This issue is ongoing, but the Touchwood Agency plans to respectfully document the children that remain unrecognized and to care for them by safeguarding and honouring their final resting place in a positive way.
For the Muskowekwan community, the school represents a powerful site of social memory and the opportunity both to remember what the children and community were subject to and to celebrate the perseverance, survival and resistance of the many children and parents affected by the school.
Like the building, they too have endured a prolonged attack on their way of life and traditional practice but remain standing and are looking forward to a better future. It was at these schools traditional knowledge was erased, identities were obscured and languages were lost.
The unmarked gravesites at the Muscowequan Residential School are just a few of hundreds identified by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission across Canada. Through the course of its mandate, the TRC documented more than 3, student deaths, though that number could be closer to 6, or even higher. It was standard practice to construct a cemetery directly attached to the schools in many locations. Many cemeteries remain unmarked and undocumented at locations attached to former sites of residential schools and close to some of the schools that remain standing.
There is a great deal of work still to be done to properly honour and remember the children who remain missing. School days began early, usually with a bell that summoned students to dress and attend chapel or mass. Breakfast, like all meals, was spartan, and eaten quickly in a refectory or dining hall.
This was followed by three hours of classes or a period of work before breaking for lunch. The afternoon schedule followed a similar pattern, including either classes or work, followed by more chores before supper. Time was also set aside for recreation, usually in the afternoon or evening. Some schools had small libraries, while many schools offered organized sports as well as musical instruction, including choirs and brass bands.
The evening closed with prayer, and bedtime was early. It was a highly regimented system. On weekends there were no classes, but Sunday usually meant more time spent on religious practices. Until the s, holidays for many of the students included periods of work and play at the school. Only from the s on did the schools routinely send children home for holidays. Therefore, many students in the residential school system did not see their family for years.
I, p Overall, students received a poor education at the residential schools. This was true both in terms of academic subjects and vocational training. Students had to cope with teachers who were usually ill-prepared, and curricula and materials derived from and reflecting an alien culture.
Lessons were taught in English or French , languages that many of the children did not speak. In the workplace, the overseers were often harsh, and the supposed training purpose of the work was limited or absent. Moreover, the attempted assimilation of Indigenous students left them disoriented and insecure, with the feeling that they belonged to neither Indigenous nor settler society. John Tootoosis, who attended the Delmas boarding school also known as the Thunderchild school in Saskatchewan, was blunt in his assessment of the residential school system:.
There he is, hanging in the middle of two cultures and he is not a whiteman and he is not an Indian. They washed away practically everything from our minds, all the things an Indian needed to help himself, to think the way a human person should in order to survive.
Many students suffered abuse at residential schools. Impatience and correction often led to excessive punishment, including physical abuse. In some cases, children were heavily beaten, chained or confined.
Some of the staff were sexual predators, and many students were sexually abused. When allegations of sexual abuse were brought forward — by students, parents or staff — the response by government and church officials was, at best, inadequate.
The police were seldom contacted, and, even if government or church officials decided that the complaint had merit, the response was often simply to fire the perpetrator. At other times, they allowed the abuser to keep teaching.
According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission TRC , at least 3, Indigenous children died in the overcrowded residential schools. Due to poor record-keeping by the churches and federal government, it is unlikely that we will ever know the total loss of life at residential schools.
In May of , results from a ground survey at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in Kamloops, BC, uncovered the remains of children buried at the site. The TRC was told that only 50 deaths had occurred at the institution. The school officially closed in after the federal government took over control in There have been findings using ground penetrating technologies at very few residential school burial sites due to the sensitive process and impact on communities.
It is presumed that historical records pertaining to deaths at the institutions are flawed due to some Catholic orders withholding statistics on the institutions. As a result, similar findings, such as those at the Kamloops Indian Residential School could occur in the future. Underfed and malnourished, the students were particularly vulnerable to diseases such as tuberculosis and influenza including the Spanish flu epidemic of — Food was low in quantity and poor in quality, in large part due to concerns about cost.
Moreover, research by food historian Ian Mosby published in revealed that students at some residential schools in the s and s were subjected to nutritional experiments without their consent or the consent of their parents. In , the Canadian government formally apologised for the system.
The May discovery of children's remains at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops has thrown a spotlight Canada's past policies of forced assimilation.
Indigenous leaders expect similar findings as the search for grave sites continues, aided by new funding from federal and provincial governments. Cities in the provinces of British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick have cancelled upcoming celebrations for Canada Day on 1 July in protest, and statues of figures involved with residential schools, including Canada's first Prime Minister John A Macdonald, have been vandalised or removed throughout the country.
Remains of children found at Canadian school. Canada-wide search urged as children's remains found. The truth about Canada's 'cultural genocide'. Image source, Getty Images. A makeshift memorial has grown around the site of a former Kamloops residential school.
Why Canada is mourning the deaths of children The truth about Canada's 'cultural genocide'. The Truth and Reconciliation Committee hails the decision as a step towards making amends. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is pleased with the outcome of its first national event in Winnipeg, despite receiving a smaller number of survivor statements than hoped.
Thousands of aboriginal residential school survivors meet in Winnipeg for the first national event of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. With the simple cutting of a ribbon, Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission officially opens its headquarters in Winnipeg, two years after it was first created. Survivors of abuse at residential schools are fearing the end of federal funding on March 31 for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, a nationwide network of community-based healing initiatives.
The federal government did not renew its funding for the foundation AHF , which serves community-based healing programs. Investigations into cases of students who died or went missing while attending Canada's residential schools are a priority for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, says the group's new research director. Canada's residential schools commission is settling in to its new home — and name — in Winnipeg.
New chief commissioner Justice Murray Sinclair recently moved the headquarters of the commission from Ottawa to Winnipeg. Justice Murray Sinclair says he'll have to work hard to restore the commission's credibility.
Sinclair says people lost some faith in the commission after infighting forced the resignation of the former chairman and commissioners. Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl announces the appointment of Judge Murray Sinclair, an aboriginal justice from Manitoba, as chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for residential schools.
Marie Wilson, a senior executive with the N. Pope Benedict XVI expresses "sorrow" to a delegation from Canada's Assembly of First Nations for the abuse and "deplorable" treatment that aboriginal students suffered at Catholic church-run residential schools. Assembly of First Nations Leader Phil Fontaine says it doesn't amount to an official apology but hopes it will "close the book" on the issue of apologies.
Former Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci, appointed in as the federal government's representative to lead discussions toward a fair and lasting resolution of the legacy of Indian residential schools, agrees to mediate negotiations aimed at getting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission back on its feet. In a letter to Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl, LaForme says the commission is on the verge of paralysis because the panel's two commissioners, Claudette Dumont-Smith and Jane Brewin Morley, do not accept his authority and leadership.
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