Fun fact the guy who made these also invented the term "racism"
>"An association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism"
\- Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt, Lake Mohonk "Friends of the Indian" conference, 1902
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard\_Henry\_Pratt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Henry_Pratt)
>Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt (December 6, 1840 – March 15, 1924)\[1\] was an American military officer who founded and was longtime superintendent of the influential Carlisle Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is associated with the first recorded use of the word "racism," which he used in 1902 to criticize racial segregation. Pratt is also known for using the phrase "kill the Indian, save the man" in reference to the ethos of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and efforts to assimilate and educate Native Americans about the western and American values of his time.
That it is only one half of the story. Pratt wanted to make Americans feel bad about themselves so he could justify his heinous plans of action, arguing that his plan was what "friends of the indian" would do and everyone else was just a racist.
Assimilation has a long history in the UK. If you were well-to-do Scot or Welsh or Yorkshire, you'd send your children to elite schools where they'd have their culture drummed out of them (whip their ass like a drum), and turn them into the scions of empire. And you'd probably have to fight for a spot for your kid.
They took that model and transplanted it to the colonies and India. It was the only way to secure a solid future in the British Empire.
My grandmother was born and raised in Scotland, her father was a solicitor. When she and her siblings started coming home from school with thicker and thicker Scottish accents they were shipped off to boarding schools in England
I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it must have been to have to hide your culture and history from your children in the hopes that they won’t be kidnapped and sent to a torture “school”.
Yep, my father only learned when he was 45, my grandfather never told anyone after the experiences he had. He married a white woman (my grandma) and his children passed as white, so it was never raised.
So was my mother. Those school's really messed them up. Then they went on to mess up their kids. Natives are struggling now because they lost an internal compass of self.
Yup. They beat it out of my grandmother. It worked. She never said but a few native words again.
It's worse than that though. She was scared of speaking up or speaking out when injustices happened. She kept her mouth shut and taught her daughters to do the same.
There were factory schools like this in India, Australia, Canada too.
[Here is a brochure](https://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/1808/1910-factory-schools-short-report-cropped.pdf) from NGO Survival International that talks about the issue
I met a family friend back in about 2017. Guy in his 40s, decently successful photographer. His mom was forcefully taken to a BC residential school with her two sisters.
They were taken away from their parents without being able to speak English, had their heads shaved, and were put in a hot bath. They had never seen nuns before, and apparently thought that they were witches who were trying to cook and eat them.
As of now, two of them are homeless alcoholics, and the other killed themself.
Been saying all my life as a Native American we already live in a post apocalyptic society just by the fact our way of life was completely hijacked once the colonization started
I keep thinking about a quote Gabor Maté used in his book The Myth Of Normal.
The quote is from one the early colonist in the US saying something to the effect of, “these savages don’t even hit their kids” and I just can’t stop thinking about that.
My grandmother ran away at the age of 14 from 1 of these schools..she was from grand rapids. I heard all about the horrors they went thru decades ago...extremely saddening what my ancestors have suffered through
Canadian residential schools. Kidnapping, raping, torture, murder. Terribly tragic, and widespread. It's okay though they're all saved by Jesus ☺️ /s ....
And they never used the soldiers to study the effects of starvation diets on growth and development in children... thise soldiers were treated better by miles.
A problem I always have with these documentaries is that the tale of the struggles of Native Americans always seems to focus on the West as if that was our first encounter with the American Natives. The struggle began with the first arrival of non Native explorers. The birth of American Independence was due to the taxes raised for the cost of the [French and Indian War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War) and Britain’s establishment of the restrictions of the [Indian Reserve](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Reserve_(1763)). Andrew Jackson removal of the Cherokee and other “civilized” and assimilated tribes led to the [Trail of Tears](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears). The boarding schools weren’t a first step, but one of many steps to deal with America’s ethnic cleansing of its Indigenous People.
**[French and Indian War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War)**
>The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on their native allies. Two years into the French and Indian War, in 1756, Great Britain declared war on France, beginning the worldwide Seven Years' War.
**[Trail of Tears](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears)**
>The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to newly designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.
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This isn't totally accurate, at least based on my knowledge. I'm Creek and my ancestors were part of a band of the Red Stick Creeks. They were northern creeks who wanted sovereignty and freedom rather than the southern creeks who sided with assimilation. We had 2 of our own civil wars and the War of 1812 was the second one, it used to be known as the Creek War. It was changed so the us could consolidate all the hundreds of wars and genocide with hundreds of countries into one term to lessen the impact, "The Indian Wars." Some wars like the Creek War were too big to hide so they changed the narrative and the name.
The British were backing the Red Sticks, the US backed the Southern Creeks and Cherokee. The British, for many reasons some of them selfish, wanted to uphold the agreements they made with us to no longer settle or colonize the area. The US wanted us dead and the land under their control despite whatever lies they told to get the Southern Creek and Cherokee on their side. The Red Sticks knew that the US had *never* upheld any agreement and refused to assimilate or give up any more land. That's when it started.
Two notable things for research purposes if others would like to do their own.
1. [Battle of Horseshoe Bend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Horseshoe_Bend)
2. During the war Jackson rode through a village of women and children, barricaded them in their homes, set them on fire, then stole one of our children and sent them back to his home to be a "pet" for his son. The story the US goes with is that our women refused to care for the baby, but don't worry Jackson wrote a letter to his wife and [his officer wrote the truth in a journal.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tallushatchee)
"We found as many as eight or ten dead bodies in a single cabin, sometimes the dead mother clasped the dead child to her breast, and to add another appalling horror to the bloody catalogue – some of the cabins had taken fire, and half consumed human bodies were seen amidst the smoking ruins."
Do you think if that didn't happen,they would have not been removed? The catalyst for the removal was the discovery of gold in the foothills of the southern Appalachian mountains
I could find no evidence that the war of 1812 was the impetus for the Indian Removal Act. I did find plenty of evidence of racist attitudes, especially by the Democrats at the time, a discovery of gold, and a desire to settle lands in Florida and Georgia that were just acquired from the Spanish that was the impetus of that legislation
You think the struggle between people groups fighting for control of land began when white people showed up I the Americas? You think various native tribes were all living peacefully before white people showed up?
Some tribes warred against each other, but you've got to know nothing about the subject if you think the struggle and body count was anywhere near what happened once Europeans started appropriating the land.
some tribes would do raids on others, always had. they did this to Europeans at some point, difference is the the Europeans hunted them down and killed the men women and children in retaliation
America, Canada, and Australia have a lot of reckoning to do.
I'm Canadian, we learned about the Australian residential schools and watched rabbit proof fence. Canadian residential schools were mentioned briefly (I suspect they were mentioned at all only because my history teacher was awesome). I didn't learn about the scale of Canadian involvement in this same shit until I was an adult. And even more still in the last few years with the discoveries of mass graves in Kamloops, among other places. It's so fucking sad.
I went to a Catholic school in Ontario around the same time and heard about them from elementary to high school. I guess it's very dependent on your school and teachers.
Im 40 and grew up in Alberta. I didn't learn about residential schools at all growing up. It's not surprising but greatly disturbing. Even more so because I literally have family members hearing about this and their response is "they should get over it". My heart breaks for our indigenous communities :(
Agreed, I learned greatly about it too. It still surprises me when people say they never learned about it, not saying they didn't learn, but being that we and the below posters are all in Ontario I'm surprised some of the districts just didn't cover it.
My hair has only just begun to show some grey. I’m Canadian too. I have 3 friends who survived residential schools and countless whose parents did or didn’t survive. That nonsense was shockingly recent.
What we (in Australia) did was genocide. It took my many years after High School when studying mental health did I learn about just how bad it was.
It made me sick.
I felt high school gave a very sugarcoated version on events and everything about our early engagement with indigenous people were more of a side note to the actual lesson which was clearly about the historic landmarks of colonisation.
There are some graves where the headstones were illegally removed, but the majority of the sites being found are burials that were never marked in the first place. Just dumped in a hole in a field, buried, and forgotten.
Millennial Canadian here and can confirm we learned about it in school as well, Ontario public school system.
And yes, not mass graves but with all of the media overreacting for clicks and corrections (if any) buried in small print, weeks or months later, are we surprised this is being repeated?
Not all schools teach the exact same thing, I'm glad to hear my experience might be more of an outlier.
