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| Residential School of unknown location (Canada). Image Source: Simon Frasier University |
There were various types of Boarding and Residential schools that existed throughout the United States and Canada. Early versions of these schools took the form of reservation schools as well as day schools that were either near or directly on reservation lands. Students were expected to attend these school to receive educations that would allow them to “successfully function” in mainstream American society. Students were subject to strict, militaristic routines and taught vocational skills based on gender. Boys were trained to be carpenters, metalsmiths, or farmers, while girls were trained in domestic duties, primed for jobs as launderers, sewers, cooks, and maids. When these schools were not seen as sufficient in leading to their intended end goals the American and Canadian governments passed legislation that expanded the schools to boarding type facilities that children were mandated to attend. These institutions were often far from reserve lands, providing limited contact between children, their families and friends, as well as their indigenous ways of life. Parents who did not willingly surrender their children to the boarding institutions were subjected to harsh consequences, including the withholding of monetary aid and food rations, as well as potentially being jailed. As a result many children as young as four years old were reluctantly given over or forcibly taken from their homes, and most had limited contact with their families over the next decade and a half they were institutionalized.
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| Tom Torlino, Navajo, before and after he entered the Carlisle Indian School. Image Copyright: Smithsonian Institution. Image Source: PBS.org |
Upon arrival to the boarding institution the children had their hair cut in contemporary American styles, their names changed, and were forced to don American clothing. They were also instructed to not speak their native language, which if they did not follow suit meant they were met with harsh punishments ranging from physical beatings to individual torture (e.g. sticking needles into their tongues). As part of their education children were forced to work at the schools, which took the form of maintaining the buildings that they learned and lived in. Many of these structures quickly fell into disrepair, which were not properly maintained by trained professional due in part to limited funding and the belief that this would encourage the children to become more skilled in their respective vocational careers. Children were also “leased out” to local families as a means of assimilating them into the dominant American culture but in actuality took the form of slave labor as the children were forced to work in harsh and unsafe conditions for no pay.
Children who survived the boarding schools often graduated with elementary school level educations having not received anything past a fifth grade education, as well as several psychological and physical maladies. This has led to numerous intergenerational effects that still resonate in American Indian communities today. Due to the lack of familial contact throughout their formative years many survivors are unsure how to raise children, which leads to continued and often unintentional child neglect and abuse. Many survivors turned to drug and alcohol to cope with their trauma, leading to high incidences of substance abuse, and several have attempted suicide. The increased suicide rates among American Indians today is attributed to the effects of the Boarding/Residential School Systems, as are the incidences of domestic abuse.
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| Boarding School residents praying before going to bed. Copyright: Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture/Eastern Washington State Historical Society, Spokane, WA Image Source: Amnesty International |
The Boarding/Residential school system was finally closed beginning in the 1970s, with the last finally closing in 1996 (in Saskatchewan, Canada). The Canadian government issued a formal apology in 2008 for the Residential School System and its role in harming American Indian cultures and individuals. The Canadian government has since set aside a large sum of money to pay reparations to those directly affected in order to assist them in seeking medical attention for their physical and psychological wounds. The United States government has not yet issued a formal apology to the American Indians affected-directly or indirectly-by the boarding schools, nor offered any other types of supports to them.
The Boarding/Residential school system is one of many assimilationist and genocidal acts that American Indians have been subjected to and yet it, as with the others, are neither discussed nor acknowledged by the general public, largely due to ignorance of such events occurring. It is my sincere hope that by exposing you, the reader, to these events that you will not only acknowledge and recognize them and their continued effects on American Indian culture and individuals, but that you will also become more aware of other situations that have occurred as well as those that continue today throughout the United States and Canada (e.g. water contamination on reservation lands and the high incidence of uninvestigated missing and Aboriginal women throughout Canada). By becoming aware of these situations and bringing the appropriate attention to them positive changes can be initiated.
This post coincides with a previous post that focuses on institutional discrimination. You can learn more about institutional discrimination here.
References Cited
Animikii. 2016. “About Residential Schools.” Legacy
of Hope Foundation: Raising Awareness of the Legacy of Residential Schools. http://www.legacyofhope.ca/about-residential-schools
