3.4.3 Residential Schools

How should contemporary society respond to the legacies of historical globalization?


What were residential schools?

residential schools
Boarding schools for First Nations and Inuit children in which they were taught the ways of the European settlers and were encouraged to lose their own language and culture.

Residential schools speeded up the process of assimilation of First Nations peoples. Residential schools were supported by the government of the day and many were run by Roman Catholic and Anglican Church priests and nuns.
Residential schools were schools where Aboriginal children were sent to live and learn. In some cases, parents willingly sent their children, but in others, the children were removed forcibly from their homes. At residential schools, children were taught school subjects and the ways of the non-Aboriginal people. The goal of these schools was to
assimilation
Where an ethnic group loses its distinctiveness in terms of language and culture and becomes absorbed into a majority culture.

For example, First Nations tribes were assimilated into the dominant white European culture of Canada in imperialist times. In Canada today, visible minorities have experienced slower assimilation than in many other countries because of Canada's official government policy of multiculturalism. Immigrants often choose to assimilate in order to fit in, while groups like the Aboriginal people were forced to assimilate.
assimilate children, or as it was put, "to kill the Indian in the child".

  • Residential schools were funded by the government and at first operated by Christian churches.

  • Nuns, priests, and others taught students to read and write, made them learn English or French, and provided training for jobs.

  • Canada had 130 residential schools; 25 were in Alberta.

  • 150,000 First Nations children attended residential schools.

  • The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996.

  • Canada has about 86 000 residential school survivors.
The most terrible result of my residential school experience was they took away my ability to hold my children. They took that from me, the ability to hold my children.
Inez Deiter
Father Hugonard at Fort Qu'Appelle
Courtesy Library and Archives Canada

Courtesy Glenbow Museum

Map of Residential Schools in Canada
Courtesy Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Courtesy Glenbow Museum

What was the effect of residential schools upon Aboriginal people?

  • Generations of First Nations and Inuit children grew up without their own families, cultures, or languages.

  • Some children were beaten and abused.

  • At least 4,000 children died while attending the schools.

  • The long-term or inter-generational effects of residential schools included a breakdown of family ties and a loss of parenting skills.

  • Traditional values and religious practices were destroyed, leading to increased problems with suicide and substance abuse.

  • Some of these people and their descendants still suffer emotional and social problems.

Digging Deeper


  • More intergenerational effects of residential schools can be found here.

  • For more about residential schools, visit the CBC Archives.

  • Read the first-person account of an Inuit girl at a residential school: Fatty Legs, by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton.

  • The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has an excellent site called " Where are the Children" that includes images and videos.

Watch a short video from the Four Worlds International Institute.

Reflect


How should Canadians and the Canadian government respond to this sad legacy of imperialism?

The next page provides some information, but you can decide for yourself to determine if it was the best approach.