In this episode, we discuss the history of Indigenous residential schools and the unique challenges faced by Indigenous children who were removed from their homes and placed in Indian Residential Schools. We also discuss the impact of the residential schools on Indigenous children and families.
00:00:09.140But as emeritus, that means I don't want to take away that hard-earned title from you.
00:00:13.980And I read your piece the other day, and it was really good and really interesting, kind of, I mean, maybe if you can reiterate some of that to our viewers, you know, about how you started out over in the Blackfoot or now Sixica Reserve there at that residential facility.
00:00:54.040And I had a summer internship, and I was assigned to the Blackfoot Reserve, now called the Sixica First Nation, and I stayed in the teacher's wing of Old Sun School, which is the Anglican School on the Reserve, and worked in the agency office, which was about a kilometer away towards Gleeson, between the school in Gleeson.
00:01:22.480Yeah, one of the things you noted for, I guess, kind of, to begin with was, you know, people looked at this as if these schools perhaps were institutions that were top-down and were only manned by people from off-reserve.
00:01:34.200A lot of employees at the residential schools were from the First Nation.
00:01:39.520Yes, yes, both in the office, the Indian agent's office, Mr. Murray was the Indian agent at that time, and at the school were Sixica people themselves.
00:01:55.380So, the senior boys' supervisor, and so many of the cooks, and many of the people there were Blackfoot people themselves.
00:02:09.160Many people don't seem to realize that.
00:02:10.980Yeah, and that school is right in, it's right by Gleeson, it's right in the Reserve.
00:02:17.520So, I mean, people also always envision that as if children were taken a long way from home and separated, and that did happen in some cases.
00:02:26.000But many, if not most, of the residential schools were right near the home sites, and they were day students, or at least they would go home on weekends, right?
00:02:32.220Yes, yes, not all the children would go home on the weekends, but many of the children would go home on the weekends.
00:02:39.240The principal and the Indian agent would talk about whether some homes were not safe for children, and then if they weren't safe, what they were going to do.
00:02:51.520So, some children stayed in the residence over the weekend, and some children went with their cousins to their cousins' homes
00:02:59.400because they had food and places for them to sleep, and would look after them.
00:03:32.660There were, when I was at Old Sun, when I was in the residential school there, there was three children that had come from Hobima.
00:03:44.840There were Cree children, so they didn't speak the same language as the Blackfoot children, and they were orphans,
00:03:50.180and they were in the residential school.
00:03:52.060And then, over the summer, these three children, Father Brown, who was the priest, and I were the residential school residents at that period of time.
00:04:03.220But these three children, three girls, were there as well, and they were orphans from Hobima.
00:04:09.620I thought it was very sad, and I thought somebody should adopt these beautiful children, but they were orphaned, and they were there.
00:04:21.700Yeah, for people unfamiliar with the territory, Hobima is sort of central Alberta, and back then, it's a fair hall, and there are some big distinctions.
00:04:30.780Blackfoot, they're going to be speaking Blackfoot.
00:04:32.360So, those young girls, unfortunately, even the other First Nations residents in the school wouldn't be able to converse with them very fluently.
00:04:39.740Yeah, their language of conversation was English, so they were pretty good.
00:04:44.620They were good at speaking English, but the Blackfoot kids, when they got together, even at that time in the mid-60s, would speak Blackfoot among themselves.
00:04:52.240So, in the playrooms, or out in the playground, or, you know, they would be speaking, in the dorms, they would be speaking Blackfoot.
00:05:00.920Yeah, well, one of the things we often hear of is children being punished for speaking in their native language, and you gave an example, though, where that did happen, but the school didn't accept that very kindly.
00:05:15.120There's probably great variability in that.
00:05:23.540Our son went through French immersion, and obviously, in the French immersion classroom, when the kids went in speaking English, they were forced, though they weren't punished for speaking English, but they were encouraged, strongly encouraged to speak English.
00:05:39.900So, this is quite a normal way of expectations, if you want children to learn in other languages, that you have to immerse them in the language, and then they have to speak it all the time, and they will get corrected by other kids, or by adults, and the children were, you know, very good in learning English.
00:06:07.900Yeah, but I mean, the attempts to eradicate the native language word is perhaps not always as stringent as some people point out, because that's what a lot of people looking from outside feel, well, that sounds pretty awful.