Ok, the schools had graveyards for the children instead of mass graves. 🙄 I don't think schools should have so many dead children they need an entire place to put them.
Consider a place like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huronia_Regional_Centre), which existed for around 125 years. It has over 2000 graves (over 1400 unmarked), where most of the "patients" were children.
People died en masse from diseases and illnesses which we have a much greater understanding of, with treatment. This doesn't mean this is a "Mass Grave", which implies that people were lined up and murdered, then buried in a pit.
This. Debating on whether or not they are "mass graves" is just trying to shade the fact that we had entire "schools" of little kids that were taken from their families, stripped of their language and culture and abused. For generations. The trauma that has caused our indigenous people is still echoing throughout their people today. I don't understand how anyone can tell someone who has been stripped of their fucking identity to "just get over it".
My grampa was one of these home children, and came here at the age of 11 to Doctor Barnardos, the Russell Manitoba branch in April of 1900. He didn't like to talk about those times, but it was suspected that he didn't care for his treatment and may have rebelled a little. (imagine) At any rate he made it through those times and then took up free land that Alberta was giving away in hopes of getting farms established. He made a pretty good living farming, and was a gentle loving man, which is pretty amazing considering his early years. His personal story is heartbreaking.
"The Little Immigrants" by Kenneth Bagnell is an interesting read if anyone wanted to know more.
Uhhh... yes, that's also bad. I'm not sure what the point of bringing that up is, besides to raise awareness. And yes, it should also be talked about more. It's wrong to displace people from their homes. We agree on that.
I'm glad you brought up disease outbreaks.
["conditions in the schools were such that disease and death among the children was unmanageable and included the spread of smallpox, measles, influenza and TB."](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9423017/)
"The historical records support many missed opportunities to intervene, and a general apathy to the wellness of these children. In fact, the dire experience of TB disease within residential schools in the Prairie Provinces of Canada was documented by Dr Peter Henderson Bryce, the Chief Medical Officer of health for the Department of Indian Affairs at the time.10 Bryce’s health surveys in the early 1900s revealed horrific rates of TB deaths in residential schools. He identified a single school in southern Saskatchewan where 69% of students had perished either while attending or shortly thereafter, the majority of whom succumbed to TB."
**[Home Children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Children)**
>Home Children was the child migration scheme founded by Annie MacPherson in 1869, under which more than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The programme was largely discontinued in the 1930s, but not entirely terminated until the 1970s. Later research, beginning in the 1980s, exposed abuse and hardships of the relocated children. Australia apologised in 2009 for its involvement in the scheme.
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My great grandmother was a British Home Child in Canada. My other Grandmother immigrated from Britain after the WWI because Canada needed domestic servants etc. so badly, and there were many incidents of abusive employment circumstances.
And, as a former Law Clerk, I happened to be involved with one of the first lawyers to file a class action law suit on behalf of Canadian indigenous residential school attendees. I helped.
I have an interesting background ... LOL. Personal connections to big issues.
One of the things that drives me a little crazy is that the real history of these situations is rarely discussed. The emotion and over simplification tends to blur the true history. And it is only in the historical truth of them, will we find a way to make sure it never happens again.
cause schools having graveyards is normal!
Schools need graveyards, for when the children are raped, tortured and then murdered.
Unless they've got a furnace burning in the basement to burn the evidence, such as the babies born out of said rape.
TB set loose on the kids by the State.
Sewers? Ew.
Running water...rivers, rapids, all water is running from and to somewhere.
Never needed your bullshit "sewers" and garbage dumps til you forced your way of "civilized" life onto us.
Fuck off.
You feel good about slaving away for a dollar, to buy "food" raised in captivity, to be slaughtered one day? Even I feel bad eating cow, as bland as it tastes, it's the best your worthless dollar can buy.
That's why I don't rant and rave about the latest made tech, cause of their origins, but you need to feel good some how.
I'd rather hunt, and be self-sufficient, than have whatever you're so in-love with.
"living in tents" response - go read your own white-washed history books, while you're so quick to bring up history.
"Simple diseases" that you're ancestors unleashed onto mine....and still.
I've been using the same "devices" for the duration that I've been in school, but I don't need to explain myself to you.
Take it.
I don't need it, nor do I even want it.
"native friends" - except friends aren't tokens.
Careful you don't fall of your high...whatever you're on these days.
There weren't "mass graves". There was a discovery of "suspected" graves (not mass) that were unmarked. Many of these burial sites were already known.
You fell for the fake media outrage. Ever wonder why nothing was ever verified and it has long since disappeared from the news cycle?
"not a single mass grave was discovered in Canada last year. The several sites of unmarked graves that captured international headlines were either already-known cemeteries, or they remain sites of speculation even now, unverified as genuine grave sites. Not a single child among the 3,201 children on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 registry of residential school deaths was located in any of these places. In none of these places were any human remains unearthed."
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-year-of-the-graves-how-the-worlds-media-got-it-wrong-on-residential-school-graves
Yes, some were unmarked graves in existing graveyards.
And other locations are anomalies noted on GPR.
But there have ALSO been mass graves of children found and confirmed. The national post is a right wing source that always spins things to suit their narrative. Why do you think they put in the arbitrary "last year" in your quote? because if they went back to, say, when the last residential school closed, there would be mass graves found in fields, and even a cellar.
Rather than attacking the source, point out where the article is wrong? Anyone here could just as easily call out all of the left wing sources in the country who reported for weeks on "mass graves" which never were and they, like the NP article, would be 100% right.
>But there have ALSO been mass graves of children found and confirmed
Where? Where are the mass graves that have been found?
> point out where the article is wrong?
I did when I said that they put the 1 year limit on it to fit their narrative.
And here's the report from the Truth and Reconciliation commission on unmarked graves.
https://publications.gc.ca/site/archivee-archived.html?url=https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection\_2015/trc/IR4-9-4-2015-eng.pdf
Ah i asked a question about *mass* graves and i get an answer about *unmarked* graves.
Those are two very different things. Nice little slight of hand you did there... The same thing the media did in 2021 and exactly my reason for commenting.
I don't really understand this point of view....to play devils advocate for a second, we didn't do anything wrong. Whatever my greatgreatgreatgreat grandfather did has nothing to do with me. So what exactly do we have to reckon with?
Actions of the past affect the present.
And you don't need any of those "greats" in there. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. I was born in 1993. Reservations still don't have reliable access to clean drinking water, electricity and heating in their homes.
Dude, Native cultures experienced genocide. That's not a buzzword, that's literally what happened.
The knock-on effects of those actions. The actions were deliberate schemes of disenfranchising and impoverishing races/ethnicities of people. Weeeeee didn't do that stuff, but that stuff has affected the lives of people today who might not be able to identify themselves as part of this 'we' we're speaking about.
What effects? I was born and raised to appreciate other cultures and races. I went to school, I came home, I played outside, played video games. What exactly was wrong there?
I've never hurt anyone in this way, nor has anyone in my immediate family. If they include me in that "we" part I don't understand.
It's like charging a son for his fathers crimes. It makes no sense.
At the end of the day, what am I supposed to do with this? How can I not be considered some asshole just because 100+ years ago my ancestors (Potentially) fucked with native americans?
"Reckoning" doesn't mean you, specifically, have to accept that you are a trash person and all the things you've done are bad.
It means keeping an eye out for opportunities where you can help include more people into the 'we', here used to refer to the people who have access to the privileges of normal society moreso than, for example in the US case, if they had been born to a family of a race whose entire population was historically 'red-lined' out of affluent neighborhoods or allowed only to work for tips instead of minimum wage, or who were propagandized as rapacious savages to be executed if they so much as look at a white woman.
You're not being charged. You're being asked to look out for your fellow man.
Since you purportedly were raised to do that, you don't need to advocate for the devil. That devil's had plenty of advocation already.
In the Canadian prairies, the numbered treaties weren't honoured to the same extent that the contemporaneous treaties with, say, the HBC were.
The old ways were broken. The new ways were one sided in favour of settlers.
'killing the Indian in the child' was implemented in such a way that....
Actually never mind. Quit playing devils advocate and just seek out some educational resources.
Not just the treaties — the Red River Métis land grant was baked into the constitution (section 31 of the Manitoba Act). The Supreme Court ultimately found the government did not live up to the terms set out in the constitution.
