Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy

Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy PDF Author: Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773598286
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: The Legacy describes what Canada must do to overcome the schools’ tragic legacy and move towards reconciliation with the country’s first peoples. For over 125 years Aboriginal children suffered abuse and neglect in residential schools run by the Canadian government and by churches. They were taken from their families and communities and confined in large, frightening institutions where they were cut off from their culture and punished for speaking their own language. Infectious diseases claimed the lives of many students and those who survived lived in harsh and alienating conditions. There was little compassion and little education in most of Canada’s residential schools. Although Canada has formally apologized for the residential school system and has compensated its Survivors, the damaging legacy of the schools continues to this day. This volume examines the long shadow that the residential schools have cast over the lives of Aboriginal Canadians who are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to be in ill health and die sooner, more likely to have their children taken from them, and more likely to be imprisoned than other Canadians. The disappearance of many Indigenous languages and the erosion of cultural traditions and languages also have their roots in residential schools.

Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy

Canada's Residential Schools: The Legacy PDF Author: Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773598286
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: The Legacy describes what Canada must do to overcome the schools’ tragic legacy and move towards reconciliation with the country’s first peoples. For over 125 years Aboriginal children suffered abuse and neglect in residential schools run by the Canadian government and by churches. They were taken from their families and communities and confined in large, frightening institutions where they were cut off from their culture and punished for speaking their own language. Infectious diseases claimed the lives of many students and those who survived lived in harsh and alienating conditions. There was little compassion and little education in most of Canada’s residential schools. Although Canada has formally apologized for the residential school system and has compensated its Survivors, the damaging legacy of the schools continues to this day. This volume examines the long shadow that the residential schools have cast over the lives of Aboriginal Canadians who are more likely to live in poverty, more likely to be in ill health and die sooner, more likely to have their children taken from them, and more likely to be imprisoned than other Canadians. The disappearance of many Indigenous languages and the erosion of cultural traditions and languages also have their roots in residential schools.

Signs of Your Identity

Signs of Your Identity PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780996391221
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Residential Schools and Reconciliation

Residential Schools and Reconciliation PDF Author: J.R. Miller
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487502184
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
Residential Schools and Reconciliation is a unique, timely, and provocative work that tackles and explains the institutional responses to Canada's residential school legacy.

Broken Circle

Broken Circle PDF Author: Theodore Fontaine
Publisher: Heritage House Publishing Co
ISBN: 192661366X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
"Theodore Fontaine lost his family and freedom just after his seventh birthday, when his parents were forced to leave him at an Indian residential school by order of the Roman Catholic Church and the Government of Canada. Twelve years later, he left school frozen at the emotional age of seven. He was confused, angry and conflicted, on a path of self-destruction. At age 29, he emerged from this blackness. By age 32, he had graduated from the Civil Engineering Program at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and begun a journey of self-exploration and healing.

A Knock on the Door

A Knock on the Door PDF Author: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
ISBN: 0887555381
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
“It can start with a knock on the door one morning. It is the local Indian agent, or the parish priest, or, perhaps, a Mounted Police officer.” So began the school experience of many Indigenous children in Canada for more than a hundred years, and so begins the history of residential schools prepared by the Truth & Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). Between 2008 and 2015, the TRC provided opportunities for individuals, families, and communities to share their experiences of residential schools and released several reports based on 7000 survivor statements and five million documents from government, churches, and schools, as well as a solid grounding in secondary sources. A Knock on the Door, published in collaboration with the National Research Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, gathers material from the several reports the TRC has produced to present the essential history and legacy of residential schools in a concise and accessible package that includes new materials to help inform and contextualize the journey to reconciliation that Canadians are now embarked upon. Survivor and former National Chief of the Assembly First Nations, Phil Fontaine, provides a Foreword, and an Afterword introduces the holdings and opportunities of the National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation, home to the archive of recordings, and documents collected by the TRC. As Aimée Craft writes in the Afterword, knowing the historical backdrop of residential schooling and its legacy is essential to the work of reconciliation. In the past, agents of the Canadian state knocked on the doors of Indigenous families to take the children to school. Now, the Survivors have shared their truths and knocked back. It is time for Canadians to open the door to mutual understanding, respect, and reconciliation.

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One: Summary

Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume One: Summary PDF Author: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
ISBN: 1459410696
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
This is the Final Report of Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its six-year investigation of the residential school system for Aboriginal youth and the legacy of these schools. This report, the summary volume, includes the history of residential schools, the legacy of that school system, and the full text of the Commission's 94 recommendations for action to address that legacy. This report lays bare a part of Canada's history that until recently was little-known to most non-Aboriginal Canadians. The Commission discusses the logic of the colonization of Canada's territories, and why and how policy and practice developed to end the existence of distinct societies of Aboriginal peoples. Using brief excerpts from the powerful testimony heard from Survivors, this report documents the residential school system which forced children into institutions where they were forbidden to speak their language, required to discard their clothing in favour of institutional wear, given inadequate food, housed in inferior and fire-prone buildings, required to work when they should have been studying, and subjected to emotional, psychological and often physical abuse. In this setting, cruel punishments were all too common, as was sexual abuse. More than 30,000 Survivors have been compensated financially by the Government of Canada for their experiences in residential schools, but the legacy of this experience is ongoing today. This report explains the links to high rates of Aboriginal children being taken from their families, abuse of drugs and alcohol, and high rates of suicide. The report documents the drastic decline in the presence of Aboriginal languages, even as Survivors and others work to maintain their distinctive cultures, traditions, and governance. The report offers 94 calls to action on the part of governments, churches, public institutions and non-Aboriginal Canadians as a path to meaningful reconciliation of Canada today with Aboriginal citizens. Even though the historical experience of residential schools constituted an act of cultural genocide by Canadian government authorities, the United Nation's declaration of the rights of aboriginal peoples and the specific recommendations of the Commission offer a path to move from apology for these events to true reconciliation that can be embraced by all Canadians.

