(2008) Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School
https://youtu.be/qDshQTBh5d4
"They beat me every day... I got hit so much I lost my native tongue." ~ school resident
"We have to have our own language, because... when we talk to our Spirits they don't understand English." ~ school resident
"We are a people. We just need to be accepted." ~ school resident
Death at Residential Schools
https://youtu.be/9FydzIzkndA
"In that first year, we didn't like our parents. We didn't like our grandparents. We didn't like our extended families, because of what had been pounded into our heads, that "Indians were no good"... so that was the start of my indoctrination. When they say, "kill the Indian in the child," That's exactly what they were doing. Kill it." ~ school resident
"My grandparents spoke Cree... and they were very deliberate about not passing that down to their children. They didn't want us to know the language, because they were so afraid." ~ School survivor
The Wellbriety Journey to Forgiveness
https://youtu.be/vZwF9NnQbWM
https://youtu.be/vZwF9NnQbWM
"Nether one of us knew how to cry, because we were not supposed to cry." ~ school resident
"There was sexual abuse but we weren't allowed to talk about it." ~ school resident (2017)
Boarding School Healing
https://youtu.be/8HZgmJmdpf8
"The boarding school policy was far reaching and devastating as any, maybe more than any, because of the complete and utter destruction of the culture" ~ Narator
"I cried when I saw my hair on the floor" ~ school resident
"Without my Navaho language I was broken... taking my identity from me make me very powerless" ~ school resident
"I managed to learn how to stuff all the loneliness that came, because I could not talk to my mother and father. We were not comforted by our boarding school matrons or teachers. The pain and the loneliness and the anger will always be with me..." ~ school resident
"Its like our great beautiful blanket got chopped into pieces... we have a lot of the pieces left and now we are trying to put them all back together. Its not going to look exactly like our blanket was before, but it will still keep us warm." ~ school resident
"It hurts to know that I can not give [my children] what my parents could have given me, if not for boarding school." ~ Child of school resident
"Only by bringing an end to the lie can we begin to heal from it" ~ school resident
"Healing is not just happening on the native side. Its not just us that needs to heal over this history, its also the non-native community that is really struggling with this healing." Native woman
(2015) Native American Boarding Schools - What They Took Away:
Reflections on Native Boarding Schools.
https://youtu.be/ZO38EUu-1uA
"I was taken away from my mother and grandparent... My mind has never go of thinking about the loss of my mother... I was kept at the boarding school for six years and never allowed to go home... there were beating happening... I ran away from that school six times and each that I was caught I was beaten.... There was absolute loneliness... every night there were kids crying...my crying was amongst them... teachers were very mean. they kept hitting the back of your hand with rulers. There were a lot of perverted acts. They were taking native children and putting them in these schools and trying to make us believe in Christianity and making us forget the Native ceremonies. I think any child that goes through that will be forever filled with trauma, as I have been. My mother is gone... I couldn't tell her that I was sorry. A great trauma was inflicted upon us and that was by taking the children, by force, away from the parents" ~ school resident
(2015) Stolen Children | Residential School survivors speak out
https://youtu.be/vdR9HcmiXLA
"I got frightened when I was little girl, when the principal used to beat up the other children... The boys got the most beating. They used to call it 'bench party'... I saw blood... My strongest memory there is when the little girl died beside me. She must have been about six. [her parents were never notified.]... Everything [was] destroyed in our world. We didn't bother white people. White people bothered me." ~ school resident
"I remember when we had to shower...the supervisor come in there and basically take advantage of you... I remember them taking me away from my mother... I got strapped. I got beaten up for speaking my own native tongue. I even had my tongue pulled out and pinched... you learn pretty quick after getting those beatings and ever since that day I tried to run away... when we got caught we payed for it dearly." ~ school resident
"I remember...witnessing my brother get punched by the supervisor... there are three reason why I think residential schools became blood on our landscape. One is that we became strangers in our home and native land. Two is that nurturing relationships between parents and children were severed. Residential schools were a frontal attack on parenthood. Three is that it added to our mental stress in a very real way." school resident
