Where are the Children?

At its core, the Indian residential school system was an organized effort to 'kill the Indian in the child.' Missionary Hugh McKay, writing in 1903, characterized the system itself as an effort to educate and colonize a people against their will.

Residential schools came to represent, both in theory and in practice, a deliberate systematic effort to remove generations of Aboriginal children, one by one, from family, community, language, culture, and broadly speaking, Aboriginal ways of living in the world.

The policies of the government of Canada towards Aboriginal Education can be divided into four distinct eras:

1840 - 1910 Assimilation
Teach Aboriginal children the skills needed to take part as labourers in the mainstream Euro-Canadian economy, so that they would become amalgamated with the white population and self-supporting members of society.

1911-1951 Segregation
Teach Aboriginal children, out of their communities, about the "civilized" ways of white society, so that they would return to their communities as "good Indians."

1951 - 1970 Integration
Teach Aboriginal children in the same schools as other Canadian children. This approach offered "the best hope of giving the Indians [and other Aboriginal Peoples] an equal chance with other Canadian citizens to improve their lot and to become fully self-respecting." This started the long process of shutting down the residential school system.

1971 - Today Self-Determination
As part of the movement toward Aboriginal self-government, Aboriginal people have more control over the education of their children.

In 1887, Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald stated that "the great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and to assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion, as speedily as they are fit for the change."

In 1920, during the tenure of Duncan Campbell Scott as Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the government of Canada revised the Indian Act to make attendance at residential school mandatory for all children up to age 15.

Scott, speaking to a special parliamentary committee established to examine his proposals for amending the enfranchisement provisions of the Indian Act, said "I want to get rid of the Indian problem . . . Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian Question and no Indian Department."

At its peak in the early 1930s, the Indian residential school system was a state-sponsored, church-run network of 80 schools with an enrolment of over 17,000. Of these 80 schools, 44 were under various Catholic orders, 21 were under the Church of England which later became the Anglican Church, 13 were under the United Church, and 2 under the Presbyterians. These proportions would remain constant throughout the residential school system's history.

Aboriginal children who attended residential school largely had no choice. They were taken from their families, by force, when they did not go voluntarily. Their parents were threatened with imprisonment and other punishments if they tried to keep their children at home.

As early as 1907, residential schools were noted by inspectors as places of disease, hunger, overcrowding, and were in disrepair.

At late as 1950, according to an Indian Affairs study, over 40% of the teaching staff had no professional training. This is not to say that past experiences were all negative, or that the staff was all bad. Such is not the case. Many good and dedicated people worked in the system. Indeed, their willingness to work long hours in an atmosphere of stress and for meagre wages was exploited by an administration determined to minimize costs. The staff not only taught, but they also supervised the children's work, play, and personal care. Their hours were long, the pay below that of other educational institutions, and the working conditions exasperating.

Until the early 1950s, students in residential schools generally spent only half their school day on academic subjects, and spent the remainder of the day doing manual work and receiving religious instruction.7 Instruction was supposedly available in residential school to the grade nine level, but very few students went that far.

Vocational training centred around animal husbandry, homemaking, or common labour. The schools promoted programs of involuntary servitude through apprenticeship programs and outing programs, where male students were put to work on farms or female students went to work in homes. In short, the goal was to create an Aboriginal workforce for Canadian interests.

Originally, the government had a three part vision for the education of Aboriginal children. Part one was the removal of children from the influence of their families and communities. Part two was a specific curriculum of instruction designed to resocialize the children within the schools. Part three was the integration of the children into the non-Aboriginal world. This scheme was based entirely on the need to assimilate Aboriginal students into 'white' society.

The underlying assumption of the vision was that only children would be able to understand and embrace the importance of progress and the need to give up their current way of life and world view and adopt that of the dominant culture. If the Aboriginal people were left alone, they would not make the necessary progress required to fit into the modern world. If they did not advance, "the Indian must have failed and perished miserably and he would have died hard entailing expense and disgrace upon the country." It seemed the government was more concerned about their reputation in the world than about the people for whom they had taken on responsibility through the Indian Act of 1850 and its subsequent revisions.

The policy was universally accepted throughout government and the school system. The voices of dissent were few. Ironically, even the church groups which ran the school failed to notice how the policy flew in the face of Christian values. Only Frank Oliver, a Member of Parliament at the time, spoke out. Oliver pointed out the un-Christian implications of this formative conclusion:

I hope that you will excuse me for so speaking but one of the most important commandments laid upon the human by the divine is love and respect by children for parents. It seems strange that in the name of religion a system of education should have been instituted, the foundation principle of which not only ignored but contradicted this command.