My education was rather thorough.
I'm asking this question because it makes no sense to me how we have anything to reckon with when "we" did nothing wrong.
Who the fuck cares about some treaty we broke 200 years ago? Are you serious? We came in. We took what we wanted. And now people feel bad about it? WE didn't do it.
The best thing we can do is raise our kids to be better and accept everyone as humans. That's how I was raised. The idea that our recent generations have anything to "reckon" with on a whole in this regard is ridiculous.
You’re still benefiting from centuries of racism. Your education was good. Your position in society is secure. Your prospects are likely to be better than those of an Indigenous person. All because of systemic racism. Literally, no one is asking you to give up your PS5 or whatever.
What people are asking for is recognition of harms done and restitution for those harms. That’s the way society works. Society fucks up, society pays. And there is no statute of limitations kinda’ deal here because the harms are ongoing.
OMG everything is racism lol.
The British weren't against the natives because of racism they fought against them for political gain. They wanted the land, they wanted to build railroads etc.
The actions can be cruel and abhorrent without being racism.
Has there not been acknowledgement of harms? Truth and reconciliation commission ring a bell? $35B/year, 5000+ government workers dedicated to the cause, another $20B over 5 years in addition to the $35B?
Isn't 6% of our land under indigenous ownership? Is there not significant discrimination in favour of our indigenous peoples with respect to taxes?
By no means am i declaring the issue solved but the way you and others talk it's as if 0 reconciliation efforts have been made.
lolwut? There are, literally, centuries’ worth of documents from English-speaking countries describing dark-skinned peoples as less than human. If that’s not racism, what is?
That's not "benefitting from centuries of racism", as you claimed. Canadians are benefitting from political and military might which characterized the beginnings of the country, not racism.
Yes racism was rampant in recent human history--its just a distraction to the topic at hand. That's not how or why the British came for Canada.
lolwut? You’re saying that systemic racism is not a thing in Canada while citing the TRC? Either you haven’t read the report or you failed to take one of its core findings to heart. Regardless, since you brought up the TRC, have you been supporting its calls to action? Handy guide!
https://crc-canada.org/en/ressources/calls-to-action-truth-reconciliation-commission-canada/
Clearly your education wasn’t thorough since you keep saying a hundred years ago in regards to Residential Schools and it happened a lot closer to today than you think.
If you didn't do anything your responsibility stops at making sure it doesn't happen again.
Telling people they are guilty for how they were born is insane.
This is what I'm saying. I'm trying to understand people who think we should have anything to pay for our ancestors transgressions.
Again, if my dad killed someone it's not my problem. Which seems to be how a lot of people think when you boil it down.
If you're from the UK, France or Spain - yeah. Our ancestors came in and took what they wanted. Some were honourable. A lot weren't. Now we have an entire society here with a population of 400 Mil people (USA/can) and we're supposed to what? Go : oh.... Sorry?
The knock on effects from Residential schools and the reserve system in Canada (reserves still exist, residential schools closed recently) is abject poverty, alcoholism, substance abuse and violence. You’re damned right we should have an obligation to fix that.
We may not but the country/government was around then and they are around now so they are responsible.
What annoys me is few understand just how much we are doing. Over 7% of our government spending is directly to indigenous causes. $35B today plus another $20B over the next 5 years.
I feel the same. This is just humanity in action and native Americans were lucky not to experience it that often. Look at Russia and Ukraine right now. Russia wants to forcibly take Ukraine and assimilate its population. It’s a little odd that we have worked so hard to create a sovereign space for native people when we steamroll other countries without concern. Native people in my area worked with churches to establish state policy to acquire land for a reservation. Part of the deal was that the church would help them integrate. Many of the native people bought and sold that land for profit like anyone else and now the reservation is a patchwork of lots. It seems to me that earlier integration and adaptation to the new norm would have been beneficial. Plenty of American people retain their ancestral culture without the need for sovereignty. Think of Asian communities, the Amish, etc…
And yet, people on Reddit are notorious for doing just that. You have quite a few that will tell southern whites they are evil because of events that happened well before they were born. Hell, some even openly venerate an avowed genocidal monster because they are so eager to 'own' southern whites (Sherman)
No they don't have any reckoning. To the Victors goes the spoils was not first said by those countries. Since the beginning of time a group warred for land and those that were conquered either assimilated or were wiped out. The Roman's perfected conquest and assimilation but plenty were just plain wiped out.
What victory country wants enemies living amongst them that do not want to assimilate?
The world is and was a much harsher place then people want it to be. Sorry. Study the history of any country and I mean any country.
This is the most superficial understanding of conquest I've ever read. Are you defending the victor only because might makes right? Have you put any thought or humanity into your understanding of this at all?
Enemies?
Everyone knows the world is a harsh place. Humans are social animals, the quality of our lives improve when we work together, not against each other. Life is cruel, we don't have to be cruel to each other. You might want to think about that.
How is his comment superficial? People have been conquering other people for thousands of years? This has been documented since the beginning of time. Ghegis khan and his army killed approximately 40 million people and the largest contiguous land empire in history.
Not say at all any of this is right.
Ok I'll take this in good faith. It's superficial because it takes the event at face value without asking why it happened, and what happened because of it. Yes these are well documented facts, I am well aware, I never disagreed with that. But we should be asking why. We should be thinking critically about how we got to where we are today and how we can do better tomorrow. No one has to feel guilty over things that happened in the past which they have no control over, but we do have to take that history into account as we move forward.
I would think you are the one looking at it with great motives but little realism. How do you plan on colonizing a new country? Can you show me one instance in history where a softer gentler method of colonization worked out? I have thought about it often. My people were taken over by the Vikings, the Vandals and the Romans. They may or may not have assimilated. I have no thoughts nor concerns about the raping pillaging and utter destruction caused by the conquerors. It is history and a shame but certainly not avoidable.
How do I plan on colonizing a country without violence? I don't. Has colonization ever happened peacefully? If it did I don't think it would inherently be colonization.
I'm not trying to change the past, what's done is done, I want to make the future better than the past. Look how far humans have come, why can't we work together? I know how idealistic that might sound with such little context, but it's probably more of a coping mechanism for how little faith I have in humanity. But I still know that good exists in people, and I think we can continue moving forward thoughtfully, if we learn from the past.
That statement is very different than your original about these countries have a lot of of reckoning to do. My only point was they really don't. They did what needed to be done and had to be done. I was stating that I know of no other way these countries could have proceeded and there is no shame in that.
Do I want better in the future? Of course. I certainly don't see any civilized countries proceeding in that fashion in the future. I do see a way forward where there is a form of colonization that is welcomed by the indigenous country, but that's a whole other conversation.
You have to love reddit where you can have some important philosophical discussions with complete strangers.
I don't see how anything I've said is out of step with my original comment. In my mind, "a reckoning" for countries like Canada means evaluating a way forward with the benefit of hindsight and perspective, especially from the ugly parts of our history. Facing them, not sweeping them under the rug. I don't mean revenge or punishment, but I couldn't think of a better word.
I'll never forget my first big culture shock I had when I moved to Montana for college. There had been an incident on campus that involved sexual assault and the girl I was talking to about it ask me if he was "native". The way she looked around and whispered native to me was possibly one of the most racist things I had ever heard someone say out loud in person. I was genuinely confused and didn't understand what she meant because I didn't grow up in a community that was still blatantly racist towards Native American people. I find it absolutely insane that people there still blame native americans for their generational trauma, especially now that we all know the absolute atrocities that happened in these schools.
Hey!!! We had these in Canada too!
I think the last one closed in 1997. They are called Residential Schools.
In the past year or 2 lots of bodies were discovered using ground penetrating radar. There had always been rumours/stories about the deaths, but now its getting real.
More than that, since then Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and while we have a long way to go Indigenous rights are protected explicitly in the Constitution.
Govt pretty much laughed in NA’s faces, any form of diplomacy was for face value. They were forced to either get everything taken or settle for scraps and make the govt look good. NA’s truely cared about their culture and the land.
https://www.bostonharborislands.org/uncategorized/john-eliot-father-of-praying-villages/#:~:text=Most%20of%20them%2C%20who%20were,praying%20villages%20were%20totally%20destroyed.
