“I am going to tell you how we are treated. I am always hungry.” — Edward B., a student at Onion Lake School (1923)
"[I]f I were appointed by the Dominion Government for the express purpose of spreading tuberculosis, there is nothing finer in existance that the average Indian residential school.” — N. Walker, Indian Affairs Superintendent (1948)
For over 100 years, thousands of Aboriginal children passed through the Canadian residential school system. Begun in the 1870s, it was intended, in the words of government officials, to bring these children into the “circle of civilization,” the results, however, were far different. More often, the schools provided an inferior education in an atmosphere of neglect, disease, and often abuse. Using previously unreleased government documents, historian John S. Milloy provides a full picture of the history and reality of the residential school system. He begins by tracing the ideological roots of the system, and follows the paper trail of internal memoranda, reports from field inspectors, and letters of complaint. In the early decades, the system grew without planning or restraint. Despite numerous critical commissions and reports, it persisted into the 1970s, when it transformed itself into a social welfare system without improving conditions for its thousands of wards. A National Crime shows that the residential system was chronically underfunded and often mismanaged, and documents in detail and how this affected the health, education, and well-being of entire generations of Aboriginal children.
Authors
- Bibliography, etc. Note
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-396) and index
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Description conventions
- rda
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 371.829/97071
- Dewey Decimal Edition Number
- 23
- Distributor
- Canadian Electronic Library (Firm),
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn---
- ISBN
- 9780887557897 9780887555213
- LCCN
- E96.5
- LCCN Item number
- M55 2017eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBNVSL
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xliii, 409 pages, 10 unnumbered pages of plates)
- Published in
- Ottawa, Ontario
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)thg00974262 (OCoLC)988040559 (CaOOCEL)452834
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Title proper/short title
- Canadian government and the residential school system, 1879 to 1986
- Transcribing agency
- CaBNVSL
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Contents 6
- Foreword by Mary Jane Logan McCallum 10
- Preface to the 1999 Edition 32
- Acknowledgements, 1999–2017 34
- Introduction 36
- Part 1. Vision: The Circle of Civilized Conditions 46
- Chapter 1. The Tuition of Thomas Moore 48
- Chapter 2. The Imperial Heritage, 1830 to 1879 56
- Chapter 3. The Founding Vision of Residential School Education, 1879 TO 1920 68
- Part 2. Reality: The System at Work, 1879 to 1946 94
- Chapter 4. "A National Crime": Building and Managing the System, 1879 to 1946 96
- Chapter 5. "The Charge of Manslaughter": Disease and Death, 1879 to 1946 122
- Chapter 6. "We Are Going to Tell You How We Are Treated": Food and Clothing, 1879 to 1946 154
- Photographs 173
- Chapter 7. The Parenting Presumption: Neglect and Abuse 184
- Chapter 8. Teaching and Learning, 1879 to 1946 212
- Part 3. Integration and Guardianship, 1946 to 1986 242
- Chapter 9. Integration for Closure, 1946 to 1986 244
- Chapter 10. Persistence: The Struggle for Closure 266
- Chapter 11. Northern and Arctic Assimilation 294
- Chapter 12. The Failure of Guardianship: Neglect and Abuse, 1946 to 1986 314
- Epilogue. Beyond Closure, 1992 to 1998 350
- Appendix 362
- Notes 364
- References 443
- Index 452