"My father told me... they had to be contained so they would walk in circles in the cafeteria, round and round and round and round. He never knew when he was going to get hit. He lived in fear of being hit. You break a rule you get whacked... It was unpredictable... and it was that unpredictability he brought home too and the same things with us. We didn't know what was going to happen next. So it was scary. he got out...and finally made his way home and he couldn't connect with them - he couldn't speak the language. He didn't understand the culture. There was a lot of fear. I think the fear that they put in him - the terror that they put in him, he managed to bring that with him. And it went into our family and I learned terror and fear and all that as well - as a child. I put fear in my sons too. That's all I knew. Generally the survivors of residential school do not commit suicide any more than general population. Its the children of the residential school survivors that commit suicide in incredibly high numbers. " ~ child of school resident
"My parents and grandparents went to boarding school... [after mother talked at a conference] I was shocked and apaulled, I just felt terrible for her. I felt frozen. My parent never had a childhood and never had parents a role model so we were vulnerable children and a lot of us were abused ourselves as young children. One of the people who abused me in my family had been a residential school survivor and I understood why now - why I was abused. I grew up not knowing my language and in fact I kinda felt ashamed about our language and our identity because it seemed like... my parent and uncles were ashamed too in some way because they didn't want to talk about it and they didn't want to share with us about who we were. " ~ child of school resident
(2015) Truth & Reconciliation:
Stories From Residential School Survivors
https://youtu.be/VmjrVfsLRBE
"Just over twenty years ago the last Aboriginal Residential School closed in Canada. Over the decades more than 150,000 children lived in these schools for up to six years at a time. They were punished when they tried to speak their language or practice their culture. More than 4,000 children died. Those that survived came out of the school system different people... families were separated to break the family bond." Narator
"They took me away from how I was brought up and how my mother and my father had a role in my life... The truth is the truth, but we need to great that atmosphere toward reconciliation... I understand why we are the way we are - why we are so angry. I am done being angry now. Hopefully we will all get there." ~ school resident
"I started to lose the language and when I came out I could speak a few words but I could not speak fluently to [my father]. I found it so hard... I opened up and finally let out my feelings about what happened to me and I cried and then that's when I could feel my spirit come back to me and then I could be there for my kids. We native people are struggling today. A lot of them are not where I am - they're just starting to open up and talk about what they went through. I think it should be taught in the schools so that everybody can understand what we went through, so we can go back to our ways and the way we were supposed to be - our traditions and our values. We need to be who we are." ~ school resident
(2018) Recounting the horrors of St. Anne's residential school
https://youtu.be/QJ9qhYATUm0
"When the first two boys were given electric shock, they winced and I could see them jerk as they were cranking the handle... then they kind of slumped... It was really powerful. you could see them jerk... The experience with the sexual abuse was really hard to bring up, but I had to tell the details of what happened" ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor separated from siblings
https://youtu.be/jFDln2CykXY
"One of the things I struggled with was living under tension all the time... walking on egg shells... from being scared, from seeing others get beat... We were not allowed to have friends, so they separated us... They took me from my family. They took m e from my friends... One of the things I really struggled with all this time is shame, shame of who i am, loss of identity. I didn't know who I was when I got out of there. I was ashamed of being a native... I've been through a lot of healing since 1982... I was so traumatized." ~ school resident
(2014) Residential School Survivor Personal Stories
(2018) Witness to murder at Indian Residential School
https://youtu.be/CReISnQDbBE
"I was mistreated in every way. There was a young girl...she was pregnant... they took the baby into the...furnace room. They threw that little baby in there and burnt it alive... You could smell the fless cooking. Its a big mistake when people say we were treated good. No way. There is a lot of things that happened in those boarding schools." ~ school resident
(2013) Unseen Tears: The Native American Boarding
School Experience in Western New York
https://youtu.be/ioAzggmes8c (Part One)
https://youtu.be/9PaqrM1iCf0 (Part Two)
https://youtu.be/2d-FbXx-LSk (Part Three)
"There was a General Pratt who was famous for using those words - to 'kill the Indian and save the man'...and that our ways are savage and that we needed to be civilized. The governments in Canada and the USA followed that police up until the 1980s in one form or another." ~ Narator
"There was a lot of sad times, but I didn't get angry and have resentment until I got out, because I didn't know that from 51/2 to 16 [years old] I just thought it was like a normal upbringing, like to not have no parents and stuff like that." ~ school resident
"At five and half years old... I grabbed by Ma's leg... we were all just crying... The supervisor came over and grabbed me and took me off my Ma's leg." ~ school resident
"They are being rapidly brought from their state of comparative savagery and barbarism to one of civilization." ~ from old film of man boasting about civilizing the Indians in the schools.
