Chinanews client, Beijing, July 8th (Reporter Song Yusheng) Over the past month, a large number of unmarked graves have been discovered near the former site of three aboriginal children’s boarding schools in Canada.
At the end of May, the Native Indian tribe in Kamloops, British Columbia found the remains of 215 Native Indian children at an old boarding school site.
On June 24, the Native Indian tribe of the inland province of Saskatchewan announced that 751 unmarked graves had been initially discovered near the site of a boarding school.
On June 30, another 182 unmarked graves were found in the cemetery near the site of an aboriginal boarding school.
On June 2, local time, in front of the Ontario Provincial Assembly Building in Toronto, people placed hundreds of pairs of children’s shoes, various dolls, flowers, message cards, etc., which were found on the site of an aboriginal boarding school in the country. 215 children's remains are mourned.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Ruidong
Why did these old school sites become "cemeteries"?
What did Canadian aboriginal children experience here?
"We were loaded into a big truck and taken away. The look my father and mother looked at me made me remember. I remember the grief at that time. The big truck I was in was full of crying children. , I cried bitterly with them."
Alma Scott, a survivor of aboriginal boarding education, was taken to boarding school forcibly when she was 5 years old. She once described the situation at that time.
Separating a 5-year-old child from his parents had a legal basis in Canada in the 19th and 20th centuries.
At the end of the 19th century, Canada passed the Indian Act, which has been revised many times since then.
This bill provides a legal basis for Canadian aboriginal children to enter boarding schools and receive education.
But the so-called "receiving education" is not the same as what people understand today.
Many research results today show that the purpose is to assimilate the Canadian Natives.
On June 2, local time, in front of the Ontario Provincial Assembly Building in Toronto, people placed various dolls, hundreds of pairs of children’s shoes, flowers, message cards, etc. Columbia) The remains of 215 children were found on the site of an aboriginal boarding school.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Ruidong
As we all know, Canada is a multi-ethnic country.
Some scholars divide all ethnic groups in Canada into three parts, including the indigenous peoples composed of American Indians, Metis, and Inuit, the founding peoples composed of the two former suzerain nations of Britain and France, and other minorities. Ethnic groups.
In this land, the indigenous peoples were once masters.
But since the 15th century, as Europeans discovered the Americas, the history of the natural development of indigenous peoples has been changed.
Many documents and research results show that in the 19th and 20th centuries, Canadian officials hoped to let these aborigines get rid of the "barbaric and primitive" stage and enter the "civilized" stage.
Indian boarding schools are the product of this historical background.
In the 19th century, in order to better "educate" these indigenous children, Indian boarding schools began to appear in Canada.
Indigenous children who enter such schools are forcibly separated from their families.
These schools are funded and managed by the government, and the churches are commissioned by the government to organize them.
Specifically, the government is responsible for the provision of school facilities and daily expenses, and the church provides teachers and teaching.
It is in such schools that aboriginal children have to abandon the way of life and cultural traditions of the Indians.
When they first entered school, church nuns would cut off their long hair and distribute uniform school uniforms to indigenous children.
At the same time, the church school administrator will give each aboriginal child enrolled in an English name or a number.
The school has also established a strict schedule for aboriginal children.
But today, they don’t really have much time for learning.
Among them, the main courses include reading, writing, mathematics, etc. In addition, teachers will also conduct vocational or skill training for students.
Students learn knowledge and skills at school, which seems to be no problem.
But the problem is that during this period, the national language was banned.
Some studies have found that boarding schools impose severe penalties on aboriginal students who speak their native language.
Some boarding school survivors recalled that they had been severely beaten for communicating in their native language, and they were also told that “Indian language is a lowly language”.
Video screenshot
It is worth noting that in addition to learning and skill training, Aboriginal children also need to spend a lot of time doing various chores in school.
