Many hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children discovered at Canadian residential schools

Banquet_Bear · June 5, 2021, 10:52pm

…and they had every right to have that fear.

CBC:

But the stories from the survivors proved to be horrendous. One of the most common stories that we heard were from survivors who talked about the children who died in the schools and whose deaths they witnessed. Just as often, we heard about the loneliness and separation from their family — how they lost so much.

One aspect of residential schools that really proved to be quite shocking to me personally, was the stories that we began to gather of the children who died in the schools. Of the children who died, sometimes deliberately, it was at the hands of others who were there, and in such large numbers.

Survivors talked about children who suddenly went missing. Some talked about children who went missing into mass burial sites. Some survivors talked about infants who were born to young girls at the residential schools, infants who had been fathered by priests, were taken away from them and deliberately killed — sometimes thrown into furnaces, we were told.

"A Reimer:

There are only 2 reasons to have been shocked & outraged about the news of 215 Indigenous children found in a mass grave at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School: (1) personal trauma related to residential schools, mass graves and/or genocide was triggered … /1

Or (2) this is the first time you are realizing that Canada is the perpetrator of residential schools, mass graves and genocide. If you are in the latter group and in a position of power, in a post Truth and Reconciliation Commission Canada there is no excuse for you. /2

Throughout the testimony and the reports to the TRC there is clear evidence of thousands of murdered children. It was so prevalent in testimony that Volume 4 of the TRC report dedicates all 273 pages to Missing Children and Unmarked Burials. /3

1000s of people gave 10,000s of pages of testimony. Retriggering this extreme trauma came at a high price to themselves, their families and their communities. It was possible because many others suffered to tell their stories to get the public attention that led to the TRC. /4

The TRC follows on royal commissions, white papers, research and investigative reports that detail the grossly disproportionate burden that Indigenous people carry of poverty, incarceration, police-involved shootings, toxic drug deaths, homelessness /5

The last residential school closed in 1997. As someone pointed out on Twitter, the TV show Friends was still on the air. This isn’t ancient history.

Here is the TRC final report.

Physical genocide. Biological genocide. Cultural genocide. “In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.”