"We used to use our language [and] they used to wash our mouth out with soap. They would take a whole bunch of us and march us to the shower and beat us along the way. It was a routine thing I guess." ~ school resident
"They'd throw us in this dark press room... they'd throw Mary and I in there and tell us the rats were going to get us... I used to wonder, 'what did I do?' and I would cry and Rosemary would cry and we would cry and cry for hours in there, not knowing why we were in there. [after I started to learn a little english] I knew then that they were throwing us in there, because we wouldn't speak english.... I didn't speak at all for two whole years, because I figured if I spoke Indian I'd get a licking and if I spoke english then it would be against everything that I stood for. So I didn't speak at all... This man took us into the gazebo and told rosemary and I that he had something for us and that's where he tried to molest us and we ran and even now I have nightmares... He said that we were really bad and that we were born of the devil and if we told anyone about what he was doing they wouldn't believe us anyway and that's so true... I think he had penetrated me that time and I was bleeding and I was sore and I went and I told the nurse and she asked me what happened and so I told her and she gave me a strapping.... Now I think of all the things that happened and you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't, no matter which way you got a licking. It just wasn't right." ~ school resident
"They took all our clothes off and put the clothes of the school on us and they give us a number. So my number was 48 and my brother was 36." ~ school resident
"I had my tonsils out. They used to put us to sleep with that ether... we'd be tied down and they poured that ether over our nose." ~ school resident
"My mother ran our house like an institution...the only way that she knew how." ~ Child of school resident
"I'm here to look for that healing. I am looking to forgive. I forgave my mother. I want to forgive Thomas Indian School."~ child of school resident
"What good would a hollow appollogy be?... an appollegy would have to sincere." ~ child of school resident
"You at five years old, being taken away from your mother. How would you feel?" ~ child of school resident
(2017) Canada's Dark Secret | Featured Documentaries
https://youtu.be/peLd_jtMdrc
"Many of the children who attended the schools were taken by force or were kidnaped." ~ Narator
"Lot of bad memories here, that's for sure. I cried and cried and cried... It was just so hurtful to have to part with her [my mother]. My mother was a really good mother. " ~ school resident
"There is tremendous amount of evil that went on here... They put us in a big cement room and we had to keep warm any way we could." ~ survivor of school
"I went to the door of this home and the woman who lived there knew why we were there - that her two daughters were being sent to residential schools. The mother was crying. Both children were crying. Probably six and eight years old. And I took the six year old from her arms, actually and turned them over to the agent. He jumped in his car and took her off to the airport... I don't remember the children's names, but I'll never forget the cries... It took up maybe five minutes of my life and I buried it back in 64 or 65 and about fifty years later it came back to haunt me." ~ police officer who helped take a child by force in 1965 and later suffered with depression due to feeling that he'd done wrong.
"At the time I didn't like the idea of taking children from their parents. It bothered me... The only thing I knew about the Indian Residential Schools is it was a place where they could get a formal education and didn't see any problem with it. Since then I've come to realize what they were about and know differently now... I'm ashamed." ~ police officer who helped take a child by force in 1965 and later suffered with depression due to feeling that he'd done wrong.