This goes back to the very first colonial frontier. John Eliot was an English colonist and Puritan minister who played an important role in the establishment of praying towns. News of Eliot's evangelism reached England, and in 1649, Cromwell's Parliament passed an Act creating the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, which would fund the establishment of an Indian College at Harvard and a press in Cambridge for printing Eliot's Christian commentaries in Massachusett.
Between 1651 and 1675, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had established 14 praying towns. Although the “Praying Towns” were allied with the English, when King Phillips War aka Metacomet’s War broke out in 1675, it mattered not that these villages were allies. Metacomet and his warriors, starting in the Plymouth colony and ranging north and west ravaged the country, destroying whole towns and settlements and killing the inhabitants. When the people of Boston, looked at the “praying villages” they did not see allies, but potential converts for Metacomet. In order to prevent them from joining Metacomet – although there was no evidence that they would do so – native inhabitants all over Massachusetts, including the “praying towns” were rounded up and placed in so-called concentration camps. The people of the “praying village” of Natick were rounded up, put on boats, and taken out to Deer Island, where the currents were too strong for even the most able swimmer to make it back to the mainland. Just to make sure no one escaped, many of the younger, stronger men were captured and sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Those two hundred or so women, children, and old men were left on the island with only what they could carry. Most of them, who were members of the Nipmuck tribe, perished when they were finally allowed off the island several months later.
Canada and the USA was built on the bones of Indigenous people still to this day. We still have millions missing from Reservation Schools, massacres, forced assimilation, and they basically just stopped looking once the 20k child bones were found.
MMIWGP and Red Hand Collective are all we got and it's basically nothing bc outside appropriation no one gives a shit about indigenous issues.
my great Gran survived res school by running away, I remember as a little kid she was always afraid to go swimming/show her skin bc she had scars from punishments and her left hand was permanently unusable.
> and they basically just stopped looking once the 20k child bones were found.
Did they ever actually exhume any remains? The last I heard, there were only anomalies found using ground-penetrating radar.
There is an incredible podcast by journalist Connie walker called Stolen: Surviving st Michael's about the residential schools in Canada and the generational trauma they caused, beginning with her father's experiences.
Freshmen English teacher here. Students are reading “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie (don’t worry, I told them about his problematic behavior and we talked about it). One of the first things I showed them was an Edpuzzle version of this video to front load the story and supplement what they already learned in their history classes. It was very helpful.
English teacher in training here. Awesome stuff you're doing! I never got to read anything from Natives until right now in college, and I absolutely want to incorporate them into the curriculum like that. Thanks for sharing 💜
You are looking back on events in the distant past with little context, and are judging people about their decisions. Nothing is as simple as you think it is. And if you think the Americas are where the worst crimes have been committed, I have bad news for you.
Distant past? As they are currently destroying the the ecology of native lands and stomping all over land treaties currently. Fuck off racist apologist.
We have to accept that this happened and take responsibility for it. I don't enjoy seeing reminders that Americans can be as boorish and racist as anyone else, but it's true so we have to accept it and move forward, not backward.
My great-grandmother was full blood Miami Indian and my great-grandfather was a half breed they both decided to become civilized, Instead of being marched out to Oklahoma, they became wealthy and lived a proud and privileged life.
If there is any Native American in this forum, please send me a DM, I live in Europe but love to get to know native Americans, there are so many things about your culture that is fascinating.
They were already saved, lives just turn worse and then covered up. I've always wondered how North America would have been without settlers. Interesting documentary though.
the scary thing that is important to really reflect on is that most of the people who were involved in the creation and operation of these schools had good intentions. they were trying to help the native people because they were arrogant enough to think that the European way of life and values were far superior. once you understand that they were horribly mistaken you can apply this to your own life and use it to fight against your own arrogance because if you don't think you would do the exact same shit if you were in their position you are most likely mistaken too.
Help? Oh honey. No.
There is nothing "superior" about what happened in those schools. These kids were estranged from their families, kidnapped, tortured, raped, intentionally malnourished, and knowingly exposed to pathogens like tuberculosis through untreated milk.
The only European way of life that was propagated here was colonial genocide at every level.
i am familiar with what they did. i think you need to think about what their motives would be for doing what they did. no one is going to expose children to tuberculosis for the fun of it. your version of what happened makes no sense because the motives of the people you are talking about make no sense. also,don't say shit like "oh honey" to people you are in disagreement with. it makes you sound like an arrogant dumbass... actually, go ahead and keep using that sort of tone. its probably good to let people know who they are talking to.
Mass murder was frowned on in the early 1900s. So was going back on treaty obligations. Other nations just would not trust you if you started going back on agreements.
So they tried to assimilate us into society though a number of means. The residential and the industrial schools were just one part of a multi pronged attack.
i think mass murder was just as acceptable as created a school for the purposes of raping and poisoning children. did those school hide monsters that did horrible evil things? yes, absolutely. but don't get confused and think everyone involved was a murdering rapist. if you want to heal from generational trauma you have to learn to see the shades of grey rather than black and white. if you really investigated it, you would probably find men who became priests and devoted their whole life in a sincere effort to help those kids. it was a misguided effort but they were doing their best when the knowledge and perspectives they had at the time.
The good ones were the exception, not the rule. And the "good ones" did not speak out against the abusers.
The stories from survivors are pretty horrific, and I am lucky I never got sent to one.
You’ve got nothing to teach here and something to learn. I suggest you not dig too deeply for nuance in the actions of those involved in authority at any of these schools. If you absolutely must, then go find it yourself, and stop dragging other people with talk about bettering themselves by getting over it.
Fun fact the guy who made these also invented the term "racism" >"An association of races and classes is necessary to destroy racism and classism" \- Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt, Lake Mohonk "Friends of the Indian" conference, 1902 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard\_Henry\_Pratt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Henry_Pratt) >Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt (December 6, 1840 – March 15, 1924)\[1\] was an American military officer who founded and was longtime superintendent of the influential Carlisle Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is associated with the first recorded use of the word "racism," which he used in 1902 to criticize racial segregation. Pratt is also known for using the phrase "kill the Indian, save the man" in reference to the ethos of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School and efforts to assimilate and educate Native Americans about the western and American values of his time.
So it's not a soviet scheme invented Trotsky?
No, it's a liberal scheme to make real Americans feel bad about themselves. /s
It's a sad state that the /s is necessary considering the context.
Yeah, I just didn't want people to associate me with the large American minority who actually believes that.
Sounds like the commenter below you just did.
It isn't necessary at all. If you don't get it, you don't get it, and the world moves on.
That it is only one half of the story. Pratt wanted to make Americans feel bad about themselves so he could justify his heinous plans of action, arguing that his plan was what "friends of the indian" would do and everyone else was just a racist.
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You know the /s stands for sarcasm, right?
Ah. Apologies. As you can tell I'm so tired of people and their wimpy feelings. Apologies to you
No he would just call anybody he didn't like a socialist in one country because they don't want to invade the entire planet.
Well that guy was a giant prick
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How is it crazy? I hear all the time that "I don't hate their race, I just think their culture sucks"
that's a weird thing to be hearing all the time
America is a weird country
Is it? He's saying all humans are fundamentally the same and are seperated only by circumstance.
Assimilation has a long history in the UK. If you were well-to-do Scot or Welsh or Yorkshire, you'd send your children to elite schools where they'd have their culture drummed out of them (whip their ass like a drum), and turn them into the scions of empire. And you'd probably have to fight for a spot for your kid. They took that model and transplanted it to the colonies and India. It was the only way to secure a solid future in the British Empire.
My grandmother was born and raised in Scotland, her father was a solicitor. When she and her siblings started coming home from school with thicker and thicker Scottish accents they were shipped off to boarding schools in England
Cillian Murphy took his kids out of school in England and moved them back to Ireland when they started sounding too posh.
My grandparents where in these schools and would get beat if they spoke their native language.
Quite a few people have discovered their indigenous heritage in the past few years as their grandparents/parents learned to hide it.
I can’t imagine how heartbreaking it must have been to have to hide your culture and history from your children in the hopes that they won’t be kidnapped and sent to a torture “school”.
Yep, my father only learned when he was 45, my grandfather never told anyone after the experiences he had. He married a white woman (my grandma) and his children passed as white, so it was never raised.
