Residential Schools: A Century of Cultural Genocide
... children were forcibly taken from their homes. Whether children were of the first generation attending residential schools, or one later on, this experience was traumatizing. Complete strangers took them away from the comfort of their homes, to an unfamiliar surrounding, with a group of similar-looking children everywhere. This reality seems quite cinematic.
The trauma worsens when parent graduates have their children taken away, because they know of the residential schools and what they entail. Sending one's child to such a place would be a strongly negative feeling. Children are simply not able to comprehend the reason behind the situation. Children were often taken as young as three or four.
From the start...
Upon arrival...
... new students were pushed to conform with their fellows. This usually meant that they were given a standard haircut, clothes, beds, and language. In a number of schools, officials had no trust over the background cleanliness of the children, and used brutal chemicals, such as DDT, (carcinogenic) to clean the children. Children were stripped of their selves and belongings and made to follow the example of their peers.
Attendance...
... provided an environment of repetition for children, where religion was a key teaching for the children, at an amount which was quite alarming. This cycle did not provide necessary knowledge for the children to be able to function in white society. Instead, children were stressed with an overloading amount of manual labor to be done.
The environment was also not one which exemplified cleanliness. Children were subject to illnesses of all sorts. Water systems were corrupted, buildings were corrupted, and insulation was corrupted.
Children were beaten for a large variety of reasons. This amount of physical abuse left pain, distrust, fear and scars next to the obvious impacts of physical abuse such as developing disabilities and such.
There were shortcomings which brought illness and death to many children. A multitude of these stories were covered up.
Impacts of Shortcomings and Abuses
Perhaps because of the attitudes, perception, denial and general isolation of and around these schools, many church officials allowed themselves to take advantage of circumstances to sexually abuse the children.
These situations and experiences left much emotional harm with the children, and damaged their perceptions.
The dis-allowance and attack around spoken Indigenous languages, harsh punishments, and constant brainwashing altered the children's ability to pick out propaganda from reality, and created an individual incapable of his/her own upkeep, being socially dysfunctional. Attendants also missed out on parenting skills.
...was difficult to accomplish. Many children had thoughts of escaping the residential school system by running away from their schools. A large part of these children died running away from exhaustion, hunger, or weather impacts.
With the aid of media and government cover-up of incidents, many parents first thought residential schools were beneficial, and sent kids who had made it home back to school.
Running Away...
The Secret Path is a story of the attempted escape of a First Nations boy name Chanie Wenjack. Chanie attempted a journey which would cross half of northern Ontario, which ultimately failed because of weather. Chanie died near the rail tracks where he would have been taken to his father in a warmer environment.