"I think the residential school history within Canada is one of the greatest tragedies, if not the greatest tragedy in our whole history as a country. The damage that has been done to so many lives, and the damage that continues to be done... is just, just... beyond... its hard to even take it in." ~ a minister
"It was to assimilate us - to make sure we didn't have any Indian left in us when we left here." ~ school resident
"There was no mother, no father figure. Nobody said 'good night'... nobody looked after you... we sort of looked after ourselves." ~ school resident
"It was to kill the Indian in the child and pretty much they did. So you get punished for being who you are." ~ school resident
"Its a school where you were punished for the least infractions. The punishments were severe. You never knew when you went over the line. They let you know by giving you a beating. Beating sounds so simple, but it was more than that - it was terror that accompanied each beating." ~ school resident
"Punishment for things you never did. I don't think I ever did anything wrong that would deserve a strap. And yet, you got it." ~ school resident
"I just remember them crying. There was a lot of crying in this place. A lot of tears... And then you find out it was thousands upon thousands of children who were being abused." ~ school resident
"We were lost lonely scared and confused... Kids were being raped and molested in large numbers... beaten until their screams rang out... beaten until there was silence. That was the scariest." ~ school resident
"[in the boiler room] is where I got molested time and time again. Day after day. Boy did I ever wish that somebody would come by, somebody would miss me somehow. And nobody ever came. And I just came out of there feeling so dirty, rotten, low... I think we all got it at one point or another." ~ school resident
"I don't even remember going there. I don't remember the people picking me up out of my home... All I know is I was just there. Then I met the older girl. She kind of took care of me... She said she was going to ask her mother to come and get me to take me home... But that didn't happen, because she, she um, because she got hurt... they killer and I was there. I saw what happened to her." ~ school resident
"I wrote this book, Art Legacy. Ever since I wrote that book I don't have that great desire to back anymore and beat them up." ~ school resident
"Having my father, my aunt and my uncles gone to residential school. My father never discussed his upbringing. He was silent. The home that we lived in was silent around who he was and how he was raised... I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know what it was... This was wrong - to take children away from their parents and heard them into a school against their will... And what you don't hear about is what happens to the adult people when their children are ripped away and when those kids come back broken... So, nobody is OK." ~ school resident
"I was hurting so bad on the inside..." ~ school resident
(2019) Crimes against children at residential school:
The truth about St. Anne's - The Fifth Estate
https://youtu.be/ep7AW2K4Xww
"They offered us some ice cream... After we were finished we were loaded back up into the car, but they never went back the way they came... I fell asleep and I never woke up until we were coming up the Mohawk Institute. But after I got old enough I realized that I was kidnapped. My Dad didn't know... They didn't care how they got the children here." ~ school resident
"There's so many things that happened to us when we were here. Right now its seems that I am traveling back in my younger days. I could hear the kids... I'm feeling too weak." ~ survivor of school who can not talk about it.
