Indian School Road

by Chris Benjamin

  I’m also appreciative of Daphne Hutt-MacLeod’s briefing on changes to fostering and adoption systems for Mi’kmaw children, and their relation to the truth and reconciliation process. Thanks also to Elizabeth MacDonald for answering my questions on behalf of the Department of Community Services, to Ian Mosby for explaining and expanding on his research findings on nutrition experiments conducted on children at Shubenacadie, and to Ruth Jeppeson and Sisters Donna Geernaert, Joan O’Keefe, and Geraldine Lancaster of the Sisters of Charity for taking the time to discuss the school and reconciliation efforts.

  Many people helped me find the necessary resources to write this book. I want to note a couple of them here. Paul Bennett took the time to go through his personal “archives” and dig out a lot of useful books that provided important historical and national context on the Maritime school. And Heather Laskey spent a couple of afternoons with me talking about the book, and about her work as a freelance journalist writing about this school and an Irish industrial school based on the same model—with eerie similarities. Her insights were valuable. Moreover, she dug out all her old photos, transcripts, and notes for me and let me make copies.

  Besides information, writing a book of this nature takes an incredible amount of time—usually unpaid for the most part. In writing this book I was fortunate to be awarded the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award, which is, as far as I know, unique in Canada in that it provides money to writers when they need it most: while working on a new book. I can’t thank enough Shirley Dunn and everyone involved with these awards and the Edmonton LitFest for their support.

  And I’d be remiss not to thank, once again, the great people at Nimbus Publishing, specifically Patrick Murphy, for his belief in this project and his ongoing gentle wisdom pushing things forward, and my brilliant editor Whitney Moran, who I’ve come to think of as a LEGO Master Builder with her magic for moving things around until they make the most possible sense. Without the intelligence of these two sensitive souls, this book wouldn’t be.

  The same is true, as with everything I do, of my family and community of friends. I’m so enriched by them and lucky to have so many of them in this region and beyond. Thank you all for your curiosity, questions, and interest, and for always seeming eager for the next book, no matter how hard its subject.

  Lastly and mostly, thanks to Daniel Paul. Many years ago I was blown away by We Were Not the Savages, his fundamental history of Mi’kma’ki and Euro-Canadian-Mi’kmaq conflict and relations. I hurt my neck nodding so hard as I read it. For decades, he has relentlessly tugged the rug of myopic Canadian history out from under our feet, forcing us to see a much darker, less glorious reality, and a much more complex one, too. I thank him for that, for sharing his thoughts and knowledge on the residential school, for pointing me toward valuable resources, and for writing the foreword for this book.

  Further Reading

  Introduction: Why and How

  A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986 by John Milloy (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999).

  “Indian residential school historical record threatened by TRC, Aboriginal Affairs bumbling: Auditor General” (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, April 30, 2013, aptn.ca).

  “Ottawa fears admission it purposely destroyed Indian residential school files would lead to court fights: documents” by Jorge Barrera (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, May 1, 2012, aptn.ca).

  Out of the Depths: The Experiences of Mi’kmaw Children at the Indian Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia by Isabelle Knockwood (Black Point, Nova Scotia: Roseway Publishing, 2001).

  I: Before Shubenacadie

  Accounting for Genocide: Canada’s Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People by Dean Neu and Richard Therrien (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2003).

  The Betrayal of Faith: The Tragic Journey of a Colonial Native Convert by Emma Anderson (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2007).

  The Capuchins in America by Reverend Otto Jeron (United States: Catholic Theological Union, 1906).

  Come Over and Help Us: The New England Company and Its Mission 1649–2001 by Neil Hitchin, Ph.D. and the Governor and Court of the New England Company (Ely, England: St. Pancras Publishing and Research and St. Edmundsbury Press, 2002).

  Cornwallis: The Violent Birth of Halifax by Jon Tattrie (Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia: Pottersfield Press, 2013).

  Conversations with a Dead Man: The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott by Mark Abley (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 2013).

  “Education in Quebec in the 17th Century” by James Douglas, Jr., Literary and Historical Society of Quebec (Quebec City: Transactions, New Series, No. 25, 1903).

