The narrative of a cultural genocide; Indigenous Canadian survivors call it the “School of Death.”
Indigenous Canadians who survived the transfer of children to the infamous boarding schools of the country recounted their horrific experiences from that time.
Agence France-Presse reported on the memories of elderly Canadians of the experience of living in the country’s Catholic schools.
According to the report, since the mid-1800s, some 150,000 children have been forcibly separated from Indigenous Canadians and forced by the government to be absorbed into “Canadian culture” and, in other words, to have their indigenous customs destroyed in 139 boarding schools. The management of the Catholic Church reside
During this period, thousands of children died from malnutrition, disease, and what is described as “negligence.” Many others were physically and sexually abused. These schools were open until the 1990s. As of May 2021, more than 1,300 unmarked graves have been found on the site of these Canadian schools, rejuvenating the old wounds of Native Americans.
“I became a different person here,” said an elderly man who showed his childhood photo to a student at one of these indigenous schools in Quebec. When I came to this boarding school, I no longer had a name, I had a number. “My number was 70 and my bed and clothes were numbered.”
“I was number 39 and I still hate that number,” said another elderly survivor. They tried to take our language away from us, they tried to take our identity, and to some extent they succeeded. I was an alcoholic for a long time and I was a violent person. “All those memories came to me.”
“I do not know how they are going to compensate,” he said. “If the pope wants to come here, he will come, but it will not change anything for me.”
“Our pain is very deep and it has penetrated our hearts, our minds and our being,” a Native Canadian woman told AFP. Am I like a survivor? No. I feel like a winner and I feel like I’ve won. “They were able to destroy my indigenous identity.”
“These incidents will be a part of our lives for the rest of our lives,” said one female victim of sexual harassment in these schools. The hardest part of our lives in these schools was the various harassments that were done to us. I personally endured this physical and sexual abuse and all kinds of it. “They beat us so much that we bled.”