Working Effectively with Aboriginal Peoples

Working Effectively with Aboriginal Peoples PDF Author: Robert P. C. Joseph
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
The changing legal, political and economic landscape of Aboriginal Peoples represent some of the biggest change, challenges, risks and exciting opportunities for individuals and organizations today. Whether you're just starting out or want to increase your knowledge, this book is written to help individuals and organizations to work more effectively with Aboriginal peoples. The information in this book has been field tested with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples and will help readers get beyond background information and aboriginal awareness and into understanding and guidance that can be applied in innovative ways wherever you find Aboriginal peoples.

Did You See Us?

Did You See Us? PDF Author: Survivors of the Assiniboia Indian Residential School
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
ISBN: 0887559247
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The Assiniboia school is unique within Canada’s Indian Residential School system. It was the first residential high school in Manitoba and one of the only residential schools in Canada to be located in a large urban setting. Operating between 1958 and 1973 in a period when the residential school system was in decline, it produced several future leaders, artists, educators, knowledge keepers, and other notable figures. It was in many ways an experiment within the broader destructive framework of Canadian residential schools. Stitching together memories of arrival at, day-to-day life within, and departure from the school with a socio-historical reconstruction of the school and its position in both Winnipeg and the larger residential school system, Did You See Us? offers a glimpse of Assiniboia that is not available in the archival records. It connects readers with a specific residential school and illustrates that residential schools were often complex spaces where forced assimilation and Indigenous resilience co-existed. These recollections of Assiniboia at times diverge, but together exhibit Survivor resilience and the strength of the relationships that bond them to this day. The volume captures the troubled history of residential schools. At the same time, it invites the reader to join in a reunion of sorts, entered into through memories and images of students, staff, and neighbours. It is a gathering of diverse knowledges juxtaposed to communicate the complexity of the residential school experience.

Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939

Canada's Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939 PDF Author: Commission de vérité et réconciliation du Canada
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773598189
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1076

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Book Description
Between 1867 and 2000, the Canadian government sent over 150,000 Aboriginal children to residential schools across the country. Government officials and missionaries agreed that in order to “civilize and Christianize” Aboriginal children, it was necessary to separate them from their parents and their home communities. For children, life in these schools was lonely and alien. Discipline was harsh, and daily life was highly regimented. Aboriginal languages and cultures were denigrated and suppressed. Education and technical training too often gave way to the drudgery of doing the chores necessary to make the schools self-sustaining. Child neglect was institutionalized, and the lack of supervision created situations where students were prey to sexual and physical abusers. Legal action by the schools’ former students led to the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2008. The product of over six years of research, the Commission’s final report outlines the history and legacy of the schools, and charts a pathway towards reconciliation. Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939 places Canada’s residential school system in the historical context of European campaigns to colonize and convert Indigenous people throughout the world. In post-Confederation Canada, the government adopted what amounted to a policy of cultural genocide: suppressing spiritual practices, disrupting traditional economies, and imposing new forms of government. Residential schooling quickly became a central element in this policy. The destructive intent of the schools was compounded by chronic underfunding and ongoing conflict between the federal government and the church missionary societies that had been given responsibility for their day-to-day operation. A failure of leadership and resources meant that the schools failed to control the tuberculosis crisis that gripped the schools for much of this period. Alarmed by high death rates, Aboriginal parents often refused to send their children to the schools, leading the government adopt ever more coercive attendance regulations. While parents became subject to ever more punitive regulations, the government did little to regulate discipline, diet, fire safety, or sanitation at the schools. By the period’s end the government was presiding over a nation-wide series of firetraps that had no clear educational goals and were economically dependent on the unpaid labour of underfed and often sickly children.

Up Ghost River

Up Ghost River PDF Author: Edmund Metatawabin
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307399885
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
A powerful, raw and eloquent memoir about the abuse former First Nations chief Edmund Metatawabin endured in residential school in the 1960s, the resulting trauma, and the spirit he rediscovered within himself and his community through traditional spirituality and knowledge. After being separated from his family at age 7, Metatawabin was assigned a number and stripped of his Indigenous identity. At his residential school--one of the worst in Canada--he was physically and emotionally abused, and was sexually abused by one of the staff. Leaving high school, he turned to alcohol to forget the trauma. He later left behind his wife and family, and fled to Edmonton, where he joined a First Nations support group that helped him come to terms with his addiction and face his PTSD. By listening to elders' wisdom, he learned how to live an authentic First Nations life within a modern context, thereby restoring what had been taken from him years earlier. Metatawabin has worked tirelessly to bring traditional knowledge to the next generation of Indigenous youth and leaders, as a counsellor at the University of Alberta, Chief in his Fort Albany community, and today as a youth worker, First Nations spiritual leader and activist. His work championing Indigenous knowledge, sovereignty and rights spans several decades and has won him awards and national recognition. His story gives a personal face to the problems that beset First Nations communities and fresh solutions, and untangles the complex dynamics that sparked the Idle No More movement. Haunting and brave, Up Ghost River is a necessary step toward our collective healing.