Chapter
Historical Background
Get an introduction to the important historical events and issues that are explored throughout the rest of the book Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.
Overview
About This Chapter
This section of Stolen Lives provides historical context for many of the issues explored throughout this resource on the Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools. It is primarily designed to serve teachers, although advanced classes might also find it useful.
Inside this Chapter
Who Are The Indigenous Peoples of Canada?
Introduce yourself to the important historical events and issues that are explored throughout the rest of the book Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.
First Nations
The term First Nations, as of 2013, refers to some 617 different communities, traditionally composed of groups of 400 or so who lived in America long before European contact.
The Inuit
The term Inuit refers broadly to the Arctic indigenous population of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Today, the Inuit communities of Canada live in the Inuit Nunangat—loosely defined as “Inuit homeland”—which is divided into four regions.
Métis
The term Métis describes descendants of both Europeans and First Nations people (the Canadian government did not formally recognize the term until the Constitution Act of 1982).
The Invention of the “Indian”
One of the first acts of the European colonization of the Americas was an act of naming or, more accurately, misnaming.
Colonization
When the European powers set their sights on North America, some three hundred years after the so-called discovery of the continent (which for them was the “New World”), it became a location for French and British settlements.
Colonial Power Struggle
War and political changes also contributed to the destruction of indigenous ways, livelihoods, and physical existence.
Dispossession, Destruction, and the Reserves
Reserves existed in Africa, in the British American colonies, and in Canada, where the colonizers had to address the people they dispossessed— people who seemingly stood in the way of the political and economic plans of European settlers.
Defining the Indian
Two main pieces of legislation laid the foundation for what was to be the new Dominion’s policy regarding relations with First Nations: the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869.
Banning Indigenous Culture
The ultimate goal of the Indian Act has always been the assimilation of the Indigenous Peoples as separate nations into mainstream Canada.
Traditional Education
The idea that Western culture was superior and that the Indigenous Peoples needed to be Christianized and civilized came from the biases of Europeans and their unwillingness to appreciate the complex, largely unwritten teaching processes inside indigenous communities.
Aggressive Assimilation
The key to this policy was a system of industrial schools where religious instruction and skills training would help the Native Americans catch up with the demands of Western society.
Legislation for the Residential Schools
Prime Minister Macdonald authorized the creation of new residential schools and granted government funds for those that were already in place.
The Role of the Churches
Learn about the Catholic and Anglican churches' role in propagating residential schools throughout Canada.
Building the Indian Residential Schools System
One of the most important historians of the residential schools, James R. Miller, estimates that a great number of indigenous students were, in fact, educated in day schools, although the residential schools left the most painful, long-lasting marks on indigenous communities.
“Until There Is Not a Single Indian in Canada”
Over the 150-year span of the Indian Residential Schools system, Canada saw close to 150 schools and 150,000 pupils.
The Experience of Students
Aside from those who paid the highest price—their lives—many students suffered lifelong trauma, which has also been passed on to children and grandchildren.
The Age of Rights?
The anti-colonial movement was growing stronger around the world, and with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 by the newly formed United Nations, many turned their attention to the rights of colonized people globally.
Gathering Anger
Responding with growing anger and assertiveness, indigenous activists rejected the idea of equal treatment before the law as simplistic at best. They argued that it was used to mask decades of accumulated material and political privileges for European Canadians acquired at the expense of Indigenous Peoples.
Apologies
Learn about the public apologies issued by several churches in the years following critical reports and testimony from residential school survivors.
The Government’s “Statement of Reconciliation”
Learn about the 1980s response of the Canadian government to the long-lasting effects of residential schools on indigenous communities.
Prime Minister Harper’s Apology
The apology is part of the process arranged by the government and the First Nations as parties to the agreement, part of an overall attempt to address the government’s role in the history of the Indian Residential Schools.
Truth and Reconciliation
Since the beginning of its work in 2010, the commission has been collecting information about what was done to survivors in the residential schools and has worked to make this information public. From this process, the survivors receive public, communal acknowledgement and support for years of injustice and suffering.
The Charge of Genocide
In the 1990s, residential schools scholars and many indigenous leaders began to argue that the efforts of the Canadian government to assimilate the Indigenous Peoples in the residential schools embodied the principle of cultural genocide: assimilation was intended to destroy the Indigenous Peoples as culturally distinct group.
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Language and Identity
Explore how language and culture shape identity, and learn about the challenges faced by the Indigenous Peoples of Canada to preserve their traditional identity.
Membership
Examine how Indigenous identities in Canada have been shaped by the ways European settlers responded to real and imagined differences between themselves and the Indigenous Peoples.
The Indian Act and the Indian Residential Schools
Learn the history behind the legislation and policies created by the Canadian government in the nineteenth century to dispossess and assimilate the Indigenous Peoples.
The Residential School Experience
Read firsthand accounts from survivors of their often profoundly painful and damaging experiences at residential schools.
Apologies
Learn about the apologies offered by the government and churches of Canada to the Indigenous Peoples, and consider the role of apologies in transitional justice.
Truth and Reconciliation
Investigate the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and its role in helping individuals and the nation overcome the historical injustice and trauma of the Indian Residential Schools system.
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