#indian residential schools

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“A Saskatchewan First Nation says it has made the “horrific and shocking discovery” of hundreds of unmarked graves — many believed to be children — near a former residential school, with a total expected to be over three times higher than the 215 discovered recently in Kamloops, B.C., according to a source briefed on the file.

Leaders of the Cowessess First Nation, a roughly two hour drive east of Regina, are expected to reveal details of the macabre discovery near what was once the Marieval Indian Residential School during a press conference Thursday morning, as well as the latest count of newly-identified remains.

“The number of unmarked graves will be the most significantly substantial to date in Canada,” says an advisory published Wednesday evening by the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, which represents 74 First Nations in Saskatchewan.

The remains are in unmarked graves in a communal gravesite first used in 1885 but eventually taken over by the Marieval Indian Residential School, founded and operated by the Roman Catholic Church beginning in 1899 on what was then the Marieval Reserve.

Administration of the school was handed over to the federal government in 1969 and then the Cowessess First Nation in 1987 before being closed in 1997. Everything but the church, rectory and cemetery was demolished shortly after, according to National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation records.

The First Nation teamed up with an underground radar detection team from Saskatchewan Polytechnic to begin the search just over three weeks ago. In an interview in late May, Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme told the Regina Leader-Post that he did not know how many people’s remains might be discovered.  It is estimated that only one third of graves are marked.

“The pain is real, the pain is there and the pain hasn’t gone away. As we heal, every Cowessess citizen has a family member in that gravesite. To know there’s some unmarked, it continues the pain,” Delorme told the newspaper, adding that the goal was to “identify, to mark and to build a monument in honouring and recognizing the bodies that lay (there).””

- Christopher Nardi, “Hundreds of bodies reported found in unmarked graves at former Saskatchewan residential school.” National Post. June 24, 2021. 

#unmarked graves #cowessess first nation #marieval indian residential school #marieval reservation #national centre for truth and reconciliation #federation of sovereign indigenous nations #indian residential schools #residential schools #genocide #indigenous people #anti-indigenous racism #settler colonialism in canada #first nations #saskatchewan history #canadian history

[bookcoversaroundtheworld]

Fatty Legs: A True Story - Canada

The moving memoir of an Inuit girl who emerges from a residential school with her spirit intact.

#indian residential schools #fnmi #own voices #canada #canadian history #indigenous history #Inuk character #indigenous author #book covers #book cover #memoir

[immaculatasknight]

Playing fast and loose with history in Canada

#Canada #Indian Residential Schools #unmarked graves #accusations #hysteria #deception #bias #persecution

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

At 5 years old, Mark Maryboy left his home on the Navajo Nation Reservation to attend a boarding school about 150 miles away. He would attend a total of three boarding schools over the next few years. He described the dormitory in which he lived as ripe with sexual and physical abuse, harassment and bullying — something his principle did nothing to stop after Maryboy alerted him to what was happening. At one school, Maryboy remembers seeing another student drown after an instructional aide told students to cross a river, despite the fact that some students did not know how to swim." It was the damnedest thing I ever did in my life," Maryboy said, adding that he often wonders how his life would have turned out without that trauma. "Going through that experience has a huge impact on you. It's a lifetime sickness that goes into your mind." ... For Norman Cuthair Lopez — who has held a variety of positions in the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe — going to the Ute Vocational School was a shock, in more ways than one. Despite already speaking two languages, his native Ute and Navajo, he struggled to learn English. Upon arriving at the school, his long hair was cut, and then he was stripped and scrubbed clean. The first night was particularly difficult. At home, he hadn't slept on a bed, so he laid down underneath his bed on the first night at school. It proved to be a costly mistake. "I got the spanking of my life," he said. It was a new experience, since his grandparents had always used their voices rather than their hands to discipline him at home. "I had the shock of my life when I got my first spanking. The guy that was there, one of the supervisors, picked me up and threw me against the wall." .... Willie Grayeyes, Navajo Nation member and San Juan County commissioner, went to multiple boarding schools across the Southwest. Most of the time, he had no idea where he was being sent. One night, in fourth grade, Grayeyes was told to sleep in clothes, not pajamas. He and other kids were woken during the night and loaded into trucks. By morning, they reached Richfield. He said the dormitory there was nothing more than a warehouse with a partition in the middle to separate boys and girls. "I had no idea where I was going. Nobody said this is why we're sending you here," he said. "The decision was made 100 miles away, not at my home but at the Bureau of Indian Affairs building." He would have a similar experience a few years later after returning home for a family illness. The Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent sent him to Flagstaff, Arizona. From there he took two Greyhound buses, to Albuquerque and then Santa Fe. Later, he would also attend the Phoenix Indian School. Being separated from his family all that time impacted him and how he viewed his identity is something he said has impacted him his entire life.

