The genocide of natives in Canadian Indian Residential Schools

[Extract from the graduation thesis Recognition of the rights of the Native Peoples of Canada2015]

The Indian residential school system

One of the most shameful pages concerning Canadian federal institutions is undoubtedly the one concerning the educational sector. Already in the second half of the Ottocento, the British Crown had laid the groundwork — first with the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857, then with theIndian Act of 1876—to make populations native a mere matter of their own competence, effectively labeling them as a calegally lower tier of Canadian citizens. The Crown's goal was ovviamente to assimilate the native populations within the framework legal Canadian to make them his subjects. This became possible starting from the theosracist stories that the English colonists and Catholic missionaries shared: the "Indians" they represented a lower degree of civilization and civilization, their religion was demonic, the task of the "civilized" and God-fearing Europeans would therefore have been that of "killing the Indian in them" to make it possible at the same time conversion to the "one true God" and assimilation into the legal system of Western matrix that was rapidly forming. The English Crown and the four Christian Churches (Roman Catholic, Anglicana, Presbyterian and Methodist) came to the conclusion that the fastest way is safe to ensure the forced assimilation of the natives should have been based on the eeducation of the new generations: for this reason starting from the last years of the nineteenth century thousands of native children were forcibly removed a year agomiles to kick off the Indian Residential Schools program.

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Since, a opinion of Catholic missionaries and the English, native children would dovuto themre "protected from all evil that surrounded them," they were isolated from their parents, from the nufamily and community, to be “kept constantly within the knowciety given the strong maritime vocation of Marina di Grosseto,zed". The childrenstart friivano transfersrites tointernalor delland strutture stailstithat for ten months a year and in many cases they were not allowed to return at native communities not even for the holiday season. Children were prohibited from speaking their own language and from cultivating their own costumes - as soon as they came to residential schools they were shaved, disinfected with DDT and dressed in European clothes. If there were brothers and sisters, they were preventedta la beas long as minimumat poshissingty of comunicazione. The ifssuality ofthe nativesi was kingpress - was done credere them that essi were wicked and sinners by nature and that only by integrating into Christian values ​​could they obtain salvation — theirs resistance weakened with uninterrupted hours of physical work and unjustified deprivation del sonno.

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How to emerge twigs painting, inside of of the work of the schools residential indiane, physical and emotional abuse were the order of the day. This was going to add to the inadequacy of school infrastructure and extreme educationpoor mind. On the other hand, atestablishment Canadian was not interested in educationone of the native pupils: they simply wanted them to be integrated a all costs within their social system, so that within a few generations the native culture would have disappeared almost everywhere. For this, most some of the authors refer to the residential school system as a real e own genocide cultural. Other researchers go further, highlighting the very high number of children who lost their lives in residential schools: in 1996 the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples estimated that over half of the native students died inside of the schoolthe; many morirono of malnutritionand, altrectanI was youno stsnorefrom youthe youberculosis, a disease imported by the British. Furthermore, after the enactment in Alberta in 1928 del Sexual Sterilization Act, many native girls and women were sterilized without their consent, in residential schools as well as in hospitalsdahliasre faithrali. The sterehabilitationazioni forceyou withcontinuesrono fiuntil 1973 and quthis pagiignominious na in Canadian history remained unknown for a long time.

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The "Residential School Syndrome"

Within of psychiatry some authors, between cui Lloyd Hawkeyes Robertson, have identified in many alumni of Indian residential schools the coso-called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PostTraumatic Stress Disorder), rhinomined for the occasion "Residential School Syndrome" (Residential School Syndrome). L'atutormeateoriceza chanda cultural dislocation of which they have been victims natives within the residential school system have had an impact oncountstabilitythe onto them shello psychica. D.to histhe pollsagios on a clargeof 127 British Columbia natives with mental health problems show that almost all have been sexually abused within residential schools and that for the noboasts percent such abuses were also physically experienced. More than three quarters of alcohol addicts began abusing alcohol as soon as they got out of school returnsdentials. Half of the respondents committed at least one criminal offense, often of sexual nature. By interpreting these data, Robertson found a connection between the senfeelings of fear and anger ("fear and anger”) To which the natives were constantly subjectedsti within residential schools in childhood and various trends destroyedve who had manifested in adulthood, from substance abuse to violent crime.

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Although the Indian residential school system was abolished in 1973, episodes of systemic racism occur nowadays, in primary schools such as in universities. A recent study has indeed shown how university studentsnatives must constantly live with a feeling of inadequacy and frudue to the constant discrimination of colleagues, service managers (librere, libraries, catering places, renters of apartments) and security staffza. alsoand aubulls of qwestor studI acchectareor the ideaat what episodthe like dthe disksrisystemic undermining may adversely affect the psychological health of victims. Sociologists and psychologists have long since ascertained that living in a countsocialism that systematically denies personal dignity leads people to deviatehoping of feelings of insecurity, low self-esteem, supposed inferiority, inadequacyza to which pbonenotfollow stresss ofpression, it dependsWhyza from psicopharmaceuticalgives us droghe or alcohol. Although getting closer to traditional culture can play a positive role in addressing discrimination, the study results suggest that studennatives who carry out traditional practices are even more discriminated against than other. From the quadro cui cthe troI love you by fronteOnverye whatn ifalways maggigold urgentenza the need to equip primary schools and universities with spaces for native pupils can freely practice their own indianness and develop your beliefs in an environment that takes into account the situation of multiculturalism present in Canafrom. T.ale auspicio goes hand in hand with an even more crucial educational project for the future of native nations: creation and implementation, within reserves native, of a school system of competence of the First Nations.