00:06:17.900If, you know, English is a common language, great, but they should be allowed to maintain their original tongue as well.
00:06:24.900Well, most of the kids, all of the kids at the Blackfoot Reserve at that time would speak Blackfoot, and many of the young children now don't speak Blackfoot, and probably because, you know, they're watching TV, and they're playing video games, and they're doing all kinds of things in English.
00:06:41.900And so a language is a tool like a pencil or a computer, and if you don't use one tool, you forget how to use it.
00:06:53.900So they're not as familiar with the language or useful.
00:06:57.900The language is not as useful as it was in the past.
00:10:06.900He was actually convicted, charged and convicted for abusing children.
00:10:13.900So there were some, but I never saw anything like that.
00:10:19.900And I was in Inuvik, I was about the same age as the oldest students, and they were pretty casual with me.
00:10:26.900And if anything like that had happened, I'm sure I would have heard about it because they would have told me, you know, the stories that had happened.
00:10:36.900And, you know, I didn't hear about it, no.
00:11:12.900Well, in the total history of the residential schools, it started in 1883 when the federal government actually funded three industrial schools and then continued funding schools.
00:11:26.900So that was the beginning of the federal government being formally involved in residential schools to the 1996 that the enrollment went up from being very low and then it went up and then it dropped.
00:11:40.900Because in 1948, the federal government, there was a joint commission of the Senate and the House of Commons that put forward a report arguing that Aboriginal children should be integrated into the day schools off the reserve with other children.
00:12:01.900So from 1883, very few children went to school.
00:12:07.900So perhaps at the beginning up until the 1910s, 1920s, maybe five, 10% of the children.
00:12:16.900And at the very maximum, just a little bit over 30% actually attended.
00:12:21.900So a very small percentage of children actually went to residential schools, though this is the whole focus of the debate is that every child went to residential school.
00:12:31.900Every child was abused in residential school.
00:12:33.900And if the child went or anybody in the ancestry, anybody they know went, then you've got a legacy of abuse that's being passed on from generation to generation that will perhaps never end.
00:12:45.900Well, yeah, it just seems to have no end.
00:12:47.900Well, yeah, it just seems to have no end.
00:12:48.900And that's that other point that's worth clarifying.
00:12:49.900Not every child, in fact, not even close to every child went to a residential school, though we are apologizing to and repeatedly compensating, you know, further generational.
00:12:59.900My wife actually went to school, grew up in Rockyford, not very far from from the Blackfoot Reserve.
00:13:15.900My parents-in-law, Elaine's mother, Nora A. Young, drove the bus to Rockford, so picked up kids on the reserve and then took them to school in Rockford.
00:14:25.900So just, you know, kind of in closing, we need to work towards resolution and solution and talking more about this and just bringing out the facts.
00:14:32.900And it's not denying that there were things done wrong.
00:14:45.900So there's a couple of people that I've referenced for you that you could talk to.
00:14:51.900And I think there's some Aboriginal people that you might be able to talk to people that are more critical or difficult to find.
00:15:00.900And one of the reasons is they become persona non grata on the reserve if they say negative things about the residential schools.
00:15:08.900And then there's there are still a few people around.
00:15:12.900Mark DeWolf, who was a student in the St. Paul's residential school on the blood reserve, Kainai Nation, who spent six years going to school with the kids.
00:15:24.900And he's got a very, very interesting stories about his father being the principal and him actually going to school with the other kids.
00:15:30.900So I think those people and we've got a book edited by myself and Mark and it's called From Truth Comes Reconciliation, An Assessment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report.
00:15:46.900And we're doing a second edition of the book with a conclusion that has a little bit sharper things.
00:15:52.900The first thing that people have to do is they have to be able to talk and listen to each other.
00:15:57.900And if we don't get to that, we're not getting any further in terms of reconciliation.
00:16:02.900Yeah, people get shouted down or demonized and it's not leading to any better outcomes for anybody.
00:16:07.900So that's great. And there's a lot of resources, as you said, and I'm going to be following up with those other individuals.
00:16:11.900I hope I can have you on again because it's just such a huge subject and there's so much to cover.
00:16:16.900And I know it's been mentioned that Dorchester Review covers a lot and the Frontier Center has been publishing pieces by yourself and others.