"I didn't want to eat the pourage, because it... didn't taste right. The other girl that I saw, she got sick. Same thing happened to me... One of the helpers - the big girls was the one, pulling my hair. A nun was standing beside her, grabbed the spoon and fed me my vomit. I couldn't swallow it at first. I couldn't swallow it." ~ school resident
"We were ellectricuted in the electric chair... If you don't behave you will get ellectricuted... People would cry. People would squirm and different reactions." ~ school resident
[in dentist chair with hands and feet tied] "my hands were tied up like this. So was my legs... And that priest started to kiss all over my face and I was scared. And I cried and I cried." ~ school resident
"According to the police documents [sexual abuse] was rampant. Children sexually assaulted by nuns, by priests, by school employees and sometimes by each other." ~ Narator
"He was always touching you... He would start here and then his hands would fall down." ~ school resident
"They ran away and what they left behind was a mess. I don't think we will ever recover, in our own lifetime, from what happened. They still continuing to hide until there's nobody left to fight - until all of us are gone." ~ school resident
(2019) Native American Boarding Schools
https://youtu.be/Yo1bYj-R7F0
"The Native American boarding school era is a dark chapter of American history. The policy was known as "assimilation" - everything native was to be stripped away. The thought was to kill the Indian and save the man. Their language was to be unspoken." ~ Narator
"My mother was taken away when she was nine years old and was not allowed to return until she was 18. I've learned that the worse thing was the sexual abuse and then the emotional abuse that accompanied it in many of the schools." ~ child of school resident
"They all looked at me when they were giving me my hair cut... My long hair falling off. I was really hurt. That was the teaching from my grandfather was 'your long hair is your strength' and 'your long hair is your wisdom'." ~ school resident
"When I went to boarding school they chopped off my long hair and I remember crying and crying..." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor says she felt helpless
(2018) Residential school survivor: 'I grew up hating the colour of my skin.' https://youtu.be/j2ITeM8D93Y
"And then you have the older children coming to you and telling you not to cry, because its going to get worse... [I remember] her telling me to get in that shower and... "wash until you take all that brown skin off because God doesn't like brown skin"... I grew up hating the color of my skin. I wanted to be white. I was broken inside, thinking how can I make that change and be accepted... I pray that people find peace within themselves, to help us - to open their own hearts so that everybody can start working together."
(2018) Residential school survivor to Canadians: Have some empathy
(2020) Inside The Mohawk Institute Residential School
Note to Natives who shared their feelings and experiences in the videos; Watching the videos helped me to realize more about what happened to you and also helped some confusing puzzle pieces click together in my related situation. I needed this more than I can say. Thank you so much for sharing.
"The boarding school policy was far reaching and devastating as any, maybe more than any, because of the complete and utter destruction of the culture" ~ Narator
"I cried when I saw my hair on the floor" ~ school resident
"Without my Navaho language I was broken... taking my identity from me make me very powerless" ~ school resident
"I managed to learn how to stuff all the loneliness that came, because I could not talk to my mother and father. We were not comforted by our boarding school matrons or teachers. The pain and the loneliness and the anger will always be with me..." ~ school resident
"Its like our great beautiful blanket got chopped into pieces... we have a lot of the pieces left and now we are trying to put them all back together. Its not going to look exactly like our blanket was before, but it will still keep us warm." ~ school resident
"It hurts to know that I can not give [my children] what my parents could have given me, if not for boarding school." ~ Child of school resident
"Only by bringing an end to the lie can we begin to heal from it" ~ school resident
"Healing is not just happening on the native side. Its not just us that needs to heal over this history, its also the non-native community that is really struggling with this healing." Native woman
(2015) Native American Boarding Schools - What They Took Away:
Reflections on Native Boarding Schools.
https://youtu.be/ZO38EUu-1uA
"I was taken away from my mother and grandparent... My mind has never go of thinking about the loss of my mother... I was kept at the boarding school for six years and never allowed to go home... there were beating happening... I ran away from that school six times and each that I was caught I was beaten.... There was absolute loneliness... every night there were kids crying...my crying was amongst them... teachers were very mean. they kept hitting the back of your hand with rulers. There were a lot of perverted acts. They were taking native children and putting them in these schools and trying to make us believe in Christianity and making us forget the Native ceremonies. I think any child that goes through that will be forever filled with trauma, as I have been. My mother is gone... I couldn't tell her that I was sorry. A great trauma was inflicted upon us and that was by taking the children, by force, away from the parents" ~ school resident
(2015) Stolen Children | Residential School survivors speak out
https://youtu.be/vdR9HcmiXLA
"I got frightened when I was little girl, when the principal used to beat up the other children... The boys got the most beating. They used to call it 'bench party'... I saw blood... My strongest memory there is when the little girl died beside me. She must have been about six. [her parents were never notified.]... Everything [was] destroyed in our world. We didn't bother white people. White people bothered me." ~ school resident