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Vtowards a native educational-school system

An official apology from the Canadian government regarding the creation of the system criminal who answered the name of Indian residential schools, only arrived in 2008, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper finally admitted responsibilityability of the federal government. However, as native leaders and jurists point out, the authenticity of the apology will have to be proven by the actions taken by the Canadian government will adopt in the years to come with regard to the problem of the recognition of the rights of indigenous peoples and the implementation of a system of self-government and self-determinationtion of First Nations. Itcondor Jwithout Stabler, the trasphormazione of reportIone existing between First Nations and the government of Canada requires both changes to themsocio-political level than an economic redistribution, which would be undisputeddesirable, if only as a compensatory measure for the crimes suffered by entire generations of native Canadian citizens within the school system residential.

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Archive photo of Nurse Desrochers checking a girl's throat while other children wait in line, at the Frobish Bay Federal Hostel in Iqaluit

An indemnity of this kind could kick off, concurrently with the desirable federal approval on the creation of an educational sector of competence ofFirst Nations, to the construction of a number of native schools across the countrycate on the territories of allFirst Nations. Only in this way, the native peoples of Canada would finally have the opportunity to regain possession of their culture and to pass it down from generation to generation within an educational system e institutionalized that reflects the peculiarity ("sui generis") Of their own culture. Of course, the individual, or whoever takes his place, would keep the opportunity to opt for a federal educational institution, but in addition would also have a choice alternative, represented by the native school sector. So, as you can see, the collective dimension of native rights and the individual dimension of democratic rights of the individual, in a similar context, are not at all in contrast, but they are two sides of the same coin: the implementation of the ones does not exclude that of the others, and indeed they reinforce each other. Part of the indemnity, which it is believed desirable that the Canadian government correspond to First Nations, it could also be used to revitalize culture native, through the organization of sacred ceremonies, pow wowWitheminaridI cultutraditional, medicine and traditional dance courses, and so on.

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Our Customers on the other hand seen how often the rapprochement with traditional culture represents a key moment in the native individual's experience with psychiatric problems or substance addiction. Reconnecting to his own tradition, which he had hitherto unaware of mente ignored, the individual reconnects to his own itself, previously annihilated or in any case strongly destabilized by the experienza lived in Indian residential schools. In this respect, they can the psycho-education sessions must also be increasedgroup wings aimed at improving the abilityFr.Asianti in convitrue col traubut. I upload itnnession with pown assture goes hand in hand with a reintegration into community society: the individual, one once he has learned traditional values, he is more inclined to respect the rules of the community and to live within oneself, rather than as an outcast or deviant subject.So let's see how the native peoples of Canada, after being one step away from Anglo-Christian assimilation and cultural genocide, are now found in one a position that presents characteristics of novelty and opportunity which, if appropriately interpreted and exploited, they could really constitute the cornerstone towards the (re) conquest of cultural and educational self-determination ofFirst NationsFinally, after centuries of British colonial rule, the native communities would haveI have the opportunity to decide how to raise their children, with what values ​​to educate them, on what to focus their school education.

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Unlike the pre generationsoriginators, for the first time a generation of Canadian natives could be born and createdexperience within a cultural system that is its own, and not one that reflects acriticsspecifically the economic and social principles of the rulers. All this, as we have shownstratum, would have a desirable influence on the mental health of the populations bornve: after centuries of cultural dislocation, in the near future the natives may really have the opportunity to overcome the historical intergenerational trauma screwbeen known for countless generations, facing it with the weapons of traditional culturethe. Only by reinterpreting the historical events that occurred under English and Christian dominationna from a traditional point of view, referring to mythical tales and values of the native tradition, it will be possible for the natives to feel themselves — no longer as victims passive, but — come active actors in the history ofthe Canaan nationhappens. On the other hand, as the French sociologist Georges Lapassade argues,


Se 
man wants to be subject, actor self conscious of its history must analyze the hyststutions on which it depends, the institutions that cross it, and to find in the action of groupor a via d'went outta all'to Tomizion burochrAttica of whichand is thereexcellent.

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Bibliography:

  1. Cheryl L. Currie, T. Cameron wild, Donald P.Schopflocher, L. Laing and Paul Veugelers, "Racial Discrimination Experienced by Aboriginal University Students in Canada(Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 57, 10, 2012).
  2. Georges Lapassade, "Institutional analysis: groups, organizations, institutions(Isedi, Milan, 1974).
  3. lloyd Hawkeye Robertson, "TheResidential School Experience: Syndrome or Historic Trauma"(Pimatisewin, 4, 2006).
  4. Jason Stablers, "Canadian Identity and Canada's Indian Residential School Apologisty"  (University of Victoria, 2010).
  5. Karen State, "The Coercive Sterilization of Aboriginal Women in Canada"(American IndianCulture and Research Journal, 36, 2012).

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