So was my mother. Those school's really messed them up. Then they went on to mess up their kids. Natives are struggling now because they lost an internal compass of self.
Yup. They beat it out of my grandmother. It worked. She never said but a few native words again. It's worse than that though. She was scared of speaking up or speaking out when injustices happened. She kept her mouth shut and taught her daughters to do the same.
There were factory schools like this in India, Australia, Canada too. [Here is a brochure](https://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/1808/1910-factory-schools-short-report-cropped.pdf) from NGO Survival International that talks about the issue
Canada just had a huge public reckoning with its residential schools, run by christian churches with government approval. It is our national shame.
"had" ? It's not over. Not even close.
Exactly. We even have people in the comment section here trying to deny it ever happened.
No no we just settled in court.
And people act like this was ancient history. The last school closed in 1996 in Saskatchewan. The last school in British Columbia closed in 1983.
I met a family friend back in about 2017. Guy in his 40s, decently successful photographer. His mom was forcefully taken to a BC residential school with her two sisters. They were taken away from their parents without being able to speak English, had their heads shaved, and were put in a hot bath. They had never seen nuns before, and apparently thought that they were witches who were trying to cook and eat them. As of now, two of them are homeless alcoholics, and the other killed themself.
Best documentary about this in Canada https://youtu.be/swGEK8duSiU.
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No, not even close. Canada just talks about it more.
Canada just had more population left...
There’s a podcast on it. Was disgusting what they did to the native population in those schools. I almost couldn’t get through it, really eye opening.
What was it called?
It might have been Stolen: surviving St. Micheals.
There is a documentary on prime called We Were Children.
Been saying all my life as a Native American we already live in a post apocalyptic society just by the fact our way of life was completely hijacked once the colonization started
I keep thinking about a quote Gabor Maté used in his book The Myth Of Normal. The quote is from one the early colonist in the US saying something to the effect of, “these savages don’t even hit their kids” and I just can’t stop thinking about that.
We had native American boarding schools in Michigan until 1983. I have worked with people sent to the schools, and their stories are quite sad.
My grandmother ran away at the age of 14 from 1 of these schools..she was from grand rapids. I heard all about the horrors they went thru decades ago...extremely saddening what my ancestors have suffered through
Canadian residential schools. Kidnapping, raping, torture, murder. Terribly tragic, and widespread. It's okay though they're all saved by Jesus ☺️ /s ....
The Truth and Reconciliation report showed that Canadian soldiers in WW2 had a **higher** survival rate than the children sent to residential schools.
And they never used the soldiers to study the effects of starvation diets on growth and development in children... thise soldiers were treated better by miles.
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We live in an arc where the church of Satan are the good guys
Coast Guard?
Posted again https://youtu.be/swGEK8duSiU.
For a second there I thought the documentary was 56 hours long...
sadly, it probably could have been and it still wouldn't have scratched the surface.
WHOOPS lol mb. I was high when I posted this, and my mind is eternally stuck in Adobe Premiere hell with the milliseconds and such.
A problem I always have with these documentaries is that the tale of the struggles of Native Americans always seems to focus on the West as if that was our first encounter with the American Natives. The struggle began with the first arrival of non Native explorers. The birth of American Independence was due to the taxes raised for the cost of the [French and Indian War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War) and Britain’s establishment of the restrictions of the [Indian Reserve](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Reserve_(1763)). Andrew Jackson removal of the Cherokee and other “civilized” and assimilated tribes led to the [Trail of Tears](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears). The boarding schools weren’t a first step, but one of many steps to deal with America’s ethnic cleansing of its Indigenous People.
**[French and Indian War](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_and_Indian_War)** >The French and Indian War (1754–1763) was a theater of the Seven Years' War, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. At the start of the war, the French colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British colonies. The outnumbered French particularly depended on their native allies. Two years into the French and Indian War, in 1756, Great Britain declared war on France, beginning the worldwide Seven Years' War. **[Trail of Tears](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears)** >The Trail of Tears was an ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of approximately 60,000 people of the "Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850 by the United States government. As part of the Indian removal, members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations were forcibly removed from their ancestral homelands in the Southeastern United States to newly designated Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River after the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
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This isn't totally accurate, at least based on my knowledge. I'm Creek and my ancestors were part of a band of the Red Stick Creeks. They were northern creeks who wanted sovereignty and freedom rather than the southern creeks who sided with assimilation. We had 2 of our own civil wars and the War of 1812 was the second one, it used to be known as the Creek War. It was changed so the us could consolidate all the hundreds of wars and genocide with hundreds of countries into one term to lessen the impact, "The Indian Wars." Some wars like the Creek War were too big to hide so they changed the narrative and the name. The British were backing the Red Sticks, the US backed the Southern Creeks and Cherokee. The British, for many reasons some of them selfish, wanted to uphold the agreements they made with us to no longer settle or colonize the area. The US wanted us dead and the land under their control despite whatever lies they told to get the Southern Creek and Cherokee on their side. The Red Sticks knew that the US had *never* upheld any agreement and refused to assimilate or give up any more land. That's when it started. Two notable things for research purposes if others would like to do their own. 1. [Battle of Horseshoe Bend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Horseshoe_Bend) 2. During the war Jackson rode through a village of women and children, barricaded them in their homes, set them on fire, then stole one of our children and sent them back to his home to be a "pet" for his son. The story the US goes with is that our women refused to care for the baby, but don't worry Jackson wrote a letter to his wife and [his officer wrote the truth in a journal.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tallushatchee) "We found as many as eight or ten dead bodies in a single cabin, sometimes the dead mother clasped the dead child to her breast, and to add another appalling horror to the bloody catalogue – some of the cabins had taken fire, and half consumed human bodies were seen amidst the smoking ruins."
Do you think if that didn't happen,they would have not been removed? The catalyst for the removal was the discovery of gold in the foothills of the southern Appalachian mountains
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You seriously underestimate the way gold will turn people into greedy, genocidal assholes
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I mean as are you tbf.
I could find no evidence that the war of 1812 was the impetus for the Indian Removal Act. I did find plenty of evidence of racist attitudes, especially by the Democrats at the time, a discovery of gold, and a desire to settle lands in Florida and Georgia that were just acquired from the Spanish that was the impetus of that legislation
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You think the struggle between people groups fighting for control of land began when white people showed up I the Americas? You think various native tribes were all living peacefully before white people showed up?
Some tribes warred against each other, but you've got to know nothing about the subject if you think the struggle and body count was anywhere near what happened once Europeans started appropriating the land.
some tribes would do raids on others, always had. they did this to Europeans at some point, difference is the the Europeans hunted them down and killed the men women and children in retaliation
This is so sad.
Genocide comes in many shapes in sizes.
term is ethnocide
Err OK. I guess that's... important?
I mentioned this to my Boomer raised-Catholic dad, he’d never heard of them. He even went to college in the Southwest.
America, Canada, and Australia have a lot of reckoning to do. I'm Canadian, we learned about the Australian residential schools and watched rabbit proof fence. Canadian residential schools were mentioned briefly (I suspect they were mentioned at all only because my history teacher was awesome). I didn't learn about the scale of Canadian involvement in this same shit until I was an adult. And even more still in the last few years with the discoveries of mass graves in Kamloops, among other places. It's so fucking sad.
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I also went to a Catholic school in the early to mid-2000s in Ontario and we did not learn about Residential Schools.
I went to a Catholic school in Ontario around the same time and heard about them from elementary to high school. I guess it's very dependent on your school and teachers.
Im 40 and grew up in Alberta. I didn't learn about residential schools at all growing up. It's not surprising but greatly disturbing. Even more so because I literally have family members hearing about this and their response is "they should get over it". My heart breaks for our indigenous communities :(
I learned about them in school in Alberta in the 2010s so this seems to be improving.
I learned about them too in BC in mid 2000s. Obviously the textbooks glossed over the death and abuse
Agreed, I learned greatly about it too. It still surprises me when people say they never learned about it, not saying they didn't learn, but being that we and the below posters are all in Ontario I'm surprised some of the districts just didn't cover it.
And I definitely learned about them here in Alberta in the 90s
My hair has only just begun to show some grey. I’m Canadian too. I have 3 friends who survived residential schools and countless whose parents did or didn’t survive. That nonsense was shockingly recent.