"I remember when we had to shower...the supervisor come in there and basically take advantage of you... I remember them taking me away from my mother... I got strapped. I got beaten up for speaking my own native tongue. I even had my tongue pulled out and pinched... you learn pretty quick after getting those beatings and ever since that day I tried to run away... when we got caught we payed for it dearly." ~ school resident
"I remember...witnessing my brother get punched by the supervisor... there are three reason why I think residential schools became blood on our landscape. One is that we became strangers in our home and native land. Two is that nurturing relationships between parents and children were severed. Residential schools were a frontal attack on parenthood. Three is that it added to our mental stress in a very real way." school resident
"My father told me... they had to be contained so they would walk in circles in the cafeteria, round and round and round and round. He never knew when he was going to get hit. He lived in fear of being hit. You break a rule you get whacked... It was unpredictable... and it was that unpredictability he brought home too and the same things with us. We didn't know what was going to happen next. So it was scary. he got out...and finally made his way home and he couldn't connect with them - he couldn't speak the language. He didn't understand the culture. There was a lot of fear. I think the fear that they put in him - the terror that they put in him, he managed to bring that with him. And it went into our family and I learned terror and fear and all that as well - as a child. I put fear in my sons too. That's all I knew. Generally the survivors of residential school do not commit suicide any more than general population. Its the children of the residential school survivors that commit suicide in incredibly high numbers. " ~ child of school resident
"My parents and grandparents went to boarding school... [after mother talked at a conference] I was shocked and apaulled, I just felt terrible for her. I felt frozen. My parent never had a childhood and never had parents a role model so we were vulnerable children and a lot of us were abused ourselves as young children. One of the people who abused me in my family had been a residential school survivor and I understood why now - why I was abused. I grew up not knowing my language and in fact I kinda felt ashamed about our language and our identity because it seemed like... my parent and uncles were ashamed too in some way because they didn't want to talk about it and they didn't want to share with us about who we were. " ~ child of school resident
(2015) Truth & Reconciliation:
Stories From Residential School Survivors
https://youtu.be/VmjrVfsLRBE
"Just over twenty years ago the last Aboriginal Residential School closed in Canada. Over the decades more than 150,000 children lived in these schools for up to six years at a time. They were punished when they tried to speak their language or practice their culture. More than 4,000 children died. Those that survived came out of the school system different people... families were separated to break the family bond." Narator
"They took me away from how I was brought up and how my mother and my father had a role in my life... The truth is the truth, but we need to great that atmosphere toward reconciliation... I understand why we are the way we are - why we are so angry. I am done being angry now. Hopefully we will all get there." ~ school resident
"I started to lose the language and when I came out I could speak a few words but I could not speak fluently to [my father]. I found it so hard... I opened up and finally let out my feelings about what happened to me and I cried and then that's when I could feel my spirit come back to me and then I could be there for my kids. We native people are struggling today. A lot of them are not where I am - they're just starting to open up and talk about what they went through. I think it should be taught in the schools so that everybody can understand what we went through, so we can go back to our ways and the way we were supposed to be - our traditions and our values. We need to be who we are." ~ school resident
(2018) Recounting the horrors of St. Anne's residential school
https://youtu.be/QJ9qhYATUm0
"When the first two boys were given electric shock, they winced and I could see them jerk as they were cranking the handle... then they kind of slumped... It was really powerful. you could see them jerk... The experience with the sexual abuse was really hard to bring up, but I had to tell the details of what happened" ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor separated from siblings
https://youtu.be/jFDln2CykXY
"One of the things I struggled with was living under tension all the time... walking on egg shells... from being scared, from seeing others get beat... We were not allowed to have friends, so they separated us... They took me from my family. They took m e from my friends... One of the things I really struggled with all this time is shame, shame of who i am, loss of identity. I didn't know who I was when I got out of there. I was ashamed of being a native... I've been through a lot of healing since 1982... I was so traumatized." ~ school resident
(2014) Residential School Survivor Personal Stories
https://youtu.be/oejxDCza3U8 (Part one)
https://youtu.be/2lmPqVtAhrY (Part Two)
"[On the Reservation] We were rich. We did not need anything. The land supported us in every way, in every facet of our lives." ~ school resident
"[In the boarding schools] They exposed all those young children to the sexual abuse... There was one nun that used to tell us, "Turn the other cheek." What happened to us, it should never have happened... I didn't have my grandmother or my mother to protect me. You should always have someone that you can go to when things happen. To me, the education system and the priests and the nuns failed us as Indian children put into their care, very badly. THEY were the problem."~ school resident
