The Indian Act and Residential Schools: Truth Before Reconciliation

Remember from earlier grades

In Grade 2 you learned that many First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were sent to residential schools, where they were not allowed to speak their languages. In Grade 3 you learned about the Mohawk Institute in Brantford. In Grade 5 you learned that band councils were set up under the Indian Act. Now, in Grade 6, we look more closely at why these things happened and how communities are responding.

Let's start with a question

Imagine someone told you that you had to leave home, could not speak your family's language and would not see your family for months. How would you feel?

For more than a hundred years, this happened to many First Nations, Métis and Inuit children in Canada. Learning the truth is the first step to making things right.

The Indian Act (1876)

In 1876, the Government of Canada passed the Indian Act. First Nations did not agree to it. It gave the government control over many parts of First Nations people's lives:

• It decided who counted as a "status Indian" under the law.
• It set rules for reserves and created band councils under government control.
• From 1884, it banned some important ceremonies, such as the potlatch on the West Coast. The bans were not removed until 1951.
• For a long time, a First Nations woman who married a man without status lost her own status. This unfair rule was changed in 1985.

The main goal was assimilation: to make First Nations people give up their cultures and become like settlers. The Indian Act mostly applies to First Nations, not Métis or Inuit. It still exists today, though it has been changed many times, and many First Nations want to replace it with their own laws.

Residential schools

Residential schools were boarding schools paid for by the federal government and mostly run by churches. The first ones began in the 1800s (the Mohawk Institute took in boarding students from 1831). In 1920, the law made school attendance required for First Nations children, and many were sent to residential schools.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that more than 150 000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended. The last federally funded school closed in 1996.

What happened there:

• Children were taken far from their families, often for most of the year. Brothers and sisters were often kept apart.
• They were not allowed to speak their languages or practise their cultures. Many had their hair cut and their own clothes taken.
• Many children did not get enough food or care. Many were treated cruelly and hurt.
• Thousands of children died at the schools, and many never came home. Often their families were not even told.

In 1920, a senior government official, Duncan Campbell Scott, told a committee of Parliament that the goal was to continue until every First Nations person had been absorbed into the rest of Canada, so that First Nations would no longer exist as separate peoples.

Resistance and survival

First Nations, Métis and Inuit people were never passive.

• Parents wrote letters and petitions, and some hid their children so they would not be taken.
• Children whispered their languages in secret and kept their memories of home.
• Survivors grew up, raised families, and later bravely shared their stories so Canada would know the truth.

The harm was intergenerational: children who were not raised in their families sometimes found it hard to pass on their language and parenting traditions. Today, many communities are bringing back languages, ceremonies and family ties.

Steps toward reconciliation

• June 11, 2008: the Prime Minister apologised in the House of Commons for residential schools.
• 2008 to 2015: the Truth and Reconciliation Commission listened to more than 6 000 people and made 94 Calls to Action.
• Orange Shirt Day began in 2013. It comes from Phyllis Webstad, a Secwépemc girl whose new orange shirt was taken away on her first day at residential school in 1973, when she was six. Its message is Every Child Matters.
• September 30, 2021: Canada held the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
• 2022: Pope Francis came to Canada and apologised for the role of members of the Catholic Church.
• Since 2021, many First Nations have been searching the grounds of former schools for the graves of children who never came home.