Article Four: Residential Schools

To this day, arguably the most reprehensible action of the Canadian government was the Residential School System. Aboriginal children were cruelly ripped from their family’s, forced to convert to a religion and culture that was not theirs and taken to deplorable institutions where they were physically and sexually abused and even killed. In Part Four of our six-part series on early twentieth century Canada, we will examine one of the darkest elements in Canada’s history and how it forever shattered the aboriginal way of life.

This cartoon shows how the intention of residential school's
was to inflict punishment for their Aboriginal culture
and assimilate them to mainstream Canadian culture.

It all began with the Indian Act of 1876, which made Aboriginals wards of the state and set up the Residential School System with the intention of assimilating them into Canadian society. The school system was quickly set up in the early 1880’s, and were located far from the Aboriginal communities to eliminate exposure to aboriginal culture and alienate them from their friends and family. The very first step was to change the appearance of the children and make them dress in a fashion more suited to mainstream Canadian culture, and so their hair was cut and they were given mandatory uniforms to wear. They were not allowed to speak their own language; if they were ever caught speaking any aboriginal language then they were severely punished. This would have been extremely confusing for many of the children because many of them didn’t know English or French and therefore could not have complied with that rule.

An example of a boys class at a residential school.

Students were forced to pray and become Christians at these
schools regardless of their religious or spiritual beliefs

The education they received in residential schools was not the same as in the Public School System. They focused more on practical skills like sewing and housework for girls while boys learned carpentry, farming and tinsmithing. As well, many of them worked without pay for the schools for large amounts of time. This, along with religious instruction, meant that students had very little time in the classroom for learning. In fact, most graduated residential schools at a Grade 5 skill level.

Not only was the residential system incompetent, it served to facilitate the physical, sexual and psychological abuse of the students by school staff and older students. They were victims of deplorable human experimentation as well as nutritional experimentation, in which children were deliberately starved for research purposes. Twenty-four percent of previously healthy aboriginal children died while attending a residential school and anywhere from forty-seven to seventy-five percent of students died after being discharged from school for illness.

Scientists studied nutritional information by
deliberately starving native children. 

While the Residential School System is no longer active and the government has long since issued a formal apology, it is still significant because many of the issues from the residential schools are still prevalent in native communities today. Addiction and alcoholism, domestic abuse, the loss of languages and culture, deprived childhoods, mental illness and suicide are just some of the pervasive long-term impacts of the residential schools on Canada