Mistreated in Life and Death
Mistreated in life
(Staff) IN 1894, under Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell, an amendment to the Indian Act made attendance at day schools, industrial schools, or residential schools compulsory for First Nations children aged 7-16.
Indian Residential schools (IRS) operated in every province and territory with the exception of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. However, not all Indigenous students attended residential schools. After 1920, approximately 200,000 Indigenous students attended day schools. By 1950, 60 percent of all Indigenous students were in day schools.
Many residential schools were intentionally located at substantial distances from Indigenous communities to minimize contact between families and their children. Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed argued for schools at greater distances to reduce family visits, which he thought counteracted efforts to assimilate Indigenous children. Parental visits were further restricted by the use of a pass system designed to confine Indigenous peoples to reserves.
There was a whistle blower. In 1907 Dr. Peter Bryce, a Medical Inspector for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) conducted a review of the residential schools in the west. He documented that between 25% and 50% of the children entering western residential schools were dead after one year. He cited an average mortality rate of 30% in the residential schools on the prairies and in British Columbia which he surveyed (229 of 756 native students had died).
Dr Bryce told the federal government, “Doing nothing to obviate the preventable causes of death, brings the Department within unpleasant nearness to the charge of manslaughter.” He made recommendations for the improvement of the school buildings and the children’s diets and suggested that TB nurses be present on site. But the federal government thought these changes would be too costly to implement.
In an addendum, dated Nov. 5, 1909, Dr. Bryce submitted more data to show a 50% death rate in Alberta residential schools. The same report states that Indigenous children were being deliberately exposed to tuberculosis and other communicable diseases, and then left to die unattended by church and residential school staff. According to Dr. Bryce, the facts of these murders were deliberately suppressed by the same staff, in collusion with government Indian agents.
Despite a growing death rate due to tuberculosis, caused by the murderous practices documented by Dr. Bryce, DIA Superintendent Duncan Campbell Scott abolished the post of Medical Inspector for Indian Agencies in February, 1919, with the result that death from tuberculosis among Indigenous communities skyrocketed, not only in residential schools but also on reserves. The whistle blower was ignored.
Disease was not the only cause of student deaths. Malnutrition, neglect, injury, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse were all factors. Fire destroyed 53 of the schools leaving at least 40 students dead. Other students drowned or died of exposure in attempts to run away. Some committed suicide. The deadliest years for Indian Residential Schools (IRS) were from 1879 to the 1920s.
The annual death rate for IRS students between 1920 and 1950 was often as much as four to five times as high as the death rate among children in the general Canadian population, according to the Truth and Reconciliation report of 2015.
Mistreated in death
The TRC report found that 3,200 named and unnamed children died in residential schools, or within a year of leaving school. The TRC’s estimate has since risen to over 6,000.
But of the 3,200 deaths in the original TRC report, no name was given to 32% or almost one third of them. In 23% of the deaths, school administrators didn’t even bother to record whether the dead child was a boy or a girl.
During the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic Red Deer Industrial School Principal J.F. Woodsworth assured his bosses that he was burying dead students “two to a grave” to save expenses.
Federal Indian agents were required to hold an inquiry within 48 hours of being notified by a school principal that a student had died, and parents or guardians of the deceased pupil were supposed to be given notice of the inquiry and invited to attend. However, most families lived at such great distances they could not attend. Often, the parents were never told what happened. Nor did Indian Affairs pay for the student’s funeral expenses.
Some of the 139 residential schools had cemeteries but no playgrounds. When a child died, neither schools nor the government would pay to have the body shipped back to the family. So they were buried near the schools – some in marked graves, some in unmarked graves. In some schools, the older boys would build wooden boxes and be forced to dig the graves for their schoolmates but not necessarily be given any spiritual teaching on death and grieving.
In 2018 Dr. Terrence Clarke, a University of Saskatchewan archaeologist, used ground-penetrating radar at the site of the former residential school on the Muskowekan First Nation in Saskatchewan. He said researchers have learned that the remains on residential school properties are usually not in coffins, but wrapped in blankets or nothing at all.
Some original grave markers – often only small wooden crosses – were removed in later decades. The TRC said many residential school cemeteries were “abandoned, disused and vulnerable to accidental disturbance.” Many today are without any surface evidence there is even a cemetery.
Timeline
1876 The Indian Act is enacted. It contains a number of clauses that allow the federal government to establish Indian Residential Schools (IRS).
1879 First IRS opened
1894 An amendment to the Indian Act made attendance at day schools, industrial schools, or residential schools compulsory for First Nations children aged 7-16.
1931 Peak number of IRS operating, 80
1950s Antibiotics became widely used against TB
1979 Only 12 residential schools were still operating.
1993 Anglican Church of Canada formally apologized
1994 Presbyterian Church of Canada formally apologized
1996 Last IRS closed
1998 United Church of Canada formally apologized
2006 The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) signed between the government of Canada and approximately 86,000 Indigenous Canadians who were enrolled as children in the Canadian Indian Residential school system. The IRSSA recognized the damage inflicted by the residential schools and established a $1.9-billion compensation package called CEP (Common Experience Payment) for all former IRS students. The agreement was the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. Also involved were the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the United Church of Canada, and Roman Catholic Entities for the “resolution of the legacy of Indian Residential Schools.”
2008 Stephen Harper formally apologized on behalf of the Government of Canada
2015 Truth and Reconciliation Report was released after 7 years of hearings
As of March, 2016 a total of $1,622,422,106 has been paid to 79,309 former students.
