Indian Boarding Schools were not "well-intentioned"

The CBC has posted a story about the RCMP and residential schools--the schools where aboriginal children were forced to move, which existed into the 1970s. (I think in the US they're called Native American boarding schools.)

The RCMP is opening its files to show its own involvement in forcing children from their homes, often against their parents' will, and in capturing truants, as part of a truth and reconciliation process.

What surprised me was some of the comments. Not these kind: "Surely we're done with this now...." Or laughable comments like this:

Didn't we just have some huge ceremony and an official apology from the Canadian Gov about this topic a few months ago? But now they have to bring up the role the Mounties played. Next they're going to be saying there was priests involved and teachers and chalkboards and chalk. Yes we KNOW it was a bad thing, we get it, we apologized, can't we all just get along now?

Um no, because the racism and difference in living conditions continues. But there's a milder sort of comment, which received a lot of thumbs up by other readers:

* The attempt was genuine to educate these children.
The idea was to raise the Aboriginal people to new age life and tech.
The program failed, due to abuse.

* An incredibly important thing to remember about this part of Canadian history is that by many of those who were involved in carrying this out, it was well-intentioned. It seemed like a good idea at the time. ... Add to that the incredibly misguided idea of stripping First Nations children of their culture and heritage to begin with and the consequences have been far from the beneficial outcome that was originally conceived.

* back then people in power believed that they were acting in the best interest of the country. Residential schools were meant to educate the native children so that they could take their place in the mainstream society. 

* You know I think the people who conceived this idea really believed they were doing the right thing. Back in those days a lot of parents ( especially the wealthy ) packed their kids off to boarding schools for the school year. In the 1950s children who were not being looked after by parents were gathered by police and taken to "Homes", which were an urban style of residential school. ...To pretend that one part of our society was the only place that this happened and that they were discriminated against is hogwash. It was a tough world growing up in a single parent family with no EI, no welfare, and very low wages. Most families had no cars so of course the police had to drive children to care facilities. Quit trying to make it sound like a conspiracy, that is the way life was in those times. 

* Residential schools were the only answer to educating kids who lived in spread out, isolated communities and bush camps.

* On the whole Canadian Indians were treated better even though they were forcably encouraged to be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century. ... The Canadian plan wasn't perfect but it was well intentioned 

 Conclusion: It was done with good intentions. Obviously a lot of people believe this, so I thought I'd clear something up.

No, it wasn't. 

I'm sure some individual teachers etc. thought it was being done for the betterment of aboriginal peoples, but it was not. If all they wanted was to offer education, then they would have had just day schools (rather than a mix of both). There were all kinds of school solutions found for white children in remote areas. Look at this example from the same period in Canada:

From the 1920s to the early 1960s, children who lived in remote parts of northern Ontario went to a very special school. Their school came to them once a month or so and stayed a week at a time. School was part of a railway car pulled by a train. Half the car was the teacher's home, the other half was a classroom. (Library and Archives Canada)

You can even see Native kids in this picture. 

So obviously it wasn't just a question of remoteness. In 1879 Sir John A MacDonald [Canada's first PM] sent this fellow Davin to learn from the US Department of Indian Affairs:

Davin had also been persuaded by the American government's argument that "the day-school did not work, because the influence of the wigwam was stronger than the influence of the school," (From the Davin Report, quoted at Where Are the Children?)

 This is about culture, not education, and the eventual goal of saving the money spent on status Indians. In 1909 the Department of Indian Affairs' Medical Inspector went on a tour...

"and he did not attempt to disguise the horror of what he found. In his official report, Bryce called the tuberculosis epidemic a "'national crime' ... [and] the consequence of inadequate government funding, poorly constructed schools, sanitary and ventilation problems, inadequate diet, clothing and medical care." (A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986, p. 75.) He calculated mortality rates among school age children as ranging from 35% and 60%."

Duncan Campbell Scott, the Minister of Indian Affairs, suppressed the report and eliminated the position of Medial Inspector. (In 1922 Bryce was forced to retire and published the above-mentioned book.) Campbell Scott created a mandate for the schools to "focus on primary education in an effort to forcefully civilize and Christianize Indian children." He was trying to find a "final solution to the Indian Problem" and said this in Parliament:

"I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone... Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department." (From Where Are the Children? This quote can be found elsewhere, it's a matter of public record.)

The intention was not to help aboriginal children understand and adapt to living in a country where the majority population was European. It was cultural and often physical ethnic cleansing:

Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas. (Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 780 (1992))

 Canada couldn't physically move all aboriginal people out of the country, so they attempted the next best thing: To make them indistinguishable from Europeans. As far as I'm concerned, that's just in situ ethnic cleansing. Residential schools were one part of the plan, and banning cultural practices like potlatches was another.

People are misled when they just blame the churches for this stuff. The churches were a great, and willing, but the schools were initiated by our government. The government first broke almost every agreement they had with Native communities, and then when they had them down to the smallest possible land, using up the smallest amount of money, they tried to get rid of that remaining cost.

There is no worse a Reprehensible act or more Cowardly than to go after an entire people by attacking their Children. (Commenter on the same story.)

I saw a great documentary last week called "The Experimental Eskimos" about three 12 year old Inuit boys who were brought to Ottawa ostensibly to "see how the brightest young Inuit would fare in the competitive white man’s world and to prepare them for leadership positions in their communities" :

The boys and their families were not aware that they were participants in an attempt to see how easily Inuit children could be assimilated.

Which means the Canadian government was still hoping to rid the country of aboriginal peoples just 50 years ago. It being the 1960s, however, these boys all grew up to be political activists, but at the price of their emotional health (one even committed suicide.) Their summary: "I don't regret the experience, but I have never recovered from it."

Some aboriginal people feel they got some good things out of Residential Schools. The movie bio of Elijah Harper* shows him using what he learned about white people for the political gain of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people. Fine. But let's be honest about why these schools were invented, and the real point of them.

Which, thankfully, did not work.

__________
*Harper was the first "Treaty Indian" to be elected as a provincial politician, and is famous for almost single-handedly stopping a constitutional revision that was made without input from aboriginal peoples.