Indian Residential School System

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Many people know of the legacy of the Indian Residential School system that operated beginning in the late nineteenth century, and did not cease until the late twentieth century, lasting for over one hundred years. In the beginning of the twentieth century up until after World War II, the Indian Affairs Branch and the Indian Residential School system suffered from severe financial hardship. Due to financial problems and the news of the horrors being inflicted within the Indian Residential Schools becoming known to the general public, the disillusionment with the residential schools became very powerful and any amount of credibility and legitimacy the schools still possessed was quickly undermined, therefore the federal government began to close …show more content…
Strongly influenced by the American system, Canadian residential schools were first established in the mid-1880s and continued for more than a century. In the late 19th century, the federal government instituted Sections 113 to 122 of the Indian Act, which legally took the rights of Aboriginal parents to their children and transferred these rights to the federal government. Taking Aboriginal children away from their families and enrolling them into residential schools was encouraged by the government whose stated purpose was to assimilate Aboriginal children. Aboriginal education was partially conceived to help Aboriginal peoples adapt better to the growing white-dominated country. Many treaties originally contained provisions for government-funded on-reserve schools; however, the early focus on benefits to Aboriginal people and the balance between Western and Aboriginal worldviews and languages soon gave way to a far more coercive system that included forced assimilation and cultural destruction. Residential schools were located off reserve and children were extracted from their homes, often forcibly, separated from their families, and were to stay at the schools from September until the following June. Parents often disapproved of the schools, stating they were aggressively assimilative practices, and noted that they were “extremely dangerous places for young people,” where diet and medical care were inadequate, discipline was hard and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse were not uncommon while “disease and death were ever-present dangers.” Parents were informed of how their children were being treated at Indian Residential schools when their children would come home for the summer months. The Indian Residential School system destroyed many indigenous cultures and shattered personal lives. Problems
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