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Residential Schools Case Study

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The question of whether the government protected the collective rights of Aboriginal peoples in its creation of the Indian Act and the Resident school system has sparked many debates. While some people may feel that Canadians did the right thing creating the Residential School system, we strongly believe that the Indian Act didn’t protect any rights. In fact, the act violated many rights we value today. They abused the First Nations by taking away their right to vote, forcing them to give up their legal identities and treaty rights, not consulting the First Nations on agreements that concerned them and by introducing the Residential School system..

Firstly, until 1960 the First Nations had to give up their legal identities and treaty rights …show more content…

The purpose of this was for the Canadian officials to assimilate the First Nations peoples. Canadians did not accept and recognize the ways and cultures of the First Nations peoples because the officials thought that they were superior and had the right of way. This resulted in them trying to lead the Indigenous people in the “right and normal” way. In many more ways than one, they violated the rights and freedoms of the First Nations peoples. To begin with, the residential schools took away children from their parents forcefully. If this was to happen in the present, it would violate the legal rights found in the current charter of rights and freedoms. Legal rights prohibits people from being taken away without proper reason or consult. Secondly, inside of the residential schools, students were not treated properly. They did not feel safe inside of these schools, and instead felt lonely and trapped. This often lead to mental illness and horrible thoughts. Many claims of being raped, abused, both mentally and physically, were also made. If you relate those events to the charter, In the end, the residential schools resulted in death, and those who came back alive saw a world that they no longer recognized. Clearly, having residential schools was a horrible idea. Canadians thought that they were superior to the Indigenous, even they were the ones who inhabited this land first. They wanted to make everyone follow their ways. However, they did not open their eyes to see that everyone had their own unique ways. They did not see that the Indigenous could have really benefited them. From this event, we learn that we shouldn’t try to force someone’s ways into another’s. We all need to accept each other in order to co-live peacefully, and most importantly,

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They continued to resist against the Canadian government's attempts to assimilate them, and to use their land for projects that would cause their communities harm, such as building oil pipes, and an incredible amount of other causes impacting Indigenous peoples. Throughout the history of Indigenous people, before Canada was even a country, they have resisted the attempts of colonizers to take their land, and attempt to take their culture as well. Paragraph #2 for Response Questions #4 A specific historical moment mentioned in the timeline that connects particularly well to “The Right to be Cold” by Sheila Watt-Cloutier is the education heading in Dr. Susan Dion’s talk. The policy paper detailing more Indigenous control of their own communities' education under the Education headline was fought for by the National Indian Brotherhood, and it led to the Canadian government giving back control of Indigenous education back to Indigenous people.

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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.

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In the short documentary film “Canada’s shame: Residential schools, unmarked graves, and the search for justice- people and power” I learned a lot about what Canada did to the indigenous people regarding residential schools and the trauma we left on their community. The lives of the indigenous communities are forever altered because of the way these schools were designed to assimilate and strip the children of their identity. Carl Sam was just one of the Saint Mary’s residential school survivors and he says, “His experience at the residential school has stripped him of his whole life”. He goes on to say one day he was put on a boat and all the children were crying around him because they were taken out of their homes and they didn’t know what was going on,

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Socio-economic status (SES) is defined as when intentions toward Indigenous people are shown and perceived. MacDonald never provided Indigenous people with new food; it was always “rancid,” which made “the Plains First Nations population drop from 32,000 to 20,000” (Hooper, 2018, pg.3). To begin with, a counter-narrative has been to view Indigenous people as inferior and a danger to settler colonialism. This viewpoint is by institutionalized discrimination against Indigenous people by the government of Canada to unify settler groups and use this discrimination, such as the Indian Act in 1876 in Canada, which caused toll consequences. John A. Macdonald has played a role in perpetuating systemic oppression and violence against Indigenous peoples in Canada through policies such as the residential school system, the Indian Act, and the forced relocation of Indigenous communities.

