventilation and lousy sanitation, resulted in high death rates. A report by Peter Bryce in 1907 made it quite clear that the death of the children buried at these schools was by no means natural or inevitable. In his report, Bryce stated that the school’s poor ventilation and health care cause the diseases to spread amongst the student population. Bryce reported that
“25 percent of previously healthy students had died in the school. This number did not include students who died at home, where they were sent when critically ill”. (Hanson et al.)
Why the Deplorable Conditions persisted?
The warning about the unacceptable living conditions in the schools has repeatedly been issued by Indian agents, doctors, school principals. However, like Bryce’s report, many who spoke out were met with silence, and their warnings were officially buried along with accusations and withholding information on the student’s deaths. The Canadian government was fully aware of the tragedies and death rates at the schools, but they chose to do nothing and write off these students “only” died of illnesses or natural causes on records. It seems that the wellbeings was not the government’s plan as much as it was to separate the First Nation children from their families and instill a new set of whitewashed beliefs. With the government concealing the truth, this system was able to continue to wound generations of Aboriginal peoples for 100 plus years with little oppositions.
Canada’s Genocide
The residential school system, as I argued throughout the article, committed genocide amongst the First Nation peoples in an attempt to eradicate their culture and wellbeing. There were children went mysteriously missing, and others died due to the poor living conditions forced upon them. Were all of the deaths natural? Unlikely. Many students did die from illnesses. However, it is indisputable that the Canadian government intentionally underfunded the residential schools, which chronically caused the high death rates among First Nation students. With further recoveries of unmarked graves on school grounds, the truth will bring to light — “Residential School was more than a cultural assimilation, but was an inevitable ‘Genocide.’”
This is an opinion article; the views expressed by me.
Bibliography
Truth and reconciliation Society. “The Final Report, Volume 4.” Canada’s Residential School: Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. McGill-Queen University Press, 2016. http://www.trc.ca/assets/pdf/Volume_4_Missing_Children_English_Web.pdf.
Barton, Sylvia, et al. “Health and Quality of Life of Aboriginal Residential School Survivors, Bella Coola Valley”. Social Indicators Research 73 (September 2005): 295-312.
“Residential School: A History of Residential Schools in Canada”. CBC News Canada. 2021. Accessed 3 August 2021. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canada-residential-schools-kamloops-faq-1.6051632
Hanson, Eric, et al.“The Residential School System.” Indigenous Foundations. First Nations and Indigenous Studies UBC, 2020. Accessed 3 August 2021.https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/#survivors-demand-justice
The Truth Commission into Genocide in Canada, “Hidden from History: The Canadian Holocaust.” The Untold Story of the Genocide of Aboriginal Peoples by Church and States in Canada. http://canadiangenocide.nativeweb.org/genocide.pdf
Milloy, John S. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986.University of Manitoba Press, 1999. Xvii, 91–2.
Smith, Derek. H. “The Policy of Aggressive civilization and Projects of Governance in Roman Catholic Industrial schools for Native Peoples in Canada, 1870-95. Canadian Anthropology Society, vol. 43, 2001, pp. 253-271.
This is an opinion article; the views expressed by the author.
Foundation of HKPLTW (Canada) 