As of Dec. 31, 2018 An additional $3.174 billion has been paid out through IAPs (Independent Assessment Process) which are for damages suffered beyond the norm for the IRS.
May 28 2021 – June 12 Ground-penetrating radar located the probable burial sites of 200 children (originally thought to be 215) at the Kamloops IRS
June 4 – July 12 Human remains found in unmarked graves at or near 4 more Indian Residential or Industrial schools. See Summer of Sorrow p.1 for details.
Anglican Church of Canada Response
Twenty-nine years ago, the Anglican Church of Canada formally apologized for the failures that occurred in the 36 schools which it ran. On Aug. 6, 1993, at the National Native Convocation in Minaki, near Kenora, Ontario, Archbishop Michael Peers apologized to residential school survivors, on behalf of the ACoC.
I accept and I confess before God and you, our failures in the residential schools. We failed you. We failed ourselves. We failed God.
I am sorry, more than I can say, that we were part of a system which took you and your children from home and family.
I am sorry, more than I can say, that we tried to remake you in our image, taking from you your language and the signs of your identity.
I am sorry, more than I can say, that in our schools so many were abused physically, sexually, culturally and emotionally.
On behalf of the Anglican Church of Canada, I present our apology.
Since 1988 the ACoC has held Sacred Circles (originally called Native Convocations), national gatherings of Indigenous Anglicans for worship, discernment and decision-making. Hundreds of participants gather for these special meetings every two to three years.
The ACoC set up the Anglican Healing Fund in the 1990s to respond to the ongoing need for healing related to residential schools.
The ACoC has partnered with the Canadian Bible Society in several Indigenous Bible translation projects, notably helping produce an Inuit Bible, as well as various First Nations scriptures. Such new translations invigorate the Indigenous languages that had been suppressed in the Indian Residential and Day schools.
Since 2007, Mark MacDonald has served as the National Indigenous Anglican Bishop (Archbishop, from 2019) for the ACoC. As such, he has pastoral oversight over all Indigenous Canadian Anglicans and a vote in the House of Bishops.
As of July 2021, ten of the 40 active bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada are Indigenous – that is, one quarter of the House of Bishops. Five are First Nations, two are Inuit and three are Metis.
Roman Catholic Church Response
Roman Catholic entities operated 60 per cent of the Indian Residential Schools. Approximately 16 out of 70 Catholic dioceses in Canada were associated with the schools, in addition to about three dozen Catholic religious orders.
The Catholic community in Canada has a decentralized structure. Each diocesan bishop is autonomous in his diocese and, although relating to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB), is not accountable to it. The CCCB website states: “Each diocese and religious community is corporately and legally responsible for its own actions. The Catholic Church as a whole in Canada was not associated with the Residential Schools, nor was the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops [founded in 1943].”
The Roman Catholic Church is the only institution that has not yet made a formal apology for its part in running residential schools in Canada, although some Catholic entities in Canada have apologized. Critics think they fear potential liability.
In 1991, the CCCB and leaders of men and women religious communities had issued a statement that “We are sorry and deeply regret the pain, suffering and alienation that so many experienced” at the Residential Schools.
In a brief submitted to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in November 1993, the CCCB said that “various types of abuse experienced at some residential schools have moved us to a profound examination of conscience as a Church.”
Pope Benedict XVI expressed “sorrow” to a delegation from Canada’s Assembly of First Nations in 2009 over the abuse and “deplorable” treatment that residential school students suffered by the Roman Catholic Church, but Indigenous leaders have called for Pope Francis to go further by apologizing and asking for forgiveness on the church’s behalf.
The TRC in its Call to Action #58 asked that an apology from the Pope be delivered on Canadian soil by June 2016.
The Pope, however, only visits a country if he is invited first by its bishops. Abp Richard Gagnon, president of the CCCB, has given no indication that the CCCB has offered such an invitation.
Instead, Gagnon has announced that this December Pope Francis plans to meet at the Vatican with a delegation of Indigenous survivors of the IRS from the First Nations, Metis and Inuit groups.
Some Catholic entities did not share historic records with TRC related to the residential schools. The TRC said pro-active disclosure was lacking and that some key records were promised but never delivered.
In early June the Archbishop of Vancouver, J. Michael Miller, vowed to be fully transparent with any records under his control and offer technological and mental health support to find and honour students who died. “If words of apology for such unspeakable deeds are to bring life and healing, they must be accompanied by tangible actions that foster the full disclosure of the truth.”
The Roman Catholic Church failed to raise $25-million for healing and reconciliation programs for school survivors as part of a “best efforts” fundraising campaign. The campaign only raised $3.7 million.
The CCCB told The Anglican Planet: “There are Roman Catholic Indigenous deacons and priests currently serving in ministry, however an Indigenous person does not currently serve as a Bishop or a Cardinal.”
Update
Residential school survivors received from the federal government compensation between $10,000 and $200,000, based on the amount of abuse suffered.
This past June, TRC chair Murray Sinclair told The Globe and Mail that the commission was not empowered to go through the federal government or church archives with a subpoena. The commission was concerned that some of the Catholic church records might have been shipped back to the Vatican for storage. Sinclair would welcome an independent special prosecutor to conduct a probe not only into the cause of student deaths, but whether there were also criminal coverups.
As part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement, the government located 5,315 alleged abusers, both former employees and students. The alleged perpetrators, however, weren’t tracked down to face criminal charges – it was to see if they would be willing to participate in hearings to determine compensation for residential school survivors. TAP –Various sources