  The Education of Indian Children in Canada: A Symposium Written by Members of Indian Affairs Education Division, with Comments by the Indian Peoples (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1965).

  The Federal Indian Day Schools of the Maritimes by W. D. Hamilton (Fredericton: The Micmac-Maliseet Institute/University of New Brunswick, 1986).

  Indian Education in Canada Volume 1: The Legacy edited by Jean Barman, Yvonne Hébert, and Don McCaskill (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986).

  Indian Education in the North West by Rev. Thompson Ferrier (Toronto: Department of Missionary Literature of the Methodist Church, 1906).

  integrativescience.ca: a website for the Institute of Integrative Science & Health at Cape Breton University. It has a series of enlightening short videos and other multimedia, including English and Mi’kmaw versions of a video of the Mi’kmaw story Muin and the Seven Hunters, as well as a video explaining the concept of “Two-Eyed Seeing,” featuring Elder Albert Marshall and Elder Murdena Marshall.

  L’sitkuk: The Story of the Bear River Mi’kmaw Community by Darlene A. Ricker (Lockeport, Nova Scotia: Roseway Publishing, 1997).

  The Language of this Land, Mi’kma’ki by Trudy Sable and Bernie Francis (Sydney, Nova Scotia: Cape Breton University Press, 2012).

  Micmac Indian Medicine: A Traditional Way of Health by Laurie Lacey (Halifax: Formac Publishing, 1977).

  Mi’kmaq Medicines: Remedies and Recollections Second Edition by Laurie Lacey (Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2012).

  “Missing Children & Unmarked Burials: Research Recommendations” prepared by The Working Group on Missing Children and Unmarked Burials (Winnipeg: Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2009).

  “Out of the Ruts of Nova Scotia Education: Mi’kmaw Doors of Education Emerge” by Barbara Muriel Johnson (Ph.D. dissertation, Halifax: Dalhousie University, 2000).

  “‘part of that whole system’: Maritime Day and Residential Schooling and Federal Culpability” by Martha Walls (Brandon, Manitoba: Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 30.2, Winter 2010: 361–385).

  Report on Industrial Schools for Indians and Half-Breeds by Nicholas Flood Davin (Ottawa: Minister of the Interior, March 1879).

  Report on the Indian Schools of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories by P. H. Bryce (Ottawa: Indian Affairs, Government Printing Bureau, 1907).

  Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools by J. R. Miller (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996).

  “Telling 1922’s Story of a National Crime: Canada’s First Chief Medical Officer and the Aborted Fight for Aboriginal Health Care” by Adam J. Green (Brandon, Manitoba: The Canadian Journal of Native Studies 26.2., 2006, 211–28).

  “The New England Company and the New Brunswick Indians, 1786–1826: A Comment on the Colonial Perversion of British Benevolence” by Judith Fingard (Fredericton: Acadiensis, 1.2, 1972, 29–42).

  The Story of a National Crime, Being an Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada; the Wards of the Nation, Our Allies in the Revolutionary War: Our Brothers-n-Arms in the Great War by P. H. Bryce, M.A., MD (Ottawa: James Hope & Sons, Limited, 1922).

  They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, a
nd Residential Schools (Winnipeg: The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 2012).

  “Transforming Mathematics Education for Mi’kmaw Students Through Mawinkinutmatimk” by Lisa Lunney Borden (Ph.D. dissertation in Education Studies, University of New Brunswick, 2010).

  We Were Not the Savages: A Micmac Perspective on the Collision of European and Aboriginal Civilization Third Edition by Daniel N. Paul (Halifax: Fernwood Publishing, 2006).

  II: The Shubenacadie Indian Residential School

  Most of the information about the creation of the school and its management comes from files at Library and Archives Canada in Ottawa and from the thesis and dissertation work of Marilyn Thomson-Millward (né O’Hearn) and Kathleen Kearns.

  “A Case Study of the Residential School at Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia” by Marilyn Elaine O’Hearn (M.A. thesis, Halifax: St. Mary’s University, 1989).

  “Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942–1952” by Ian Mosby (University of Toronto Press: Social History 46.91, May 2013).

  “Beyond the Banality of Evil: Three Dynamics of an Interactionist Social Psychology of Tyranny” by S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen Reicher (University of Exeter, University of St. Andrews, Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc., 2007).