#Utah #native americans #alaska natives #Boarding schools #Residential schools #ICWA #indian child welfare act #Navajo #Ute

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"I’ve lost my long hair; my eagle plumes too. / From you my own people, I’ve gone astray. / A wanderer now, with no where to stay."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

#open polls #polls #poetry #poems #poetry polls #poets and writing #tumblr poetry #have you read this #the indian's awakening #zitkála-šá #gertrude simmons bonnin #native american #sioux #residential schools

[museeeuuuum]

Came back to work from my lovely trip and on my first few days back I've had to deal with a regular who has begun spouting residential school denialism

#im doing everything in my power to get her banned #but fuck i am so stressed out and exhausted from this #she comes in almost everyday #and i hear her start going off about the indian act or whatever and im gripping my desk just wondering #is she going to start shit? #its completely fucking unacceptable and ive brought it to leaderships attention but like #but they are moving so so slow #and its infuriating #vent #residential school tw

[neechees]

Sorry it kind of just comes off as someone being performative if you go out of your way to say "I thought of Asian Indians first when I see the word Indian in Indian Boarding Schools oopsies" (as if to say "I'm sooo not racist, look at how not racist I am") despite the rest of the post contents obviously talking about & naming Native Americans, & kind of just makes you look more ignorant

#like you could've just said 'i didnt know about residential schools/indian boarding schools' in the tags #instead of leaving that stupid comment #either you didnt know about residential schools & you couldve just said THAT #or youre being performative #natives in the americas are more well known by the term 'indians' to the point theres ppl who dont think its a slur #i find it hard to believe u didnt know 'indians' meant ndns

[dxa1111]

homework about how i feel about residential schools and how it affected me as a descendant of family members who went through them

#indigenous #native american #indian horse #were currently reading that #original character #traxxxx #canada #residential schools #idk what else to tag #dxArt #traditional art #sketch

[shadeslayer]

"We had to write once a month.... I remember we would say, 'Dear Folks, How are you? Fine, I hope.' All of us wrote the same thing when we wrote.... She wrote it on the board. We copied it. I can still see it. Dear Folks.' And I use to think, 'What are folks?' And 'How are you?' And the government saw that we mailed the letters."

Mary Pittman Parris, Clara Pittman Gatlin, and Ula Mae Pittman Welch about the censored letters they remember writing home from the Bloomfield Academy for Chickasaw Females

Listening to Our Grandmother's Stories by Amanda J. Cobb-Greetham (Chickasaw)

#kashoplili #chickasaw #indian boarding schools #residential schools #native american history #indigenous

[sheltiechicago]

Red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside commemorate children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School, an institution created to assimilate Indigenous children, following the detection of as many as 215 unmarked graves, Kamloops, British Columbia, 19 June 2021.

2022 World Press Photo of the Year, Kamloops Residential School by Amber Bracken, Canada, for The New York Times

#amber bracken #photographer #canada #2022 world press photo of the year #kamloops indian residential school #indigenous children #british columbia #kamloops

[bronzecats]

“When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, And training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”

-Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, speaking in the House of Commons in 1883.

#national day for truth and reconciliation #ndtr #residential schools #Indian day schools #sir John a MacDonald #racism #Canada

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Sparked by the locating of hundreds of possible unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools across the country, there has been a public reckoning with the ongoing legacies of the residential school system.

Many Canadians are finally coming to terms with the truth that the Canadian government, in co-operation with Christian churches, ran a genocidal school system intended to “kill the Indian in the child” for more than a century.

