"We Are Sorry" Says Canada
The Dark Side Of The Story Of Canadian Indian History Comes Out
It was a long time coming. It did not seem like an apology could really mean that much because what can three words do in the wake of the enforced residential school system that systematically and relentlessly destroyed and caused the deterioration of the Canadian Indian culture, traditional environmental knowledge, language, families, and communities. The residential schools started as early as the mid-1850s in southwestern Ontario, particularly the Mount Elgin Institute located on the Chippewas of the Thames First Nation.
The lives of many of the Chippewa and allied chiefs and warriors were lost when these Indian men were betrayed by their non-Indian allies when it came down to the crunch in 1795, at the Battle of Fallen Timbers and again in 1813, the Battle of the Thames. By 1822, the Chippewas signed the first treaty in Canada, which gave the Chippewas a permanent home base.
Weak Bargaining Position
It was there in the early 1840s that Colonel Joseph Clench negotiated with the Chippewa Indians from area bands to give him, the local Indian agent, one quarter of their collective treaty monies to build and run a school. There were more women, children, and elderly people than warriors making the deal because of the earlier betrayals by allies. Despite their shoddy treatment up to this point, the Indians expected the best school, education, and treatment for their children in exchange for their money.
Not Using The Money On Education
In little over two decades, the government was using Indian funds to build the infrastructure of their own communities while getting cheaper with care of the Indian children at the schools. Instead of getting a good education, the children were learning to act as house servants and farm hands and their schooling came after the chores.
Enforced Residential Schooling
In 1875, Canada enforced residential schooling for all reserve children. Since 1875 until the school system ended in the 1970s in some areas in Canada, crying and traumatized Indian children, as young as four years old, were being hauled out of their homes while their parents stood by helplessly. Both parents and children were traumatized by these events. The parents lost their children whlie the children lost their parents. Wrenched out of their typically loving homes, not many of the children stayed in their home territories. Brothers and sisters were sent to different schools hundreds of miles apart.
Use Of Corporal Punishment
By 1900, use of jail cells, solitary confinement, cat o' nine tails, whips, and straps were in common use on the children. Fatalities occurred in the schools. Unmarked graves have been found at some school sites. Children were beaten for speaking their language and for petty and unknown reasons. Food was maggoty, moldy, and old. Despite working with livestock on farms, the children would only get meat or fruit once a year at Christmas.
Unless the children were in the classroom, they either were at work or left unsupervised. Big boys would routinely grab boys and make them fight; sometimes, best friends would have to slug it out. Bullies ran the yards. The staff members were no better. The school staff members were not supervised and they would do as they pleased with the helpless children.
Estranged From Family And Community
When let out of the school at age 18, if they did not run away by that time, the youngsters were strangers at home and in their own communities. Told repeatedly by school staff that they were pagan and their beliefs were from the Devil, many former residential school students left for the cities. Many never returned to their home communities. The residential school era for the Chippewas of the Thames children ended by 1970.
Many Communities In Crisis
The devastation that happened to the Canadian Indians is still being unravelled. In the wake of this cultural disaster, high unemployment rates and poverty are common on Canadian reserves. Nowadays, there are many Canadian Indians on First Nation communities who live with substandard housing, inadequate food supplies, environmental injustice and the losses of culture and cultural identity in their own homeland. The generational effect of the residential schools has had a great negative effect on all ages, including those people who did not attend the schools .
So, on June 11, 2008, Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper said, "We are sorry." What can three words do? It is a start. Just like any apology, it will awaken wounds that will ache as though they were still new yet the door has been opened to healing the great divide between Canadian Indians and their neighbors. To many Canadians, this chapter in Canadian history is unknown. What happens next will tell how much the Canadian government truly sees Canadian Indians as their partners now and in the future.