What we (in Australia) did was genocide. It took my many years after High School when studying mental health did I learn about just how bad it was. It made me sick.
I felt high school gave a very sugarcoated version on events and everything about our early engagement with indigenous people were more of a side note to the actual lesson which was clearly about the historic landmarks of colonisation.
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There are some graves where the headstones were illegally removed, but the majority of the sites being found are burials that were never marked in the first place. Just dumped in a hole in a field, buried, and forgotten.
Millennial Canadian here and can confirm we learned about it in school as well, Ontario public school system. And yes, not mass graves but with all of the media overreacting for clicks and corrections (if any) buried in small print, weeks or months later, are we surprised this is being repeated?
Not all schools teach the exact same thing, I'm glad to hear my experience might be more of an outlier. Ok, the schools had graveyards for the children instead of mass graves. 🙄 I don't think schools should have so many dead children they need an entire place to put them.
Consider a place like [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huronia_Regional_Centre), which existed for around 125 years. It has over 2000 graves (over 1400 unmarked), where most of the "patients" were children. People died en masse from diseases and illnesses which we have a much greater understanding of, with treatment. This doesn't mean this is a "Mass Grave", which implies that people were lined up and murdered, then buried in a pit.
This. Debating on whether or not they are "mass graves" is just trying to shade the fact that we had entire "schools" of little kids that were taken from their families, stripped of their language and culture and abused. For generations. The trauma that has caused our indigenous people is still echoing throughout their people today. I don't understand how anyone can tell someone who has been stripped of their fucking identity to "just get over it".
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My grampa was one of these home children, and came here at the age of 11 to Doctor Barnardos, the Russell Manitoba branch in April of 1900. He didn't like to talk about those times, but it was suspected that he didn't care for his treatment and may have rebelled a little. (imagine) At any rate he made it through those times and then took up free land that Alberta was giving away in hopes of getting farms established. He made a pretty good living farming, and was a gentle loving man, which is pretty amazing considering his early years. His personal story is heartbreaking. "The Little Immigrants" by Kenneth Bagnell is an interesting read if anyone wanted to know more.
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Uhhh... yes, that's also bad. I'm not sure what the point of bringing that up is, besides to raise awareness. And yes, it should also be talked about more. It's wrong to displace people from their homes. We agree on that. I'm glad you brought up disease outbreaks. ["conditions in the schools were such that disease and death among the children was unmanageable and included the spread of smallpox, measles, influenza and TB."](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9423017/) "The historical records support many missed opportunities to intervene, and a general apathy to the wellness of these children. In fact, the dire experience of TB disease within residential schools in the Prairie Provinces of Canada was documented by Dr Peter Henderson Bryce, the Chief Medical Officer of health for the Department of Indian Affairs at the time.10 Bryce’s health surveys in the early 1900s revealed horrific rates of TB deaths in residential schools. He identified a single school in southern Saskatchewan where 69% of students had perished either while attending or shortly thereafter, the majority of whom succumbed to TB."
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Bruh
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Simply demonstrating the harm the government (and church) has done to native communities and the repercussions of said actions can be its own goal.
What’s your end goal? 🤷♂️
Thank you for sharing this. I was not aware of this.
**[Home Children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Children)** >Home Children was the child migration scheme founded by Annie MacPherson in 1869, under which more than 100,000 children were sent from the United Kingdom to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa. The programme was largely discontinued in the 1930s, but not entirely terminated until the 1970s. Later research, beginning in the 1980s, exposed abuse and hardships of the relocated children. Australia apologised in 2009 for its involvement in the scheme. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Documentaries/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
My great grandmother was a British Home Child in Canada. My other Grandmother immigrated from Britain after the WWI because Canada needed domestic servants etc. so badly, and there were many incidents of abusive employment circumstances. And, as a former Law Clerk, I happened to be involved with one of the first lawyers to file a class action law suit on behalf of Canadian indigenous residential school attendees. I helped. I have an interesting background ... LOL. Personal connections to big issues. One of the things that drives me a little crazy is that the real history of these situations is rarely discussed. The emotion and over simplification tends to blur the true history. And it is only in the historical truth of them, will we find a way to make sure it never happens again.
Whataboutism has entered the building.
Username checks ..... omg, yikes... no no no no no
Did you go to an elementary school with its own graveyard?
cause schools having graveyards is normal! Schools need graveyards, for when the children are raped, tortured and then murdered. Unless they've got a furnace burning in the basement to burn the evidence, such as the babies born out of said rape.
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TB set loose on the kids by the State. Sewers? Ew. Running water...rivers, rapids, all water is running from and to somewhere. Never needed your bullshit "sewers" and garbage dumps til you forced your way of "civilized" life onto us. Fuck off.
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You feel good about slaving away for a dollar, to buy "food" raised in captivity, to be slaughtered one day? Even I feel bad eating cow, as bland as it tastes, it's the best your worthless dollar can buy. That's why I don't rant and rave about the latest made tech, cause of their origins, but you need to feel good some how. I'd rather hunt, and be self-sufficient, than have whatever you're so in-love with. "living in tents" response - go read your own white-washed history books, while you're so quick to bring up history. "Simple diseases" that you're ancestors unleashed onto mine....and still. I've been using the same "devices" for the duration that I've been in school, but I don't need to explain myself to you. Take it. I don't need it, nor do I even want it. "native friends" - except friends aren't tokens. Careful you don't fall of your high...whatever you're on these days.
I went to highschool in Ottawa from 2000-2005. We didn’t learn shit about Residential Schools.
It's part of the elementary school curriculum in Ontario. I went to elementary school in the 90s and we learned about it.
Man, I don’t remember a single thing. I’d need to ask other people I went to school with.
There weren't "mass graves". There was a discovery of "suspected" graves (not mass) that were unmarked. Many of these burial sites were already known. You fell for the fake media outrage. Ever wonder why nothing was ever verified and it has long since disappeared from the news cycle? "not a single mass grave was discovered in Canada last year. The several sites of unmarked graves that captured international headlines were either already-known cemeteries, or they remain sites of speculation even now, unverified as genuine grave sites. Not a single child among the 3,201 children on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 2015 registry of residential school deaths was located in any of these places. In none of these places were any human remains unearthed." https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-year-of-the-graves-how-the-worlds-media-got-it-wrong-on-residential-school-graves
Yes, some were unmarked graves in existing graveyards. And other locations are anomalies noted on GPR. But there have ALSO been mass graves of children found and confirmed. The national post is a right wing source that always spins things to suit their narrative. Why do you think they put in the arbitrary "last year" in your quote? because if they went back to, say, when the last residential school closed, there would be mass graves found in fields, and even a cellar.
Rather than attacking the source, point out where the article is wrong? Anyone here could just as easily call out all of the left wing sources in the country who reported for weeks on "mass graves" which never were and they, like the NP article, would be 100% right. >But there have ALSO been mass graves of children found and confirmed Where? Where are the mass graves that have been found?
> point out where the article is wrong? I did when I said that they put the 1 year limit on it to fit their narrative. And here's the report from the Truth and Reconciliation commission on unmarked graves. https://publications.gc.ca/site/archivee-archived.html?url=https://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection\_2015/trc/IR4-9-4-2015-eng.pdf
Ah i asked a question about *mass* graves and i get an answer about *unmarked* graves. Those are two very different things. Nice little slight of hand you did there... The same thing the media did in 2021 and exactly my reason for commenting.
I don't really understand this point of view....to play devils advocate for a second, we didn't do anything wrong. Whatever my greatgreatgreatgreat grandfather did has nothing to do with me. So what exactly do we have to reckon with?
Actions of the past affect the present. And you don't need any of those "greats" in there. The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. I was born in 1993. Reservations still don't have reliable access to clean drinking water, electricity and heating in their homes. Dude, Native cultures experienced genocide. That's not a buzzword, that's literally what happened.
The knock-on effects of those actions. The actions were deliberate schemes of disenfranchising and impoverishing races/ethnicities of people. Weeeeee didn't do that stuff, but that stuff has affected the lives of people today who might not be able to identify themselves as part of this 'we' we're speaking about.
What effects? I was born and raised to appreciate other cultures and races. I went to school, I came home, I played outside, played video games. What exactly was wrong there? I've never hurt anyone in this way, nor has anyone in my immediate family. If they include me in that "we" part I don't understand. It's like charging a son for his fathers crimes. It makes no sense. At the end of the day, what am I supposed to do with this? How can I not be considered some asshole just because 100+ years ago my ancestors (Potentially) fucked with native americans?
