Opening Chapter Of Shingwauk's Vision: A History Of Native Residential Education

This paper will review the first five chapters in J.R. Miller’s book Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools. These chapters examine the events that took place before residential schools were made, as well as looking into the historical context of Canada during this time period. The first chapter of the book explains the way in which indigenous communities educated their children before contact by the European settlers. The educational systems from these indigenous communities were much different than the European educational systems, in the sense of a formal, rigid, institution. And although it seemed to the new settlers as though the parents were neglecting to train their young, they we actually teaching the children

Chapter two focuses on the very early attempts of assimilate the indigenous people of Canada disguised as educating them. Focusing on the failed attempts by the Recollects, the Jesuits, and the Ursulines. And although these early attempts failed so dramatically, they serve as a reminder of how long Europeans have been attempting to assimilate the indigenous people of Canada into their societies.

The first attempts to push education onto the original persons of Canada were by the Jesuits who wanted to convert the people as an “effective way of boosting the French population in North America into French men and women.” In other words, the French wanted a way to become a majority in the space they were invading without completely depleting the population in France. The best way to do this seemed to create “new” French people in order to have a strong

However, “the apprenticeship programs benefited farmers by giving free subsidized labour.” Many of the Euro-farmer families did not see this as an opportunity to teach these young children skills, instead they saw free labour and many of them did this to benefit their own families and farms.

In chapter four, Miller gives a brief description of the basic time line leading up to the period of the modern residential school system. On page ninety seven he describes some vulnerabilities for the indigenous communities during this time. For example, “the decline of the hunting economy made their people anxious for assistance from Canada.” As well as looking at the historical context at the time, this part of the book also looks at the racist assumptions that the settlers held about the indigenous population. For instance, the Canadian government at the time believed that “aboriginal peoples had to be controlled and have decisions made for them because they were incapable of making what non-natives considered to be sound choices on their own.” During this time, the government felt as if they had to take on a parental role for these original people because if they did not then they would make poor decisions. This type of mentality is perfectly described by Nicholas Flood Davin who thought the natives to be at an earlier stage of evolution compared to the