  The Catholic Diocesan Directory of Nova Scotia (Halifax: The Archdiocese of Halifax, 1936. Available at Nova Scotia Archives.

  The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church edited by Charles G. Herberman (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907).

  “Charges Unfounded” by the editorial writer (Halifax: Chronicle Herald, September 24, 1934).

  Charity alive: Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul, Halifax, 1950–1980 by Mary Olga McKenna (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1998).

  “Contesting the ‘Nature’ Of Conformity: What Milgram and Zimbardo’s Studies Really Show” by S. Alexander Haslam and Stephen D. Reicher (School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia; University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 2012).

  Directory for the Sisters Employed in the Charitable Institutions of the Sisters of Charity by Mother Mary Berchmans (Halifax: Sisters of Charity, 1925 [this book is stamped inside with “Sisters of Charity Shubenacadie, N.S.”]).

  “Hard to erase bitter memories of school days filled with fear” by Heather Laskey (Moncton, New Brunswick: Atlantic Insight, February 1988, 23).

  “The History of the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, 1929–1957” by Kathleen Kearns (B.A. Hons. thesis, Sackville, New Brunswick: Mount Allison University, 1990).

  Journey From the Shadows video by Madeline Yakimchuk (Sydney, Nova Scotia: Gryphon Media Productions, Atlantic Policy Congress of First Nations Chiefs Secretariat, M/Carroll Consulting, 2010).

  The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo (New York: Random House, 2008).

  Quiet Rage: The Stanford Prison Experiment, 1992, by Ken Musen and Philip Zimbardo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeLQByOblEY.

  “RCMP ‘herded’ native kids to residential schools” (Halifax: CBC News, October 29, 2011).

  “Researching the Devils: A Study of Brokerage at the Indian Residential School, Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia” by Marilyn Elaine Thomson-Millward (Halifax: Dalhousie University Ph.D. dissertation, 1997).

  “Residential school survivor robbed of her childhood” by Pat Lee (Halifax: Chronicle Herald, October 27, 2011).

  “Residential school survivors share horrific experiences” by Raissa Tetanish (Truro, Nova Scotia: Truro Daily News, October 12, 2011).

  “Residential School Survivors Share Their Stories: Truth and Reconciliation Commission hears testimonials at Eskasoni” by Joyce MacDonald (Halifax Media Co-op, October 31, 2011).

  “Residential school survivor tells of abuse at Indian Brook hearing” (Halifax: CBC News, October 12, 2011).

  “Teach Your Children Well: Curriculum and Pedagogy at the Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, 1951–1967” by Briar Dawn Ransberry (M. A. thesis, Halifax: Dalhousie University, July 2000).

  “The Shubenacadie Indian Residential School,” Parts 1, 2, and 3 by Conrad Paul (Membertou, Nova Scotia: Micmac News, 1978).

  The Sisters of Charity: Halifax by Sister Maura Powers (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1956).

  “Seeking truth in Charlottetown” (Charlottetown: The Guardian, September 30, 2011).

  Song of Rita Joe: Autobiography of a Mi’kmaw Poet by Rita Joe with the assistance of Lynn Henry (Sydney, Nova Scotia: Breton Books, 2011).

  TRC Coverage (Halifax Media Co-op, The Coast, CBC, Chronicle Herald, etc).

  “Truth commissioners come to Fredericton” (Halifax: CBC News, September 8, 2011).

  “Truth and Reconciliation Commission Held in Eskasoni” (posted at eskasoni.ca October 14, 2011).

  “Truth & Reconciliation: Thursday October 27: Transcript of Tim Bousquet’s Twitter feed” by Tim Bousquet (Halifax: The Coast, October 30, 2011).

  “When School Becomes Prison” script by Heather Laskey (aired on Maritime Magazine, CBC Radio Halifax, October 12, 1986).

  III: One Year From Another

  “Chief Noel Doucette: inspirational role model” by Daniel Paul (Halifax: Halifax Herald, October 4, 1996).

  “Education Key To Future Of N.S. Micmac Population: Education and Poverty Don’t Mix” by Stan Fitzner (Halifax: Chronicle Herald, September 1, 1965).

