Dear Canada: These Are My Words
Page 11
At sixteen years of age, the children were sent home. They found themselves in communities that they knew nothing about. Those who stayed in residential school for years at a time had to have name tags pinned to their jackets so that their parents would know who they were — the children were so young when they were taken, their parents could no longer recognize them.
The children who grew up in these residential schools had no knowledge of family, love or community. They had also lost their language and culture and been stripped of all identity. Many never recovered, and suffered all their lives — in many cases, with horrible social problems, often ending in suicide. Those who tried to reintegrate into the community married and had children, but knew nothing of raising children or meeting the needs of a child, since they had never experienced such things in their lives. The cycle of damaged child-rearing practices has continued for generations. Some literature describes this part of Canadian history as cultural genocide.
In the 1990s, many of the victims of the residential schools sued the churches and the Canadian government. The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was created in 1991, followed by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in 1998. In 2006, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement was signed, a $1.9-billion settlement that prompted an apology from Prime Minster Stephen Harper, on behalf of all Canadians, on June 11, 2008. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was launched by the federal government in 2009.
For their involvement in the residential schools, churches began presenting their apologies. The Oblates of Mary Immaculate issued a formal apology in 1991; the Anglican Church in 1993. The apology from the Presbyterian Church came in 1994. In 1998, the United Church also offered an apology. The Catholic Church, which was responsible for about seventy-five percent of the residential schools, also presented its apology through the Pope in 2009.
The report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, before which thousands of Indigenous people had testified about their experiences and the effects they still lived with, was published in late 2015. All the materials, statements and documents that have been collected are now housed at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation located at the University of Manitoba, in Chancellor’s Hall.
Images and Documents
Image 1: It is estimated that about 150,000 Indigenous children were removed from their communities and forced to attend residential schools, from the early 1800s until the late 1900s. Children were made to wear uniform clothing unlike what many would have worn at home.
Image 2: When students attended class, the girls were often separated from the boys.
Image 3: Sameness of clothing and even of haircuts was the norm. Upon reaching the schools, students were given a number, which would be attached to their clothing.
Image 4: The dormitories were often sparse and uniform. The children could seldom interact with siblings who were at the school at the same time, and prayer time was regimented.
Image 5: Girls usually had their meals separately from the boys.
Image 6: Washroom facilities were often very different from what the children would be used to at home.
Image 7: Girls were often given instruction in cooking or sewing, and some helped to prepare meals.
Image 8: A residential school survivor holds his granddaughter at a Truth and Reconciliation Commission audience.
Image 9: Approximately 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children were sent away to residential schools all across Canada between the early 1800s and the late 1900s.
Credits
Cover cameo: Courtesy of Ruby Slipperjack.
Cover background (detail): St. Paul’s Residential School, Blood Reserve, Alberta; Atterson Studio, Cardston, Alberta; Glenbow Archives NC-7-859.
Image 1: Girls at residential school, Ile-a-la-Crosse, northern Saskatchewan; Thomas Waterworth; Glenbow Archives PD-353-22.
Image 2: R.C. Indian Residential School Study Time, [Fort] Resolution, N.W.T.; Library and Archives Canada / PA-042133.
Image 3: R.C. Brandon Indian Residential School, students at their desks in a classroom, 1946; National Film Board of Canada, Photothèque collection / Library and Archives Canada / PA-048571.
Image 4: Prayer time in the girls’ dormitory at Cecilia Jeffrey Indian Residential School near Kenora, c. 1950–53; The Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives.
Image 5: Mealtime at First Nations residential school, Norway House, Manitoba; Glenbow Archives NA-3239-6.
Image 6: The Cree Residential School at La Tuque, Québec; University of Connecticut.
Image 7: Cooking class, Indian Residential School, Edmonton; United Church of Canada Archives, UCCA, 93.049P/885N.
Image 8: Former Northwest Territories premier Stephen Kakfwi, a residential school survivor, holds his granddaughter Sadeya Kakfwi-Scott while standing with the audience at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 2, 2015; Adrian Wyld / THE CANADIAN PRESS
Image 9: Map by Paul Heersink, Paperglyphs.
The publisher wishes to thank Anishinaabemowin elder Shirley Ida Williams-nee Pheasant, Indigenous Studies, Trent University, for sharing her expertise on this topic. She says: “The greatest thing the government can do as penance is to restore the language they destroyed and restore the pride in the culture of First Nations through the education system.” Thanks also to Barbara Hehner for her careful checking of the factual details, and to Paul Heersink for providing the map.
About the Author
Ruby Slipperjack is a member of the Eabametoong First Nation and she is fluent in her Anishinabe language. She was born and raised at her father’s trapline at Whitewater Lake, Ontario, and entered a one-room Indian Day School, with no knowledge of English, at the age of seven. These schools were built all along the Canadian National Railway line where there were enough school-aged children to attend. After Grade 5 she was sent to Residential School, and later attended a city school. For that period, she lived in a room-and-board situation with non-native families until she graduated from high school. She retained her traditional knowledge and still practises her Nation’s cultural activities at her family’s homeland at Whitewater Lake.