https://youtu.be/2lmPqVtAhrY (Part Two)
"[On the Reservation] We were rich. We did not need anything. The land supported us in every way, in every facet of our lives." ~ school resident
"[In the boarding schools] They exposed all those young children to the sexual abuse... There was one nun that used to tell us, "Turn the other cheek." What happened to us, it should never have happened... I didn't have my grandmother or my mother to protect me. You should always have someone that you can go to when things happen. To me, the education system and the priests and the nuns failed us as Indian children put into their care, very badly. THEY were the problem."~ school resident
(2018) Witness to murder at Indian Residential School
https://youtu.be/CReISnQDbBE
"I was mistreated in every way. There was a young girl...she was pregnant... they took the baby into the...furnace room. They threw that little baby in there and burnt it alive... You could smell the fless cooking. Its a big mistake when people say we were treated good. No way. There is a lot of things that happened in those boarding schools." ~ school resident
(2013) Unseen Tears: The Native American Boarding
School Experience in Western New York
https://youtu.be/ioAzggmes8c (Part One)
https://youtu.be/9PaqrM1iCf0 (Part Two)
https://youtu.be/2d-FbXx-LSk (Part Three)
"There was a General Pratt who was famous for using those words - to 'kill the Indian and save the man'...and that our ways are savage and that we needed to be civilized. The governments in Canada and the USA followed that police up until the 1980s in one form or another." ~ Narator
"There was a lot of sad times, but I didn't get angry and have resentment until I got out, because I didn't know that from 51/2 to 16 [years old] I just thought it was like a normal upbringing, like to not have no parents and stuff like that." ~ school resident
"At five and half years old... I grabbed by Ma's leg... we were all just crying... The supervisor came over and grabbed me and took me off my Ma's leg." ~ school resident
"They are being rapidly brought from their state of comparative savagery and barbarism to one of civilization." ~ from old film of man boasting about civilizing the Indians in the schools.
"We used to use our language [and] they used to wash our mouth out with soap. They would take a whole bunch of us and march us to the shower and beat us along the way. It was a routine thing I guess." ~ school resident
"They'd throw us in this dark press room... they'd throw Mary and I in there and tell us the rats were going to get us... I used to wonder, 'what did I do?' and I would cry and Rosemary would cry and we would cry and cry for hours in there, not knowing why we were in there. [after I started to learn a little english] I knew then that they were throwing us in there, because we wouldn't speak english.... I didn't speak at all for two whole years, because I figured if I spoke Indian I'd get a licking and if I spoke english then it would be against everything that I stood for. So I didn't speak at all... This man took us into the gazebo and told rosemary and I that he had something for us and that's where he tried to molest us and we ran and even now I have nightmares... He said that we were really bad and that we were born of the devil and if we told anyone about what he was doing they wouldn't believe us anyway and that's so true... I think he had penetrated me that time and I was bleeding and I was sore and I went and I told the nurse and she asked me what happened and so I told her and she gave me a strapping.... Now I think of all the things that happened and you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't, no matter which way you got a licking. It just wasn't right." ~ school resident
"They took all our clothes off and put the clothes of the school on us and they give us a number. So my number was 48 and my brother was 36." ~ school resident
"I had my tonsils out. They used to put us to sleep with that ether... we'd be tied down and they poured that ether over our nose." ~ school resident
"My mother ran our house like an institution...the only way that she knew how." ~ Child of school resident
"I'm here to look for that healing. I am looking to forgive. I forgave my mother. I want to forgive Thomas Indian School."~ child of school resident
"What good would a hollow appollogy be?... an appollegy would have to sincere." ~ child of school resident
"You at five years old, being taken away from your mother. How would you feel?" ~ child of school resident
(2017) Canada's Dark Secret | Featured Documentaries
https://youtu.be/peLd_jtMdrc
"Many of the children who attended the schools were taken by force or were kidnaped." ~ Narator
"Lot of bad memories here, that's for sure. I cried and cried and cried... It was just so hurtful to have to part with her [my mother]. My mother was a really good mother. " ~ school resident
"There is tremendous amount of evil that went on here... They put us in a big cement room and we had to keep warm any way we could." ~ survivor of school
"I went to the door of this home and the woman who lived there knew why we were there - that her two daughters were being sent to residential schools. The mother was crying. Both children were crying. Probably six and eight years old. And I took the six year old from her arms, actually and turned them over to the agent. He jumped in his car and took her off to the airport... I don't remember the children's names, but I'll never forget the cries... It took up maybe five minutes of my life and I buried it back in 64 or 65 and about fifty years later it came back to haunt me." ~ police officer who helped take a child by force in 1965 and later suffered with depression due to feeling that he'd done wrong.