  “Former Indian School For Welfare Project” (Halifax: Chronicle Herald, January 16, 1968).

  “Indian Education in Nova Scotia” by G. G. Currie (B.A. thesis, Sackville, New Brunswick: Mount Allison University, 1947).

  “The Hawthorn Survey (1966–1967), Indians and Oblates and Integrated Schooling” by Robert Carney (Winnipeg: Canadian Catholic Historical Association Study Sessions, 50, 1983, 609–630).

  “The Oblates of Saint Peter’s Province in Nova Scotia (Canada) 1948–2003” by Carl Kelly (Vie Oblate Life 63.1, 2004, 33–55).

  IV: After Shubenacadie

  Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit. Analytical document: National Household Survey 2011, published by the Minister of Industry (Statistics Canada, 2013).

  “Addressing Mi’kmaq Family Violence” by L. Jane MacMillan (Antigonish, Nova Scotia: St. Francis Xavier University, 2011).

  “A legacy of Canadian child care: Surviving the sixties scoop” by Christine Smith (McFarlane) (Regina: Briarpatch Magazine, September/October 2013).

  Aski Awasis/Children of the Earth: First Peoples Speaking on Adoption edited by Jeannine Carrière (Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2010).

  “Decolonizing Mi’kmaw Education Through Cultural Practical Knowledge” by Jeff Orr, San Salom/John Jerome Paul, and Kelusilew/Sharon Paul (Montreal: McGill Journal of Education, Fall 2002, 37.3, 331–54).

  “Federal official wanted emails deleted outlining plan to stonewall on residential school genocide questions” by Jorge Barrera (Winnipeg: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, January 13, 2012).

  First Nations Post-Secondary Education and Training Literature Review and Best Practices: Leading towards recommendations for comprehensive post-secondary planning and evaluation framework for Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey by Jeff Orr, Crystal Roberts, and Megan Ross (submitted to Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada June 16, 2008).

  The Globalization of Addiction: A study in poverty of the spirit by Bruce Alexander (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

  “Health and the health care delivery system: the Micmac in Nova Scotia” by Peter Twohig (M.A. thesis, Halifax: St. Mary’s University, 1991).

  The Health of the On Reserve Mi’kmaq Population prepared by
Dr. Charlotte Loppie and Dr. Fred Wien on behalf of the Mi’kmaq Health Research Group and the Union of Nova Scotia Indians (January 7, 2007).

  How the Cougar Came to be Called the Ghost Cat/Ta’N Petalu Telui’tut Skite’Kmujewey Mia’wj by Michael James Isaac (Halifax: Roseway Publishing, 2010).

  Indian Control of Indian Education: Policy paper presented to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development by the National Indian Brotherhood/Assembly of First Nations (1972).

  “Indians tell of roadblocks to education” (Halifax: Mail-Star, March 20, 1970).

  “In Nova Scotia, a Mi’kmaw Model for First Nation Education” by Jennifer Lewington (Canadian Education Association: Education Canada 52.5, 2012, 14).

  Learning about Walking in Beauty: Placing Aboriginal perspectives in Canadian classrooms (Toronto: Canadian Race Relations Foundation, Coalition for the Advancement of Aboriginal Studies, 2002).

  The Lost Teachings/Panuijkatasikl Kina’Masuti’l by Michael James Isaac (Halifax: Roseway Publishing, 2013).

  Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey Annual Report 2012–2013.

  Mi’kmaw Kina’matnewey Oak Island Education Symposium (Nov. 19–Dec. 3, 1999) Summary Notes.

  Multiculturalism: A handbook for teachers edited by Peter L. McCreath (Halifax: Nova Scotia Teachers Union, 1982).

  Native Children and the Child Welfare System by Patrick Johnston (Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development, 1983).

  “People to People, Nation to Nation.” Highlights from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996).

  “Problematizing social studies curricula in Nova Scotia” by Pamela Rogers (Montreal, Quebec: McGill University M.A. thesis, June 2011).

  “Reflections of a Mi’kmaq social worker on a quarter of a century work in First Nations child welfare” by Nancy MacDonald and Judy MacDonald (Ottawa: The First Peoples Child & Family Review 3.1, 2007, 34–45).