'Residential school survivor testimony has long been filled with stories of students digging graves for their classmates, of unmarked burials on school grounds, and of children who disappeared in suspicious circumstances.' | Analysis
Editor’s Note : This story is being republished in light of Pope Francis’s visit to Canada to apologize to the Indigenous community for more than a century of abuses by missionaries at residential schools across the country.
The goal of Canada’s Indian residential school system, after all, shared that of its U.S. Indian boarding school counterpart: “Kill the Indian, and save the man.” More than 150,000 children were taken from their homes between 1883 and 1997, often forcibly, and placed in distant boarding schools where the focus was on manual labour, religious instruction and cultural assimilation.
Bryce wasn’t alone in sounding the warnings about the schools. Throughout the system’s 100-plus-year history, school inspectors, school principals, medical officials and Indian agents repeatedly issued warnings about the unhealthy conditions in the schools. This archival record details the schools’ inadequate medical facilities, nonexistent isolation rooms and lack of school nurses.
Government and church authorities were well aware of the extent of hunger and malnutrition in the schools, both before and after Bryce’s damning report. In the 1940s, for instance, a series of school inspections by the federal Nutrition Division found almost universally poor food service in the schools and widespread malnutrition. After attempts to improve the training for school cooks ended in failure, the head of the Nutrition Division, L.B.
A similar picture emerges when we look at the kind of health care provided to residential school students who were diagnosed with TB—a disease with effects that were made worse by the conditions within residential schools. By the 1940s, students with TB were sent from residential schools to racially segregated Indian Hospitals or TB sanatoria—typically without their parents’ knowledge or consent—where they often remained for years at a time.
México Últimas Noticias, México Titulares
Similar News:También puedes leer noticias similares a ésta que hemos recopilado de otras fuentes de noticias.
Pope Francis apologizes in Canada for ‘evil’ treatment of Native children at residential schoolsPope Francis has apologized for the Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “devastating” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures.
Leer más »
Traveling the Cassiar Highway, ‘the correct’ alternative to taking the Alcan through CanadaDriving through Canada on the Cassiar Highway is a refreshingly beautiful alternative to the Alcan — remote, rugged and framed by dramatic scenery, writes outdoors columnist Alli Harvey.
Leer más »
Pope Francis heads to Canada with apology on the agendaPope Francis on Sunday is scheduled to begin a visit to Canada. This trip is unlike any other in papal history: Expressing remorse over the church's role in the Indigenous residential school system is its primary purpose.
Leer más »
Pope heads to Canada on 'penitential pilgrimage' for indigenous abuseThe leader previously apologised to survivors who were taken from their homes as children and were subjected to abuse, rape and malnutrition in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools.
Leer más »