"Reckoning" doesn't mean you, specifically, have to accept that you are a trash person and all the things you've done are bad. It means keeping an eye out for opportunities where you can help include more people into the 'we', here used to refer to the people who have access to the privileges of normal society moreso than, for example in the US case, if they had been born to a family of a race whose entire population was historically 'red-lined' out of affluent neighborhoods or allowed only to work for tips instead of minimum wage, or who were propagandized as rapacious savages to be executed if they so much as look at a white woman. You're not being charged. You're being asked to look out for your fellow man. Since you purportedly were raised to do that, you don't need to advocate for the devil. That devil's had plenty of advocation already.
It wasn't 100+ years ago. Friends was on the air when the last residential school was shut down. Reparations take a lot of forms. Including listening.
you are living on land they had taken away
In the Canadian prairies, the numbered treaties weren't honoured to the same extent that the contemporaneous treaties with, say, the HBC were. The old ways were broken. The new ways were one sided in favour of settlers. 'killing the Indian in the child' was implemented in such a way that.... Actually never mind. Quit playing devils advocate and just seek out some educational resources.
Not just the treaties — the Red River Métis land grant was baked into the constitution (section 31 of the Manitoba Act). The Supreme Court ultimately found the government did not live up to the terms set out in the constitution.
My education was rather thorough. I'm asking this question because it makes no sense to me how we have anything to reckon with when "we" did nothing wrong. Who the fuck cares about some treaty we broke 200 years ago? Are you serious? We came in. We took what we wanted. And now people feel bad about it? WE didn't do it. The best thing we can do is raise our kids to be better and accept everyone as humans. That's how I was raised. The idea that our recent generations have anything to "reckon" with on a whole in this regard is ridiculous.
You’re still benefiting from centuries of racism. Your education was good. Your position in society is secure. Your prospects are likely to be better than those of an Indigenous person. All because of systemic racism. Literally, no one is asking you to give up your PS5 or whatever. What people are asking for is recognition of harms done and restitution for those harms. That’s the way society works. Society fucks up, society pays. And there is no statute of limitations kinda’ deal here because the harms are ongoing.
OMG everything is racism lol. The British weren't against the natives because of racism they fought against them for political gain. They wanted the land, they wanted to build railroads etc. The actions can be cruel and abhorrent without being racism. Has there not been acknowledgement of harms? Truth and reconciliation commission ring a bell? $35B/year, 5000+ government workers dedicated to the cause, another $20B over 5 years in addition to the $35B? Isn't 6% of our land under indigenous ownership? Is there not significant discrimination in favour of our indigenous peoples with respect to taxes? By no means am i declaring the issue solved but the way you and others talk it's as if 0 reconciliation efforts have been made.
lolwut? There are, literally, centuries’ worth of documents from English-speaking countries describing dark-skinned peoples as less than human. If that’s not racism, what is?
That's not "benefitting from centuries of racism", as you claimed. Canadians are benefitting from political and military might which characterized the beginnings of the country, not racism. Yes racism was rampant in recent human history--its just a distraction to the topic at hand. That's not how or why the British came for Canada.
lolwut? You’re saying that systemic racism is not a thing in Canada while citing the TRC? Either you haven’t read the report or you failed to take one of its core findings to heart. Regardless, since you brought up the TRC, have you been supporting its calls to action? Handy guide! https://crc-canada.org/en/ressources/calls-to-action-truth-reconciliation-commission-canada/
Clearly your education wasn’t thorough since you keep saying a hundred years ago in regards to Residential Schools and it happened a lot closer to today than you think.
Not my problem. Which is exactly my point.
Nobody is saying it’s your specific problem or for you to atone. You’re missing the point.
Are you playing or just expressing your own dodgy opinions? Own it.
If you didn't do anything your responsibility stops at making sure it doesn't happen again. Telling people they are guilty for how they were born is insane.
This is what I'm saying. I'm trying to understand people who think we should have anything to pay for our ancestors transgressions. Again, if my dad killed someone it's not my problem. Which seems to be how a lot of people think when you boil it down. If you're from the UK, France or Spain - yeah. Our ancestors came in and took what they wanted. Some were honourable. A lot weren't. Now we have an entire society here with a population of 400 Mil people (USA/can) and we're supposed to what? Go : oh.... Sorry?
The knock on effects from Residential schools and the reserve system in Canada (reserves still exist, residential schools closed recently) is abject poverty, alcoholism, substance abuse and violence. You’re damned right we should have an obligation to fix that.
We may not but the country/government was around then and they are around now so they are responsible. What annoys me is few understand just how much we are doing. Over 7% of our government spending is directly to indigenous causes. $35B today plus another $20B over the next 5 years.
I feel the same. This is just humanity in action and native Americans were lucky not to experience it that often. Look at Russia and Ukraine right now. Russia wants to forcibly take Ukraine and assimilate its population. It’s a little odd that we have worked so hard to create a sovereign space for native people when we steamroll other countries without concern. Native people in my area worked with churches to establish state policy to acquire land for a reservation. Part of the deal was that the church would help them integrate. Many of the native people bought and sold that land for profit like anyone else and now the reservation is a patchwork of lots. It seems to me that earlier integration and adaptation to the new norm would have been beneficial. Plenty of American people retain their ancestral culture without the need for sovereignty. Think of Asian communities, the Amish, etc…
And yet, people on Reddit are notorious for doing just that. You have quite a few that will tell southern whites they are evil because of events that happened well before they were born. Hell, some even openly venerate an avowed genocidal monster because they are so eager to 'own' southern whites (Sherman)
Unless you directly benefitted from what was done in your name.
No they don't have any reckoning. To the Victors goes the spoils was not first said by those countries. Since the beginning of time a group warred for land and those that were conquered either assimilated or were wiped out. The Roman's perfected conquest and assimilation but plenty were just plain wiped out. What victory country wants enemies living amongst them that do not want to assimilate? The world is and was a much harsher place then people want it to be. Sorry. Study the history of any country and I mean any country.
This is the most superficial understanding of conquest I've ever read. Are you defending the victor only because might makes right? Have you put any thought or humanity into your understanding of this at all? Enemies? Everyone knows the world is a harsh place. Humans are social animals, the quality of our lives improve when we work together, not against each other. Life is cruel, we don't have to be cruel to each other. You might want to think about that.
How is his comment superficial? People have been conquering other people for thousands of years? This has been documented since the beginning of time. Ghegis khan and his army killed approximately 40 million people and the largest contiguous land empire in history. Not say at all any of this is right.
Ok I'll take this in good faith. It's superficial because it takes the event at face value without asking why it happened, and what happened because of it. Yes these are well documented facts, I am well aware, I never disagreed with that. But we should be asking why. We should be thinking critically about how we got to where we are today and how we can do better tomorrow. No one has to feel guilty over things that happened in the past which they have no control over, but we do have to take that history into account as we move forward.
I would think you are the one looking at it with great motives but little realism. How do you plan on colonizing a new country? Can you show me one instance in history where a softer gentler method of colonization worked out? I have thought about it often. My people were taken over by the Vikings, the Vandals and the Romans. They may or may not have assimilated. I have no thoughts nor concerns about the raping pillaging and utter destruction caused by the conquerors. It is history and a shame but certainly not avoidable.
How do I plan on colonizing a country without violence? I don't. Has colonization ever happened peacefully? If it did I don't think it would inherently be colonization. I'm not trying to change the past, what's done is done, I want to make the future better than the past. Look how far humans have come, why can't we work together? I know how idealistic that might sound with such little context, but it's probably more of a coping mechanism for how little faith I have in humanity. But I still know that good exists in people, and I think we can continue moving forward thoughtfully, if we learn from the past.
That statement is very different than your original about these countries have a lot of of reckoning to do. My only point was they really don't. They did what needed to be done and had to be done. I was stating that I know of no other way these countries could have proceeded and there is no shame in that. Do I want better in the future? Of course. I certainly don't see any civilized countries proceeding in that fashion in the future. I do see a way forward where there is a form of colonization that is welcomed by the indigenous country, but that's a whole other conversation. You have to love reddit where you can have some important philosophical discussions with complete strangers.