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“Indian School Road” by Chris Benjamin sheds light on the horrific experiences of Indigenous children and families at residential schools. It is a non-fiction book that explores the impact of the residential school system in Canada on Indigenous Communities. The author focuses specifically on the Shubenacadie Residential School in Nova Scotia, where Indigenous children were taken and forced to attend the school from 1930-1967. The Canadian government established these schools intending to indoctrinate Indigenous children into Christian ways, with churches as the main locations and priests and nuns as educators. The book uncovers the history of the Shubenacadie Residential School, exposing the responsible individuals, the government's passive

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As a result of children being punished for their culture, it ultimately gets lost during their stays at these schools. Culture is a large part of self-identity, and when this is lost it often leads to a lack of self-belonging. Another issue caused by residential schools is intergenerational trauma which is largely caused by the abuse, both emotional and physical, that the children were subjected to. Intergenerational trauma largely affects future

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The TRC’s “The History” author appeals to logos through the use quantitative findings. The use of logical evidence from the collection of testimonials made by former residential school students is an effective way to aid the persuasion of a reader. Throughout “The History”, the author describes the memories of known First Nations peoples Frederic Ernest Koe, Marlene Kayseas, Lily Bruce and many others. In addition, the author quotes Vitaline Elsie Jenner’s use of ‘kaya nakasin’ (TRC, 2015, p.38) in describing her experience with residential school. The author’s example that contains the use native language reaffirms his credibility and detailed knowledge of the

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The power dynamic between these groups led to the suffering of Indigenous People, demonstrated in the novel Five Little Indians by Michelle Good. The residential schools then further reinforced the Canadian government's assimilationist policies. By forcing Indigenous People to conform to "normal'' European society, resulted in unrepairable damage between the two

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By doing this, colonial Canadians assumed that aboriginal cultural and spiritual beliefs were invalid in relation to European beliefs (244). The problem with ridding the First Nations Peoples of their languages, as Williston points out is to “deprive them of the sense of place that has defined them for thousands of years” (245). The private schooling system was an attack on First Nations identities, and their identity is rooted in “a respect for nature and its processes” (245).

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It is important to note that this was when the residential schools had just been put up, so no one really knew about what was really happening there. After the children in the school turned 16 they were sent away with some money to start their own lives. They don’t really know anything about the outside world and they know practically nothing about their own culture anymore as they’re taught that it was wrong of them to be that way. We can see that in Maisie’s part in the book that she only has the other girls that were in the residential schools to talk to (Good, 57). Her boyfriend wasn’t able to relate to her experiences, to the point where he makes it seem like what happened to the children that were sent to these schools was a minor issue and not something extremely traumatizing(Good, 69).

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592 Words | 3 Pages

The purpose of these treaties was to open up the land for settlement and to ensure that Indigenous people would be provided with certain rights, including land, education, and health care. While these treaties were meant to benefit both the settlers and Indigenous people, the reality is that they were biased in favor of the settlers.

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226 Words | 1 Pages

government started to civilize them and moved to control all aspects of their lives through passing the Indian Act and residential schools. According to Carole Blackburn “although assimilation was the stated goal, in actuality, the Indian Act facilitated the ongoing supervision of aboriginal people as a racially segregated population, marking their externality from the nation and separation from the rights and duties of Canadian citizenship” ( ). Therefore, biology has been used as an ideology to maintain capitalism and used to determine society behavior. In the other words, prejudice, discrimination and racism become the reason that they occupied the subordinate position in the political, economical and ideological relations of Canadian’s society.

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The government believed that if the children remained with their parents the problems would only increase, with the boarding schools it would make it easier to cut off their culture and religions. They decided it was best to christianize the children making almost every boarding schools either christian or catholic. The Native American kids were forced into going to church two to three times a day. It was against the

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502 Words | 3 Pages

Imagine being ripped apart from family members, culture, tradition, and labelled a savage that needs to be educated. Imagine constantly facing punishment at school for being one’s self. Unfortunately, these events were faced head on for many First Nations people living in Canada in the late 20th century. These First Nations people were the victims of an extensive school system set up by the government to eradicate Aboriginal culture across Canada and to assimilate them into what was considered a mainstream society.

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879 Words | 4 Pages

This would cause the students to become very suspicious—always questioning the legitimacy of different ideas. That is to say, children who were brought up in residential schools usually had a large range of trust issues, and consequently, lacked compassion for others. Finally, a disturbing quantity of students—both male and female—were raped by nuns and priests. You could only imagine the kind of impact that could have on an individual. Some students were considered lucky, if it only happened once, for many children were raped constantly, and some were even impregnated by their abuser.

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