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Kabila

What happened in residential schools?

Residential schools were boarding schools where indigenous children were sent, often by force, to be separated from their families, languages and cultures. In Canada more than 150,000 children attended them between the 1880s and the 1990s. Many suffered neglect and abuse, and thousands died. Similar schools operated in the United States and elsewhere.

In Canada the schools were funded by the federal government and run mostly by churches. Attendance was compulsory for many children. They were forbidden to speak their languages or practise their customs, and were often kept from their families for most of the year.

Conditions were frequently poor: crowding, hunger, disease, harsh discipline, and physical and sexual abuse. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has recorded the names of more than 4,000 children who died, and the true number is believed to be higher.

Canada's government apologised in 2008. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission heard from thousands of survivors and reported in 2015. It called the system cultural genocide and issued 94 Calls to Action, addressed to governments, churches and schools. Pope Francis apologised in Canada in 2022.

The United States ran or supported hundreds of Indian boarding schools from the nineteenth century into the twentieth. A federal investigation that began in 2021 identified more than 400 such schools and documented many child deaths. Comparable systems removed Aboriginal children in Australia and Sámi children in the Nordic countries.

The effects continue. Many survivors lost their language and their ties to family, and grew up without parents to learn from. Communities describe trauma passed between generations. Language revival, healing programmes and the search for unmarked graves are part of the response today.

Words used here

Residential schoolAssimilationEthnocideEndangered languageFirst NationsInuitMétis

Sources

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