Canada's Residential Schools: Abuse, Trauma & Harsh Consequences - Essay Sample

Introduction

The residential education system in Canada that was meant for the natives was initially meant to get them to understand the ways of the Europeans who had invaded their lands. However, the schools would soon turn into sources of abuse for the natives that attended them while trauma for their parents. Those that went through the schools and survived the harsh condition in the schools were affected in both ways. That is to say that they were affected in both of the ways which mean that they were both abused and traumatized at the same time. Within First Nation communities, indigenous people suffer from abuse and trauma that have been linked from being severely impacted by the residential school system. These outcomes have a lifelong intergenerational impact on indigenous people across Canada. The story Indian Horse has demonstrated the lifestyle of an indigenous child attending residential school.

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When the Europeans reached Canada, they encountered little resistance because they had far superior weapons that could not be matched by any weapons that the natives had. It was only natural that they would take over the land and exploit any resources or settle there. They chose the latter but there was still another problem. The Europeans considered themselves more civilized than the natives that they found there. This was true because they had better weapons and better water vessels among other things than the natives. They set out to improve the lives of the Indians and they would do this by introducing Christianity and education to them. To provide them with education, they passed laws that required that Indians must attend either of the three schools available. The first was the day school, the second was the industrial school and the third one was the residential boarding school. Most of the Indian communities lived in remote places and could not attend the day schools or the industrial school. This left them with one option which was to attend the residential schools. Residential schools were schools that were built and run by the European settlers to provide education and religion (Mellet, 2016, 43). These schools were intentionally far away from the Indian communities so that parents could not visit their children frequently. This was further complicated by the pass system that was implemented by the settler government. A pass was a permit that permitted a member of the first nation to travel to areas occupied by the settlers. During these days, First nations were kept separate from the settlers in places called reserves. Any First Nation caught on the settlers' side without a permit would be captured and returned to his reserve or he would be imprisoned (Mellet, 2016, 34).

The difficulties that the First nations faced trying to visit their children in boarding schools meant that most of them would not visit frequently and at some point would stop visiting completely. This led many parents to indulge in such things as drugs. Many of them turned to alcoholism. Wagamese( 2012, 13) say that "the parents had taken off o the Zhaunagush drink and we left the drink in pursuit of it" Zhaunagush is the word that the First nations used to refer to the white settlers. This quote from the book means that when Benjamin was taken away from to the residential schools, it was painful to their parents that they turned to alcohol to cope with the loss of their son to the residential system. Alcoholism within the indigenous community was a negative outcome that is a result of indigenous children being taken away from the parents. Indigenous people turned to alcohol and substance abuse to numb their emotions, feelings and thoughts (Mellet, 2016, 27).

The schools were residential meaning that children lived there. They were also far from Indian reserves and there was the pass system which confined the First Nations to designated areas. All these factors made children not see their parents for long periods of time. But these were not bad enough. The missionaries that ran the churches had another objective. Their objective was to "remove the Indian in the Child" This meant not only teaching the child how to act and behave like the whites but also teaching them not to behave like Indians. To ensure that the children learnt was they were supposed to, the teachers would punish the children in ways that were harmful to them both physically and mentally. The children were Wagamese (2012, 43) talks of a young girl who "was scared of the nuns but when she tried to escape to her older sister for comfort the nuns strapped her and locked her in a broom closet for hours at a time". The young girl in the story is Katherine and her older sister is Rebecca Wolf. The two girls died while under the care of the residential school. The nuns would beat up Katherine for trying to run to her older sister, Rebecca, for comfort. As the days went by, the beatings got worse and Katherine died as a result. On hearing the news of her sister's death, Rebecca also died by committing suicide. This story reflects what really happened at the residential schools that were run by the missionaries. The Indigenous children were treated inhumanely and were constantly physically and mentally abused by the people that were supposed to be their caretakers. As a result of the abuse, many children died in residential schools (Al Jazeera, 2015, n.p.).

The children in the residential schools were given both education and religion. This meant that they had to abandon their indigenous religion to take the new one. T do this they had to give the old beliefs and take up the beliefs of the new faith. The new religion promised heaven for the believers and the good ones. The good ones, in this case, would be children that were obedient and followed the rules that were set by the missionaries. The new religion also promised a reward for the non-believers and the bad people. Wagamese (2012, 80) write that "the children lived under constant threat. If it wasn't the direct physical threat of beatings, iron sister, or vanishing, it was the dire threat of purgatory, hell and the everlasting agony that their religion promised for the unclean, heathen, and the unsaved. One of the missionaries' goals was to civilize the First Nations by removing the Indian in them. The best targets were children because they had not completely developed to become aware of their culture and religion (Al Jazeera, 2015, n.p.).

Christianity, which was the religion of the settler and the missionaries promises heaven to the people that live their lives in a good way. The same religion promises to punish those that do not live their lives in a good way. The missionaries used this knowledge to lecture the children and sometimes they used to beat them up. The children had to endure these abuses whenever they failed to follow the instructions of the missionaries. When the missionaries started the schools, they forced the Catholic religion upon the indigenous students of such schools like St. Jerome and was used as a way to try to assimilate the indigenous children. Many of the indigenous children who attended these schools did not know how to speak English. The language and religion of the missionaries were beaten into the heads and bodies of the children. As a consequent, the children disregarded the feelings, emotions and values that had been instilled in them from their homes (Coletta, 2018, n.p.).

Indigenous people suffered from abuse and trauma in communities because of all the suffering that they went through during their time in residential schools. The missionaries treated the children inhumanely. Many children died in the care of the system and were not accounted for. Living in constant threat was a lifestyle for the indigenous children in residential schools. Despite suffering while in school, the suffering did not stop after they stopped learning. They turned to alcoholism and to help cope with the memories of the abuse and trauma that they suffered. It also numbed their thoughts, feelings and emotions when their children had to go through the system that they went through.

Works Cited

Al Jazeera. "Canada's Dark History of Abuse at Residential Schools." Canada | Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 3 June 2015, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/06/canada-dark-history-abuse-residential-schools-150603063117033.html.

Coletta, Amanda. "Canada Searches for Truth behind Deaths of Thousands of Indigenous Children at Residential Schools." The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 22 Oct. 2018, www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/canada-indigenous-children-residential-schools-deaths-justin-trudeau-a8595441.html.

Mellett, Manda. Stolen Lives. Trish Haill Associates, 2016.

Wagamese, Richard. Indian Horse a Novel. Douglas & McIntyre, 2012.