The colonial legacy continues to impact indigenous people and communities negatively. In Canada, the Indian Residential School (IRS) system stands out as one of the most inhumane colonial practices. It hurts to read about the pain that children and parents experienced as the government implemented the system. While the colonial government implemented other harmful policies and practices harming the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit in Canada, none surpasses the Indian Residential Schools’ historical trauma. The paper will reflect on past colonial practices and their historical and contemporary impacts. Also, it will discuss the continuous struggle of the indigenes to overcome the colonial legacy. The colonialists enacted policies and practices that aimed at assimilating the indigenous populations into the European-centric system by destroying their cultures and connections to their lands, and the latter are vigorously fighting back to regain their aboriginal sovereignty.
The European colonial powers believed that their cultures were superior to those of indigenes. They sought ways to eliminate the local practices and belief systems and “civilize” and assimilate the Aboriginals into the mainstream European cultures. One of the most difficult colonial practices to read was the Industrial Schools, which later developed into the Indian Residential Schools (Miller, 1997). The government forcefully removed children as young as three years from their parents’ warm embrace and threw them into the cold, inhuman world of residential schools, where they were tortured and alienated from their familiar physical and social environments. The horrendous conditions in the schools were heartbreaking, and one understands why it has generational traumatic impacts, including psychological issues and drug addiction prevalent in grandchildren of those who experienced the IRS.
In the Indian Residential School system, the church (missionaries) and the government conspired to destroy the lives of Aboriginal children in the guise of assimilating them into mainstream Canadian society. While the institutions were touted as schools, little formal education was practiced. The children were separated from their parents and each other, with brothers and sisters rarely interacting. They were taught to hate their cultures and were severely punished for speaking indigenous languages. The “teachers” offered them only rudimentary literacy skills, as most of the time was spent learning housekeeping chores and crafts such as agriculture (Monchalin, 2016). The children worked under horrendous conditions with limited nutrition and medical care without payment. Many died in the process, while others were sent home in critical conditions, where they succumbed. The children experienced significant physical, sexual, and emotional abuse in the residential schools, scarring them for life.
While the Indian residential schools were hailed as learning institutions, the children were discouraged from pursuing formal education. They spent little time on formal literacy skills acquisition, with the educators focusing on teaching them unnecessary practical skills such as housekeeping for girls and agriculture for boys. By the time they left the institutions at the age of 18, most had formal literacy skills equivalent to a grade 5 pupil (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). The colonists wasted 18 years of the children’s lives on unnecessary skills and slave-like child labor, destroying their prospects of being useful members of society. They lacked the formal education to pursue careers, and they did not have the cultural knowledge to sustain their lives in the traditional setting. Most ended up addicted to drugs, and others engaged in antisocial behaviors and crimes. The trauma experienced in the Indian residential school system accounts for the indigenes’ overrepresentation in the criminal justice system.
The Indian Residential School system stopped in the 90s, but its impacts continue to be felt to date. According to Bombay et al. (2014), the chances of developing psychological conditions are higher among people whose grandparents attended the IRS. They experience more suicidal ideation than those whose bloodline was not directly affected by the IRS system. Also, depression and addiction to drugs are higher in people whose grandparents or parents attended Indian Residential Schools than those lacking a similar unfortunate past. In the same vein, children whose parents and or grandparents attended the IRS are more likely to experience low educational attainment than those whose relatives did not undergo such trauma. The children with a history of IRS trauma in their lineage experience challenges in learning. Sometimes, the negative effects are indirect, as grandparents who attended the schools ended up disadvantaged economically. They raise their children in circumstances that expose them to stressors related to low economic status. Therefore, past historical trauma combines with contemporary stressors to negatively impact the well-being of communities and individuals.
Moreover, the current generation of colonialists continues to perpetuate the destruction of the indigene populations in Canada just like their forefathers did in the past. The difference between the two is that the current oppressors do not destroy the visible elements of culture. Instead, they destroy their histories and connection to their original land by erasing traditional boundaries and creating irrelevant artificial demarcations. By creating artificial geographic boundaries, they destroy the natives’ connection to the land and their critical cultural sites which constituted the bedrock of their cultural identity and sense of self (Taiaiake & Corntassel, 2005). The settlers are still intent on grabbing land from the aboriginal natives through agreements that give them rights to their properties. The agreements no longer contain the word treaty, implying that the government enters into unequal arrangements with the indigenous communities for unlimited use of the lands for the settlers’ activities, including gaming and construction of gas pipelines. Indeed, the government’s move to amend the law to allow the exploitation of indigenous lands without consultation has led to the development of significant opposition from the Aborigines.
One such movement is “Idle No More,” which emerged in 2012 and is still active today in most parts of Canada. The movement arose to oppose the Canadian’s former Prime Minister’s move to remove protections on forests and waterways through omnibus bills (Beaulne-Stuebing, 2022). Most of the navigable waters subject to deregulation passed through indigenous peoples’ lands. They were important cultural and religious sites for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit. Started by three First Nations Women and a white ally, the Idle No More movement spread rapidly through social media to become a nationwide protest march that forced the government to back down. Therefore, the movement applies one of Taiaiake & Corntassel’s (2005) mantras of insurgent Indigenous movements of “Land is life.” The proponents fight for the integrity of the indigenous lands and waterways, as they believe that geography and terrain provide a connection point for the indigenous people with their heritage and culture. It also offers them an opportunity to live independently from government interference.
While the colonial legacy continues to impact the indigenous populations in many ways, they are fighting back to regain their sovereignty. The European settlers, armed with the notions of their cultural superiority, set out to destroy the Aboriginal cultures. They took their lands, confined them in the reservations, and destroyed their cultural life, which depended on their interactions with the land. The colonizers also removed the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit children from their homes. They placed them in residential schools, where they alienated them from their parents, cultures, and languages, hoping to assimilate them into mainstream Canadian society. The negative repercussions, especially regarding the IRS, are still apparent several generations later. However, the indigenous people are fighting, backing, and asserting their rights to ancestral lands and resources through insurgent mantras such as “Land is Life” and “Language is power.”
References
Beaulne-Stuebing, L. (2022). How idle no more transformed Canada. CBC. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/idle-no-more-reconciliation-1.6663310
Bombay, A., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2014). The intergenerational effects of Indian residential schools: Implications for the concept of historical trauma. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51(3), 320–338. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461513503380.
Miller, J. R. (1997) Canada and the Aboriginal Peoples 1867–1927: Canadian Historical Association Historical booklet no. 57. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Historical Association.
Monchalin, L. (2016). Chapter 1—Introduction to Indigenous peoples in Canada. In The colonial problem: An Indigenous perspective on crime and injustice in Canada. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.
Taiaiake, A., & Corntassel, J. (2005). Being indigenous: Resurgences against contemporary colonialism. Government and Opposition, 40(4), 597-614. http//doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-7053.2005.00166.x.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2012). They came for the children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and residential schools. Retrieved from http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=580
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