Ruby completed her formal education with a B.A. in History, B.Ed. and M.Ed. from Lakehead University and a Ph.D. in Educational Studies from the University of Western Ontario. She is a tenured, full professor in the Indigenous Learning Department at Lakehead University. Her prior novels include Honour the Sun, Silent Words, Weesquachak and the Lost Ones, Little Voice, Weesquachak and Dog Tracks. She contributed stories to the Dear Canada anthologies Hoping for Home: Stories of Arrival and A Time for Giving: Ten Tales of Christmas.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events, Violet Pesheens is a fictional character created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
www.scholastic.ca
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Slipperjack, Ruby, 1952-, author
These are my words : the residential school diary of Violet
Pesheens / Ruby Slipperjack.
ISBN 978-1-4431-3318-0 (hardback).--ISBN 978-1-4431-3319-7 (html)
1. Native girls--Canada--Juvenile fiction. 2. Native peoples--
Canada--Residential schools--Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8587.L53T54 2016 jC813’.54 C2016-900404-X
C2016-900405-8
Copyright © 2016 by Ruby Slipperjack.
Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.
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First e-book edition: September 2016
Books in the Dear Canada Series
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Alone in an Untamed Land, The Filles du Roi Diary of Hélène St. Onge by Maxine Trottier
Banished from Our Home, The Acadian Diary of Angélique Richard by Sharon Stewart
Blood Upon Our Land, The North West Resistance Diary of Josephine Bouvier by Maxine Trottier
Brothers Far from Home, The World War I Diary of Eliza Bates by Jean Little
A Christmas to Remember, Tales of Comfort and Joy
A Country of Our Own, The Confederation Diary of Rosie Dunn by Karleen Bradford
Days of Toil and Tears, The Child Labour Diary of Flora Rutherford by Sarah Ellis
The Death of My Country, The Plains of Abraham Diary of Geneviève Aubuchon by Maxine Trottier
A Desperate Road to Freedom, The Underground Railroad Diary of Julia May Jackson by Karleen Bradford
Exiles from the War, The War Guests Diary of Charlotte Mary Twiss by Jean Little
Flame and Ashes, The Great Fire Diary of Triffie Winsor by Janet McNaughton
Footsteps in the Snow, The Red River Diary of Isobel Scott by Carol Matas
Hoping for Home, Stories of Arrival
If I Die Before I Wake, The Flu Epidemic Diary of Fiona Macgregor by Jean Little
No Safe Harbour, The Halifax Explosion Diary of Charlotte Blackburn by Julie Lawson
Not a Nickel to Spare, The Great Depression Diary of Sally Cohen by Perry Nodelman
An Ocean Apart, The Gold Mountain Diary of Chin Mei-ling by Gillian Chan
Orphan at My Door, The Home Child Diary of Victoria Cope by Jean Little
Pieces of the Past, The Holocaust Diary of Rose Rabinowitz by Carol Matas
A Prairie as Wide as the Sea, The Immigrant Diary of Ivy Weatherall by Sarah Ellis
Prisoners in the Promised Land, The Ukrainian Internment Diary of Anya Soloniuk by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch
A Rebel’s Daughter, The 1837 Rebellion Diary of Arabella Stevenson by Janet Lunn
A Ribbon of Shining Steel, The Railway Diary of Kate Cameron by Julie Lawson
A Sea of Sorrows, The Typhus Epidemic Diary of Johanna Leary by Norah McClintock
A Season for Miracles, Twelve Tales of Christmas
That Fatal Night, The Titanic Diary of Dorothy Wilton by Sarah Ellis
A Time for Giving, Ten Tales of Christmas
Torn Apart, The Internment Diary of Mary Kobayashi by Susan Aihoshi
To Stand On My Own, The Polio Epidemic Diary of Noreen Robertson by Barbara Haworth-Attard
A Trail of Broken Dreams, The Gold Rush Diary of Harriet Palmer by Barbara Haworth-Attard
Turned Away, The World War II Diary of Devorah Bernstein by Carol Matas
Where the River Takes Me, The Hudson’s Bay Company Diary of Jenna Sinclair by Julie Lawson
Whispers of War, The War of 1812 Diary of Susannah Merritt by Kit Pearson
Winter of Peril, The Newfoundland Diary of Sophie Loveridge by Jan Andrews
With Nothing But Our Courage, The Loyalist Diary of Mary MacDonald by Karleen Bradford
Go to www.scholastic.ca/dearcanada for information on the Dear Canada series — see inside the books, read an excerpt or a review, post a review, and more.