# Many hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children discovered at Canadian residential schools **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 5, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674 "2021-06-05T14:04:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/1 "2021-06-05T14:04:40Z")
Investigators used ground-reading radar to uncover over 200 unmarked graves of children at a former residential school run by a Roman Catholic order under the auspices of the federal government. > **[Canada: remains of 215 children found at Indigenous residential school site](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/28/canada-remains-indigenous-children-mass-graves)** > > Officials make grim discovery near Kamloops in British Columbia, as Tk’emlups te Secwépemc chief says causes and timings of deaths not known Calls being made for further investigations at all former residential school sites: > **[More than 800 residential school students died in Alberta — advocates say...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/residential-school-graves-alberta-1.6046329)** > > When Jackie Bromley, 70, heard that the remains of 215 children had been found in B.C., she had flashbacks to her time at St. Mary’s Residential School on the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta.  ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/2 "2021-06-05T14:10:57Z")
> **[‘He was just a child’: dead of Indigenous residential schools haunt Canada](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/05/canada-indigenous-residential-schools-first-nations-children)** > > Generations of First Nations children were abducted to institutions to solve the country’s ‘Indian problem’. Thousands never returned ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/3 "2021-06-05T14:21:59Z")
About when would these children have died? There’s undoubtedly a great tragedy here no matter when they were, but the response should be different if they were centuries ago, vs. last year. A friend of mine has a daughter adopted from India, and the orphanage she came from was later discovered to have similar mass graves, in recent use. Needless to say, that environment left a mark on her. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/4 "2021-06-05T14:27:53Z")
The residential school policy ran from the mid 19th century to the mid20th century, although there had been earlier residential schools before that. I think I read that the BC school in question was most active from ~1920 to ~1965, but I’m not sure. The policy dates back to the first Prime minister, Macdonald, whose reputation has taken a tremendous hit as the implications and consequences of the policy, designed to “de-Indian” the children, have become clear. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/5 "2021-06-05T14:31:01Z")
The school opened in 1890. From the article: “The same documents mention that students were exposed to outbreaks of measles, tuberculosis, influenza and other contagious diseases, and many died.” This is probably the reason for the deaths. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/6 "2021-06-05T14:49:08Z")
Much more information here: > **[Canadian Indian residential school system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_school_system)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > > In Canada, the Indian residential school system\[nb 1\] was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples.\[nb 2\] The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by Christian churches. The school system was created to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own native culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Canadian culture.: 42  Over the course of... It’s a national disgrace. 😢 ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/7 "2021-06-05T16:01:28Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > About when would these children have died? There’s undoubtedly a great tragedy here no matter when they were, but the response should be different if they were centuries ago, vs. last year. [The last of the schools in that system didn’t close until the 1990’s](http://www.anishinabek.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/An-Overview-of-the-IRS-System-Booklet.pdf). There are quite a few living survivors. Those particular graves may be older. But the overall system is a living scandal, not an ancient one. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/8 "2021-06-05T18:40:08Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > From the article: “The same documents mention that students were exposed to outbreaks of measles, tuberculosis, influenza and other contagious diseases, and many died.” This is probably the reason for the deaths. Oh, well that makes it all better than. 🙄 (Not aimed at you, **PT** ) We had an Indian School here in Arizona; in fact the street past it is named just that. There are quite a few attendees still living since it was shut down. A few of them have fond memories – the majority do not. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/9 "2021-06-05T18:47:10Z")
They should immediately undertake to check every Residential school location for the same. If the government doesn’t do it, volunteers should be enlisted. I won’t be surprised to learn there is the same or more at every location. There are 140 locations. That could easily amount to tens of thousands of children. The silence of the Catholic Church is deafening, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/10 "2021-06-05T19:30:44Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > There are quite a few living survivors Which makes it strange to me that the government is pursuing this with stereotypical Canadian politeness. We’re _asking_ the Catholic Church to apologize. We’re _asking_ them to hand over the records they keep on their pedophile priests. Fuck the asking already! You don’t _ask_ mass murderers to apologize! Let’s pursue these creeps with the same zeal of Israel pursing concentration camp guards. Pursue them to the ends of the earth and if it turns out they are 99 years old and only have seven days to live, they will spend those days being tried for their crimes and they will die in jail - a Canadian jail full of First Nations people who tend to end up there because of the massive trauma to their entire culture. As for the records, I want to see SWAT teams hauling boxes out of churches. I want to see high-ranking church officials bound in zip ties face down on the floor while forensic teams tear the walls apart looking for evidence. I thought the consequence for raping and murdering children was jail time, not being forced to apologize. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/11 "2021-06-05T20:05:20Z")