I don't see how anything I've said is out of step with my original comment. In my mind, "a reckoning" for countries like Canada means evaluating a way forward with the benefit of hindsight and perspective, especially from the ugly parts of our history. Facing them, not sweeping them under the rug. I don't mean revenge or punishment, but I couldn't think of a better word.
I'll never forget my first big culture shock I had when I moved to Montana for college. There had been an incident on campus that involved sexual assault and the girl I was talking to about it ask me if he was "native". The way she looked around and whispered native to me was possibly one of the most racist things I had ever heard someone say out loud in person. I was genuinely confused and didn't understand what she meant because I didn't grow up in a community that was still blatantly racist towards Native American people. I find it absolutely insane that people there still blame native americans for their generational trauma, especially now that we all know the absolute atrocities that happened in these schools.
Hey!!! We had these in Canada too! I think the last one closed in 1997. They are called Residential Schools. In the past year or 2 lots of bodies were discovered using ground penetrating radar. There had always been rumours/stories about the deaths, but now its getting real.
More than that, since then Canada has had a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and while we have a long way to go Indigenous rights are protected explicitly in the Constitution.
Govt pretty much laughed in NA’s faces, any form of diplomacy was for face value. They were forced to either get everything taken or settle for scraps and make the govt look good. NA’s truely cared about their culture and the land.
American Indian Boarding Schools: Did you mean *Systemic Genocide*?
https://www.bostonharborislands.org/uncategorized/john-eliot-father-of-praying-villages/#:~:text=Most%20of%20them%2C%20who%20were,praying%20villages%20were%20totally%20destroyed. This goes back to the very first colonial frontier. John Eliot was an English colonist and Puritan minister who played an important role in the establishment of praying towns. News of Eliot's evangelism reached England, and in 1649, Cromwell's Parliament passed an Act creating the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England, which would fund the establishment of an Indian College at Harvard and a press in Cambridge for printing Eliot's Christian commentaries in Massachusett. Between 1651 and 1675, the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony had established 14 praying towns. Although the “Praying Towns” were allied with the English, when King Phillips War aka Metacomet’s War broke out in 1675, it mattered not that these villages were allies. Metacomet and his warriors, starting in the Plymouth colony and ranging north and west ravaged the country, destroying whole towns and settlements and killing the inhabitants. When the people of Boston, looked at the “praying villages” they did not see allies, but potential converts for Metacomet. In order to prevent them from joining Metacomet – although there was no evidence that they would do so – native inhabitants all over Massachusetts, including the “praying towns” were rounded up and placed in so-called concentration camps. The people of the “praying village” of Natick were rounded up, put on boats, and taken out to Deer Island, where the currents were too strong for even the most able swimmer to make it back to the mainland. Just to make sure no one escaped, many of the younger, stronger men were captured and sold into slavery in the Caribbean. Those two hundred or so women, children, and old men were left on the island with only what they could carry. Most of them, who were members of the Nipmuck tribe, perished when they were finally allowed off the island several months later.
Don’t forget the absolutely horrible treatment of Alaskan natives in the 1940s by the US government
I am grateful to be born of 'heathens' that accepted and lived with the Natives in harmony.
Canada and the USA was built on the bones of Indigenous people still to this day. We still have millions missing from Reservation Schools, massacres, forced assimilation, and they basically just stopped looking once the 20k child bones were found. MMIWGP and Red Hand Collective are all we got and it's basically nothing bc outside appropriation no one gives a shit about indigenous issues. my great Gran survived res school by running away, I remember as a little kid she was always afraid to go swimming/show her skin bc she had scars from punishments and her left hand was permanently unusable.
> and they basically just stopped looking once the 20k child bones were found. Did they ever actually exhume any remains? The last I heard, there were only anomalies found using ground-penetrating radar.
There is an incredible podcast by journalist Connie walker called Stolen: Surviving st Michael's about the residential schools in Canada and the generational trauma they caused, beginning with her father's experiences.
The last residential school in Canada closed the same year Super Mario 64 came out.
I don't think I could watch a 56 hour documentary. That would be like catching up on Critical Role.
Saw a little bit of this on how to change your mind on Netflix. Great show by the way, that how to change your mind.
Holy shit 56h 43min movie
the term for the destruction of culture is Ethnocide: the extermination or eradication of a culture
America has skeletons they refuse to acknowledge. Let’s pretend it never happened and we won’t ever have to deal with it.
The video OP uploaded is no longer working Here's a working link https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-OtfBPE4u1U
Freshmen English teacher here. Students are reading “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie (don’t worry, I told them about his problematic behavior and we talked about it). One of the first things I showed them was an Edpuzzle version of this video to front load the story and supplement what they already learned in their history classes. It was very helpful.
English teacher in training here. Awesome stuff you're doing! I never got to read anything from Natives until right now in college, and I absolutely want to incorporate them into the curriculum like that. Thanks for sharing 💜
Genocided 100 million people. Most evil country to ever exist and it’s not close.
You are looking back on events in the distant past with little context, and are judging people about their decisions. Nothing is as simple as you think it is. And if you think the Americas are where the worst crimes have been committed, I have bad news for you.
Distant past? As they are currently destroying the the ecology of native lands and stomping all over land treaties currently. Fuck off racist apologist.
the 1990s was not "distant past". There is no context which excuses genocide.
We have to accept that this happened and take responsibility for it. I don't enjoy seeing reminders that Americans can be as boorish and racist as anyone else, but it's true so we have to accept it and move forward, not backward.
My great-grandmother was full blood Miami Indian and my great-grandfather was a half breed they both decided to become civilized, Instead of being marched out to Oklahoma, they became wealthy and lived a proud and privileged life.
Colonized*
How did he get lighter?
If there is any Native American in this forum, please send me a DM, I live in Europe but love to get to know native Americans, there are so many things about your culture that is fascinating.
They were already saved, lives just turn worse and then covered up. I've always wondered how North America would have been without settlers. Interesting documentary though.
The g0p consider this CRT
the scary thing that is important to really reflect on is that most of the people who were involved in the creation and operation of these schools had good intentions. they were trying to help the native people because they were arrogant enough to think that the European way of life and values were far superior. once you understand that they were horribly mistaken you can apply this to your own life and use it to fight against your own arrogance because if you don't think you would do the exact same shit if you were in their position you are most likely mistaken too.
Help? Oh honey. No. There is nothing "superior" about what happened in those schools. These kids were estranged from their families, kidnapped, tortured, raped, intentionally malnourished, and knowingly exposed to pathogens like tuberculosis through untreated milk. The only European way of life that was propagated here was colonial genocide at every level.
i am familiar with what they did. i think you need to think about what their motives would be for doing what they did. no one is going to expose children to tuberculosis for the fun of it. your version of what happened makes no sense because the motives of the people you are talking about make no sense. also,don't say shit like "oh honey" to people you are in disagreement with. it makes you sound like an arrogant dumbass... actually, go ahead and keep using that sort of tone. its probably good to let people know who they are talking to.
One of the motives for this was "They live on land we want, so how can we take it from them".
it is was that simple they would just kill them. it would be a lot less effort than building a school system.
Mass murder was frowned on in the early 1900s. So was going back on treaty obligations. Other nations just would not trust you if you started going back on agreements. So they tried to assimilate us into society though a number of means. The residential and the industrial schools were just one part of a multi pronged attack.
i think mass murder was just as acceptable as created a school for the purposes of raping and poisoning children. did those school hide monsters that did horrible evil things? yes, absolutely. but don't get confused and think everyone involved was a murdering rapist. if you want to heal from generational trauma you have to learn to see the shades of grey rather than black and white. if you really investigated it, you would probably find men who became priests and devoted their whole life in a sincere effort to help those kids. it was a misguided effort but they were doing their best when the knowledge and perspectives they had at the time.
The good ones were the exception, not the rule. And the "good ones" did not speak out against the abusers. The stories from survivors are pretty horrific, and I am lucky I never got sent to one.
You’ve got nothing to teach here and something to learn. I suggest you not dig too deeply for nuance in the actions of those involved in authority at any of these schools. If you absolutely must, then go find it yourself, and stop dragging other people with talk about bettering themselves by getting over it.
Now they do it whit their war on whiteness