For example, in Capelle boarding school in Saskatchewan, children need to milk on the school’s dairy farm, take care of younger children, etc.; while at Blue Quills boarding school, children have half a day Classroom study, and the other half of the day with different jobs-girls work in the kitchen, laundry room and sewing room, boys grow crops and raise animals on the school farm.
Studies have pointed out that not only do children have to work in school, but school meals are often short-lived.
A boy from a boarding school in Saskatchewan said in a letter to his father, “I’m always hungry. I only have two slices of bread and a plate of cereal to fill my hunger. Because I’m so hungry, there are already 7 children. escaped……"
Escape from boarding school has become the choice of many children.
However, because most of these boarding schools are far away from the aboriginal reservations, many children lost their lives on the way to escape.
In 1902, John Stick found the body of his son lying in the snow.
His son was only 8 years old when he escaped from the boarding school.
In 1937, four boys at Fraser Lake Boarding School in British Columbia froze to death while escaping from the school.
In addition, due to the role of the church in schools, teachers will inculcate Western religious beliefs in indigenous children.
Generally speaking, children pray every morning and evening, and religious etiquette is also a necessary homework for students.
Affected by this, the traditional ceremonies of many indigenous peoples have gradually declined.
On May 29, local time, in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, people laid flowers in front of the monument to survivors of the former Kamloops Indian boarding school.
Similar situations have been more or less accompanied by the Canadian aboriginal boarding school.
In the middle of the 20th century, reports of the abuse of Canadian aboriginal children in boarding schools were reported.
In the 1960s, boarding schools closed one after another.
By the end of the last century, a large number of survivors of Indian boarding schools, survivors’ families, Indian groups, organizations and institutions exposed the ugly acts and abuses.
At the same time, former employees of boarding schools have been prosecuted for sexual abuse.
The author of a related research report believes that boarding schools are not only a place where aboriginal people feel loss, loneliness, and alienation, but also a place where aboriginal people suffer various injuries in terms of emotion, spirit, body, and soul. .
Under the pressure of public opinion, many parties related to Indian boarding schools apologized and adjusted related systems.
However, the damage done to Canadian aboriginals by this period of history is far from over.
On June 2, local time, the Ontario Provincial Assembly Building in Toronto was lowered at half mast, mourning the discovery of the remains of 215 children on the site of an aboriginal boarding school in British Columbia.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yu Ruidong
A man who had studied in a boarding school talked about his feelings: He didn't get a good education in the boarding school, and all he got was the feeling of inferiority as an Indian.
This is also true. After many years of assimilation and education, boarding school graduates lack the skills to adapt to community life. At the same time, the school does not provide them with preparations for living in white society.
Some researches believe that these children are in a state of being on the edge of either one or the other when they grow up.
"They are deprived of their self-esteem and their identity. Their personal experience is part of our history and can never be forgotten and ignored."
In 2015, Murray Sinclair, then chairman of the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, described the stories of 6,750 Aboriginal children they heard during the investigation.
Murray Sinclair once said that the aboriginal education system is the darkest page in Canadian history. From the creation of Canada’s alliance to the decision to close aboriginal boarding education schools in 1969, Canada has experienced a cultural extinction. era.
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Reference materials: "History of Canada", "Cultural Mosaic: History of Canadian Immigration", "Indigenous Peoples of Canada", "Characteristics and Living Conditions of Canadian Indigenous Population", "The Evolution and Status Quo of Legal Confirmation of Canadian Indigenous People's Identity", "Tragic Legacy: Canadian Origins" Resident Boarding Schools (1879-1998)" "The Rise and Fall of Canadian Aboriginal Assimilation Education: Taking the Blue Quills Indian Boarding School as an Example" "On the Life and Death of the Canadian Aboriginal Boarding School System" "Canadian Aboriginal The History and Current Status of National Land Rights Issues" "Colonial History, Discrimination, and Violence-The Roots of the Current Predicament of Native Canadian Women" "Canada accused of cultural genocide against Aboriginal people" "Thousands protested against the Canadian Prime Minister of Genocide" Reflecting on the failure of the country""