At least 3,000 died in residential schools, research shows - Canada

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) It is difficult to place an exact figure on the number of residential schools to which Aboriginal people have been sent in Canada. While religious orders had been operating such schools before Confederation in 1867, it was not the 1880s that the federal government fully embraced the residential school model for Aboriginal education. While the government began to close the schools in the 1970s, the last school remained in operation until 1996. For purposes of providing compensation to former students the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement has identified 139 residential schools. Under the terms of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement students from the following schools are eligible to apply for compensation. Many of the schools underwent a number of name changes and were also relocated or amalgamated.

Mental Health Issues Numerous clinical observations by mental health professionals indicate that Aboriginal people have a much higher rate of mental health problems than non-Aboriginals.[1,2] Some argue that the higher rate of mental illness is a direct result of contact with European settlers and subsequent changes in Aboriginal lifestyle.[3] Others contend that some cultural practices among Aboriginal people, such as bereavement-induced hallucinations, are misidentified as evidence of mental illness.[3,4] Still, the incidence of a traumatic past, especially in the form of sexual abuse and assault, is much higher among Aboriginal people than any other racial group,[5,6] and while a number of studies have shown a link between a childhood abuse history and subsequent psychiatric problems for non-Aboriginal people,[7] there is a paucity of studies that address this link in an Aboriginal population. Indian residential schools Complex posttraumatic stress disorder Study of IRS survivors Revictimization Table 1.

Government conducted nutrition experiments on hungry, malnourished Aboriginal children: paper Recently published historical research says hungry aboriginal children and adults were once used as unwitting subjects in nutritional experiments by Canadian government bureaucrats. “This was the hardest thing I’ve ever written,” said Ian Mosby, who has revealed new details about one of the least-known but perhaps most disturbing aspects of government policy toward aboriginals immediately after the Second World War. Mosby — whose work at the University of Guelph focuses on the history of food in Canada — was researching the development of health policy when he ran across something strange. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever written “I started to find vague references to studies conducted on ‘Indians’ that piqued my interest and seemed potentially problematic, to say the least,” he said. Government documents eventually revealed a long-standing, government-run experiment that came to span the entire country and involved at least 1,300 aboriginals, most of them children.

Residential school survivors share their stories at Truth and Reconciliation event in Vancouver The young girl, whose mother had died in childbirth, was being cared for by her aunt and uncle. “But I came into the wrong hands when I was six,” Flanders told attendees at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission this week. As TRC commissioners Marie Wilson and Chief Wilton Littlechild listened, Flanders described the sense of sheer isolation and loneliness that she felt as a boarding student at St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Alert Bay. For 10 years, she missed out on typical childhood experiences, like knowing what it was like to celebrate a birthday, or going home to see her family for Christmas. “I felt so alone,” she said, through tears. As Flanders shared her story, her sons sat on either side of her, reaching over at times to place a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Now I can say to myself that I’m not alone,” she told audience members, many of them shedding tears themselves. Some talked about the ways in which their experiences continue to haunt them.

Residential School Survivors Share Their Stories The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada held a national event in Halifax October 26 to 29 at the World Trade and Convention Centre. Everyone, both Native and non-Native, was welcome to attend. This is a report from the hearing in Eskasoni, Cape Breton. Truth can be an ugly thing. It was to hear some ugly truths that people gathered in Eskasoni on Friday, October 14th for a session of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The commission is holding hearings on Indian Residential Schools across Canada. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission invited anyone involved in or affected by the residential schools to make a presentation. Benji Lafford, a survivor from Eskasoni, spoke about being taking to the train station by uniformed government officials at the age of six. “I was an ordinary child,” he said. Lafford and his brothers and sisters were all sent to the residential school. “I know now that we didn’t do anything wrong because we were innocent,” he said.

Loss of culture It was a set routine she remembered as a four-year-old shortly after arriving at the former Shubenacadie residential school many years ago. Abuse and cultural loss were some of the other memories she shared publicly on Friday as part of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada hearings in Eskasoni. It has been estimated that about 150,000 students suffered abuse, cultural losses and even death at residential institutions, which operated from the 1870s through the 1970s. “I saw a lot of abuse in classrooms,” said Poullette who attended the church run boarding school for four years. “They picked on people who had darker skin.” Punishment for a girl who spilled milk and a boy who couldn’t read because of a stutter are some of her other unfortunate memories. “Going to the bathroom at night you’d see kids on the bowls with blankets over them because they were afraid to wet the bed.” Some fun times came during swim outings, she recalled. “I lost my language. gmcneil@cbpost.com

Conditions & Mistreatment | Legacy of Hope Foundation Attendance at residential schools was mandatory for Aboriginal children across Canada, and failure to send children to residential school often resulted in the punishment of parents, including imprisonment. Many Aboriginal children were taken from their homes, often forcibly removed, and separated from their families by long distances. Others who attended residential schools near their communities were often prohibited from seeing their families outside of occasional permitted visits. Broad occurrences of disease, hunger, and overcrowding were noted by Government officials as early as 1897. In 1907 Indian Affairs’ chief medical officer, P.H. Though some students have spoken of the positive experiences of residential schools and of receiving an adequate education, the quality of education was low in comparison to non-Aboriginal schools. As late as 1950, according to an Indian Affairs study, over 40 per cent of the teaching staff had no professional training.

Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick. It is is a contact sport which requires padding, except in the women's version. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh designed to catch and hold the lacrosse ball. Offensively, the objective of the game is to score by shooting the ball into an opponent's goal, using the lacrosse stick to catch, carry, and pass the ball to do so. Defensively, the objective is to keep the opposing team from scoring and to gain the ball through the use of stick checking and body contact or positioning. The sport has four major types: men's field lacrosse, women's lacrosse, box lacrosse and intercrosse. History[edit] Lacrosse, today a relatively popular team sport in North America, may have developed as early as AD 1100 among indigenous peoples on the continent.[1][2] By the seventeenth century, it was well-established. Box lacrosse[edit] A face-off

Kids in residential schools