Canada confronts ‘cultural genocide’ against aboriginal people
US should follow Canada's lead and reckon with its own destructive legacy
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2 ... eople.html
About 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children were taken from their families.
" kill the Indian in him, and save the man ". Richard Pratt, a U.S. Army officer who pioneered the concept of off-reservation boarding schools opined in an oft-quoted 1892 speech.
Started in the 1880s, the schools were funded by Canadian government but run primarily by churches. An estimated 150,000 aboriginal children attended the residential schools during their century-long tenure. BUt the goal was never to educate the children. Instead, the schools were designed to destroy aboriginal culture by removing children from reservations and severing ties with parents and communities, in order to inculcate 'civilized' and Christian values.
A 1907 medical report for Indian Affairs said that 75 per cent of the children who had been students at the File Hills residential school east of Regina had died because of their time spent there. Until 1951, the students spent half their day doing chores.
The last school was closed in 1998.
By the numbers:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/truth ... -1.3096185
P.S. If that happened to the native Canadians why not to others. It doesn't matter where you live, you should be glad if your children or siblings were not taken away from you.