Residential Schools: Beginnings, Purpose and Lasting Impact

Before we begin

This lesson is about a hard part of Canada's history. It is about children. Read it with a grown-up if you can. It is okay to feel sad or angry. It is also important to know that the people and communities this lesson talks about are strong and are still here today, keeping their languages and cultures alive.

If you or someone you know needs support, talk to a trusted adult. The Hope for Wellness Help Line (1-855-242-3310) offers support to Indigenous people across Canada, 24 hours a day.

How the system began

• Church-run boarding schools for First Nations children existed before Confederation. In Ontario, the Mohawk Institute in Brantford began taking boarding students in the 1830s, and the Shingwauk school near Sault Ste. Marie opened in 1873.
• In 1879, the government received the Davin Report, written by Nicholas Flood Davin after he studied boarding schools for Native Americans in the United States. It recommended industrial schools far from children's families.
• In 1883, the federal government approved its first three industrial schools on the Prairies: Battleford opened that year, and Qu'Appelle and High River opened in 1884. Over the following decades the system grew to about 80 schools at its peak around 1930, run by Catholic, Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian churches (later also the United Church), with money from the government.
• Prime Minister John A. Macdonald told Parliament in 1883 that children at day schools were still influenced by their parents, and that they should be separated from their families. This shows the system's purpose: to cut children off from their families, languages and cultures, as part of the government's plan of assimilation.

In later years, attendance became mandatory for many First Nations children, and Métis and Inuit children also attended.

What children experienced

About 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended residential schools over more than a hundred years.

• Children were separated from their families, often for months or years.
• Many were punished for speaking their own languages and were taught that their cultures were wrong.
• Schools were often crowded, cold and underfunded. Food was poor. Diseases such as tuberculosis spread easily.
• Many children were mistreated by staff. Many died at the schools; the Truth and Reconciliation Commission documented more than 3,200 deaths, and believed the real number was higher. Many families were never told what happened.
• Students often spent half the day doing work (farming, laundry, sewing) instead of studying.

Some students also remembered kind teachers, friendships and skills they learned. Survivors' experiences are their own, and they are the people best able to tell them.

Strength and resistance

• Parents resisted: some hid their children or refused to send them, and wrote letters and petitions protesting conditions.
• Students resisted: some ran away to get home, and many secretly kept speaking their languages and remembering their teachings.
• Communities kept cultures alive, and today many Nations are revitalizing their languages and ceremonies.

Truth and reconciliation

• The last federally supported residential school closed in 1996 (Gordon's, in Saskatchewan).
• On June 11, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in the House of Commons for the government's role.
• The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2008–2015) heard from thousands of survivors and issued 94 Calls to Action, including changes to education.
• Since 2021, September 30 has been the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Many people also wear orange on that day for Orange Shirt Day, inspired by survivor Phyllis Webstad, whose new orange shirt was taken from her on her first day at residential school in 1973.