Every Child Matters .... The Shameful Story Of Canada's Indigenous Residential Schools
.... Stand with Indigenous & First Nations, as we all grapple with the horrifying discovery of the remains of hundreds of children in unmarked mass graves at former Indigenous residential schools .... Shortly after Canadian Confederation in 1867, the new nation of Canada inherited the treaties signed between Great Britain and the First Nations of Canada. The first Prime Minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald, was faced with a country with disparate cultures and identities and wanted to forge a new Canadian identity to unite the country and ensure its survival. It was Macdonald's goal to absorb the First Nations into the general population of Canada and extinguish their culture. In 1878, he commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin to write a report about residential schools in the United States. One year later, Davin reported that only residential schools could separate aboriginal children from their parents and culture and cause them "to be merged and lost" within the nation. Davin argued that the government should work with Christian churches to open these schools.
The schools aimed to eliminate Indigenous language and culture and replace it with English language and Christian beliefs. Beginning in 1883, the government began funding Indian residential schools across Canada, which were run primarily by the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. When the separation of children from their parents was resisted, the government responded by making school attendance compulsory in 1894 and empowered the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to seize children from reserves and bring them to the residential schools. When parents came to take their children away from the schools, the pass system was created, banning Indigenous people from leaving their reserve without a "pass" from an Indian agent. Conditions at the schools were rough as schools were underfunded and disease was rampant. Chief medical officer Peter Bryce wrote a report on the high mortality rates at the schools in 1906, ranging between 30 and 60 percent. After his forced retirement from the public service, he published the report in 1922, causing a public scandal. Many schools did not communicate the news of the deaths of students to the students' families, burying the children in unmarked graves. In many schools, sexual abuse was common, and students were forced to work to help raise money for the school. Students were beaten for speaking their indigenous languages.
By the 1950s, the government began to relax restrictions on the First Nations of Canada and began to work towards shutting the schools down. In 1969, the government seized control of the residential schools from the churches and by the 1980s, only a few schools remained open, with the last school closing in 1996 .... *EVERY CHILD MATTERS* - Logo created by Andy Everson, an artist from K’ómoks First Nation in British Columbia. .... *PAINTING* - 'The Scream' - 2016 acrylic on board 61 x 91.4 cm (24" x 36") .... Artist - Kent Monkman .... Dark history evoked in vividly painted life: red-coated Mounties and robe-clad nuns and priests wrest native children of all ages from the desperate arms of their terrorized parents; black clouds gather above a prefab house. In the background, more children run for the woods, as though for their lives ....
Every Child Matters .... The Shameful Story Of Canada's Indigenous Residential Schools
.... Stand with Indigenous & First Nations, as we all grapple with the horrifying discovery of the remains of hundreds of children in unmarked mass graves at former Indigenous residential schools .... Shortly after Canadian Confederation in 1867, the new nation of Canada inherited the treaties signed between Great Britain and the First Nations of Canada. The first Prime Minister of Canada, John A. Macdonald, was faced with a country with disparate cultures and identities and wanted to forge a new Canadian identity to unite the country and ensure its survival. It was Macdonald's goal to absorb the First Nations into the general population of Canada and extinguish their culture. In 1878, he commissioned Nicholas Flood Davin to write a report about residential schools in the United States. One year later, Davin reported that only residential schools could separate aboriginal children from their parents and culture and cause them "to be merged and lost" within the nation. Davin argued that the government should work with Christian churches to open these schools.
The schools aimed to eliminate Indigenous language and culture and replace it with English language and Christian beliefs. Beginning in 1883, the government began funding Indian residential schools across Canada, which were run primarily by the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. When the separation of children from their parents was resisted, the government responded by making school attendance compulsory in 1894 and empowered the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to seize children from reserves and bring them to the residential schools. When parents came to take their children away from the schools, the pass system was created, banning Indigenous people from leaving their reserve without a "pass" from an Indian agent. Conditions at the schools were rough as schools were underfunded and disease was rampant. Chief medical officer Peter Bryce wrote a report on the high mortality rates at the schools in 1906, ranging between 30 and 60 percent. After his forced retirement from the public service, he published the report in 1922, causing a public scandal. Many schools did not communicate the news of the deaths of students to the students' families, burying the children in unmarked graves. In many schools, sexual abuse was common, and students were forced to work to help raise money for the school. Students were beaten for speaking their indigenous languages.
By the 1950s, the government began to relax restrictions on the First Nations of Canada and began to work towards shutting the schools down. In 1969, the government seized control of the residential schools from the churches and by the 1980s, only a few schools remained open, with the last school closing in 1996 .... *EVERY CHILD MATTERS* - Logo created by Andy Everson, an artist from K’ómoks First Nation in British Columbia. .... *PAINTING* - 'The Scream' - 2016 acrylic on board 61 x 91.4 cm (24" x 36") .... Artist - Kent Monkman .... Dark history evoked in vividly painted life: red-coated Mounties and robe-clad nuns and priests wrest native children of all ages from the desperate arms of their terrorized parents; black clouds gather above a prefab house. In the background, more children run for the woods, as though for their lives ....