Against Oliver's single objection, the schools continued to follow the guide of removing students from the influence of parents and families right up until the last school was closed. Children were removed from their homes and forced to endure the generally less than adequate education provided in the schools. This accomplished parts one and two of the vision for Aboriginal education.

Part three, assimilation, proved to be even less successful that parts one and two. Students graduated from the schools without an adequate education in anything, either academics or vocational training. The expectation that they would take up jobs in white communities did not happen; partly because the government and the schools did not provide any placement or employment services to graduates, and partly because the white communities did not want the Aboriginal students living among them and taking their jobs.

The graduates, with memories of harsh treatment at the hands of their teachers and care givers, had no interest in joining the white communities either. Without other options, they drifted back to their homes and reserve communities. The expected rush to give up status and become Canadian citizens never materialised.

The government eventually realized that assimilation was not effective and looked for a new approach to Aboriginal education. It was decided that, instead of trying to force students to become members of white society, they should be sent back to their home communities to help educate their parents and families. The era of segregation had begun.

The time period from approximately 1910 until after the Second World War, was the heyday of the residential school system. New schools were being established and the government was under constant pressure from the church groups running the schools for funding. A per capita system was established that paid the school administrators a fixed amount for each student enrolled. In order to maximize funding, schools increased enrolment through any means possible. Métis children were brought to the schools to help increase the numbers, even though they were not specifically under the government's responsibility.

Schools were severely over-crowded, further promoting the spread of disease. The per capita funds were not sufficient to actually look after the students properly. Food and clothing were substandard and students often went hungry and underdressed for the weather. During this period, tuberculosis was rampant in many schools, and death from disease was common. In some schools, death rates as high as 50% existed among the students.

By the early 1950s, the education policy was revised once again to reflect a new direction in government policy. Assimilation and segregation had not worked as expected, and a new policy of integration was adopted. The policy of integration seemed to be a complete reversal of the previous policies, building on the logic of community development. In a radical change from assimilationist policy, "an active part was assigned to the parents, whose dangerously savage character and baleful influence appear mysteriously to have disappeared."

Policy now stated that children should remain with their parents wherever possible and in order to facilitate this, day schools were developed. The idea was that Aboriginal students would be integrated into provincially run schools. This was to be the beginning of the end of the residential school system, even though it would be another nearly 50 years before the last schools were closed. Schools were constructed closer to reserve communities so students could attend school by day and be with their parents and families at night.

The new system did not completely eradicate the residential school system immediately, however. In many cases, the communities were still too isolated for the students to attend day school. These students were still sent away for their education and continued to live at the schools, only returning home for brief periods in the summer.

Even in the new day schools, cultural destruction continued, as the policy that English (and French) was to be the language of instruction continued. Students were still forbidden to speak their native languages and were expected to function in English. The schools focused on language arts programs designed to improve the students' English language skills through improved methods of instruction.

By 1960, enrolment in residential schools had dropped significantly, with 60% of all Aboriginal students now enrolled in provincial day schools. The numbers would have been greater had there not been opposition to the closure of the residential schools from the church groups who were responsible for running them. Also, a new purpose had developed for the remaining residential schools.

Aboriginal students who came from intact families were the first to attend the provincial day schools. However, there was now a significant population of Aboriginal children who were orphaned or came from disrupted homes. Students who had been through the system earlier were now having families that they were unable to care for. These former students had not learned how to be parents and had turned to alcohol and substance abuse as means of coping with the trauma they suffered in the residential schools.

Now their children were orphaned or abandoned and were, themselves, sent to the residential schools. "Because of such things as alcoholism in the home, lack of supervision, [and] serious immaturity, some parents would not be able . . . to assume the responsibility for the care of their children." Residential schools were an available and apparently popular option for these unfortunate children.

At around this same time, northern economic and industrial expansion created a "whole new tier of schools . . . in the Northwest Territories." Inuit students were now more systematically being sent to residential schools and hostels as their traditional ways of life were eroded by the southern economic and industrial incursion into the far north.

Finally, in 1969 the government ended its educational relationship with the churches which had been the administrating bodies of the residential schools. This brought in a more rapid period of closures with the number of schools falling to only 12 by 1979. To fill the void left by the departing church groups, Indian bands and political organizations took over the running of some of the residential schools, in keeping with the principle of Indian control of Indian education.

From that period, until the last school was closed in 1998, the government adopted the position that "major changes in the operation and administration of individual residences will be considered only in consultation with Indian parents or their representatives." One Saskatchewan school, Blue Quills, was prevented from closing and the administration of the school was taken over by the people of the Saddle Lake-Athabaska district. Within the next few years the operation of six additional Saskatchewan schools was taken over by the people. "By 1986, apart from a continued funding responsibility for such schools, the department virtually came to the end of the residential school road."