What most people don’t realize, however, is that Canada’s system of “Indian education” was not limited to residential schools. It also included a vast network of nearly 700 federally funded and church-run Indian Day Schools, which were attended by an estimated 200,000 Indigenous people between 1870 and 2000.

Despite making up a large part of Canada’s system of Indian education, day schools were excluded from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. A different class action for day schools closes on July 13, 2022, and so far over 150,000 people have been included.

In recognition of the brave Survivors who have been fighting for justice and sharing their stories, we argue that Canada’s reckoning with colonialism and education must also include Indian Day Schools. If Canada is serious about putting truth before reconciliation, then the history and ongoing legacies of all kinds of colonial schooling need to be acknowledged and addressed.”

- Sean Carleton and Jackson Pind, “Canada’s reckoning with colonialism and education must include Indian Day Schools.” The Conversation. July 12, 2022. Audio version at the link.

#canadian history #settler colonialism in canada #violence of settler colonialism #residential schools #indian residential schools #indigenous people #first nations #attempted genocide #anti-indigenous racism #truth and reconciliation #residential school denialism

[ancient-healer]

#without reservations #graveyard #reservations #indian reservation #residential schools #survivor of genocide #generational trauma #trauma #gene mutation #dna #epigenetics #inherited trauma #genetic changes #government testing #racism #poc #ipoc #indigenous #biological psychology #brca mutation #brca #brca1 #brca2 #native american #cancer #colonial settlers #colonialism

[kazuwhora]

way' way', x̌ast łkʷəkʷʕas (hi hi, good morning!)

just a heads up that I may be a little absent from the dash today because of the national truth and reconciliation day 🖤 today I will be taking the time to honour my family who spent time in the tk'emlúps and ka-wezauce residential schools and all the nations of turtle island who have been suffering at the hands of colonization for centuries as well as the children who never returned from their imprisonment at residential schools that has now turned into the crisis of foster care families 🧡

if you're not indigenous to turtle island, please please please educate yourself and take some time today to pay respects and learn about the struggles we face in a colonial society and the oppression of our people that still goes on today. and for my fellow indigenous followers and mutuals, please take care of yourselves.

nínwiʔs łwikn̓tsn̓ <3 (see you later)

#im begging you all to just #research stuff #please #go look up the treaties on the land you live on #learn ab indigenous food sovereignty #read up on residential schools and the 60's scoop #google undrip and learn about it #google jordan's principle #the 94 calls to action #the significance of the medicine wheel and other indigenous values #the indian act and it's harm #read the red paper #idc DO SOMETHING

[spaceysoupy]

I don’t trust white academics, especially those that “teach” Indigenous history, and every time I consider trusting them, I am reminded why I should not.

Indigenous trauma is not a “teaching moment” for white students. We are not artifacts or fossils to be ooed and ahhed at. We are not bodies for you to dissect. We are living. We are alive. We are still learning our own histories and that of our ancestors. We are still finding graves.

That students are being given access not just to Carlisle records, but to the records of their descendants as a teaching opportunity is absolutely sickening. I sincerely hope that person retires the lesson in favor of having Indigenous Elders and survivors of residential schools teach it, but I doubt it. To see people praising her for it is awful, and brings up so much pain for me and other Indigenous people. Especially those who are relatives of Carlisle survivors and those who did not return or survive.

I don’t trust white academics.

#alitsanosga.txt #white academia #twitter bullshit #i just have no words #the person in question is a history professor at the university of Cincinnati #she made a thread on twitter about how she’s having students delve into Carlisle Indian School records #and then use FamilySearch to find the info of living descendants #which is all kinds of unethical and fucked up #ethics #genocide #carlisle #residential schools #carlisle Indian school

[bryanharryrombough]

Born on this day in 1999, Jordan River Anderson spent the first two years of his life in a hospital. When doctors cleared Jordan to live in a family home, the federal and provincial governments could not resolve who was financially responsible for the necessary home care. For over two years, the Government of Canada, and the Manitoba provincial government continued to argue while Jordan remained in the hospital. In 2005, at the age of five, Jordan died in the hospital; he never had the opportunity to live in a family home.

#Jordan River Anderson #Jordan's Principle #Indigenous #Colonialism #Canada #Indian Residential Schools Truth and Reconciliation Commission #United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child