> [@DesertDog](#): > > Oh, well that makes it all better than. What I think is that a comparable percent of poor children elsewhere in Canada in that time era died. That the deaths are not unique to these BC residential schools. That child mortality used to be a very serious problem in the U.S. and Canada (and still is in the third world). That antibiotics and vaccines provided major solutions to this problem. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/12 "2021-06-05T20:16:39Z")
> [@DWMarch](#): > > As for the records, I want to see SWAT teams hauling boxes out of churches. I want to see high-ranking church officials bound in zip ties face down on the floor while forensic teams tear the walls apart looking for evidence. I thought the consequence for raping and murdering children was jail time, not being forced to apologize. There is no evidence at all here about the children being murdered, and rape was not even mentioned. What happened here is that the children were taken out of their homes to learn English and the white man way of doing things. Many succumbed to disease- and likely many would have died from the same diseases at home, too. The death toll from childhood diseases was horrible back in those days. In fact few even think the deaths were due to neglect- but the crowded conditions certainly made things worse . But the horrible thing is the schools themselves. While a “good idea” on paper, and everyone meant well, the kids were torn from their families more or less by force, and taken away from their native traditions and languages. In some cases, abuse of various sorts is suggested, true, but the horror is not the deaths so much, but where and why the deaths occurred, the children dying away from their loving families. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/13 "2021-06-05T20:18:50Z")
Yes. True. But at least those children got to die with the comfort of their families. And the over crowding at the schools made things worse in many cases. Still, yes, this is not as if the children were deliberately killed or anything like that. However, Canada _was_ trying to “kill” their language and culture. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/14 "2021-06-05T20:30:26Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > While a “good idea” on paper, and everyone meant well, > [@DrDeth](#): > > this is not as if the children were deliberately killed or anything like that. However, Canada _was_ trying to “kill” their language and culture. We don’t know whether any of them were deliberately killed; or were killed as the result of physical “discipline” that may not have been intended specifically to kill but had that result. And no, it was not a good idea on paper. It was a terrible idea both on paper and in practice. > [@PastTense](#): > > What I think is that a comparable percent of poor children elsewhere in Canada in that time era died. That the deaths are not unique to these BC residential schools. Were those children usually buried in unmarked graves, concealed from their families, and deliberately prevented from having funerals in their own religious traditions? > [@DrDeth](#): > > the kids were torn from their families more or less by force, and taken away from their native traditions and languages. In some cases, abuse of various sorts is suggested Taking them from their families and communities, forbidding them to speak their own language, and forcing them to violate their own religions was horrific abuse in itself. And there is more than “suggestion” of additional abuse; there’s testimony of survivors. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/15 "2021-06-05T20:34:56Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > And no, it was not a good idea on paper. It was a terrible idea both on paper and in practice. Please read what I posted. > [@DrDeth](#): > > While a “good idea” on paper, Note the quotation marks. At the time, they sincerely thought it was a good idea. They were wrong. > [@thorny\_locust](#): > > We don’t know whether any of them were deliberately killed; or were killed as the result of physical “discipline” that may not have been intended specifically to kill but had that result. In most cases the deaths were reported to the families and the authorities. No source is indicating there was some sort of mass murder going on here. Don’t make this worse that what it really was= Pretty damn bad. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/16 "2021-06-05T20:37:55Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Please read what I posted. > > > [@DrDeth](#): > > > > While a “good idea” on paper, > > Note the quotation marks. At the time, they sincerely thought it was a good idea. They were wrong. Ah. I think that would have been clearer if you’d said ‘while some thought it was a good idea on paper’. > [@DrDeth](#): > > In most cases the deaths were reported to the families and the authorities. Why are they then only now discovering the graveyards? ---
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/17 "2021-06-05T20:40:54Z")
At the time I don’t think they gave a shit about what happened. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/18 "2021-06-05T20:41:00Z")
No one knew that the bodies were buried in mass, unmarked graves, instead of being sent home (many were but by no means all) or in normal graveyards with markers. It is mostly _the way in which they were buried_ that is the big story. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/19 "2021-06-05T20:44:06Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No one knew that the bodies were buried in mass, unmarked graves, instead of being sent home (many were but by no means all) or in normal graveyards with markers. The people who buried them (and/or oversaw those burials) presumably knew. This isn’t quite a nitpick: I don’t believe that those people “meant well”, whatever the time was. > [@DrDeth](#): > > It is mostly _the way in which they were buried_ that is the big story. I think it’s a big story also because it’s calling a lot of people’s attention to this – many of whom knew little or nothing about these schools before. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2021, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674/20 "2021-06-05T20:48:54Z")
That’s true, the Canadian government is well aware these schools were a mistake and would have liked them forgotten. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/many-hundreds-of-unmarked-graves-of-indigenous-children-discovered-at-canadian-residential-schools/943674.md?page=2)