"At the time I didn't like the idea of taking children from their parents. It bothered me... The only thing I knew about the Indian Residential Schools is it was a place where they could get a formal education and didn't see any problem with it. Since then I've come to realize what they were about and know differently now... I'm ashamed." ~ police officer who helped take a child by force in 1965 and later suffered with depression due to feeling that he'd done wrong.
"I think the residential school history within Canada is one of the greatest tragedies, if not the greatest tragedy in our whole history as a country. The damage that has been done to so many lives, and the damage that continues to be done... is just, just... beyond... its hard to even take it in." ~ a minister
"It was to assimilate us - to make sure we didn't have any Indian left in us when we left here." ~ school resident
"There was no mother, no father figure. Nobody said 'good night'... nobody looked after you... we sort of looked after ourselves." ~ school resident
"It was to kill the Indian in the child and pretty much they did. So you get punished for being who you are." ~ school resident
"Its a school where you were punished for the least infractions. The punishments were severe. You never knew when you went over the line. They let you know by giving you a beating. Beating sounds so simple, but it was more than that - it was terror that accompanied each beating." ~ school resident
"Punishment for things you never did. I don't think I ever did anything wrong that would deserve a strap. And yet, you got it." ~ school resident
"I just remember them crying. There was a lot of crying in this place. A lot of tears... And then you find out it was thousands upon thousands of children who were being abused." ~ school resident
"We were lost lonely scared and confused... Kids were being raped and molested in large numbers... beaten until their screams rang out... beaten until there was silence. That was the scariest." ~ school resident
"[in the boiler room] is where I got molested time and time again. Day after day. Boy did I ever wish that somebody would come by, somebody would miss me somehow. And nobody ever came. And I just came out of there feeling so dirty, rotten, low... I think we all got it at one point or another." ~ school resident
"I don't even remember going there. I don't remember the people picking me up out of my home... All I know is I was just there. Then I met the older girl. She kind of took care of me... She said she was going to ask her mother to come and get me to take me home... But that didn't happen, because she, she um, because she got hurt... they killer and I was there. I saw what happened to her." ~ school resident
"I wrote this book, Art Legacy. Ever since I wrote that book I don't have that great desire to back anymore and beat them up." ~ school resident
"Having my father, my aunt and my uncles gone to residential school. My father never discussed his upbringing. He was silent. The home that we lived in was silent around who he was and how he was raised... I knew there was something wrong, but I didn't know what it was... This was wrong - to take children away from their parents and heard them into a school against their will... And what you don't hear about is what happens to the adult people when their children are ripped away and when those kids come back broken... So, nobody is OK." ~ school resident
"I was hurting so bad on the inside..." ~ school resident
(2019) Crimes against children at residential school:
The truth about St. Anne's - The Fifth Estate
https://youtu.be/ep7AW2K4Xww
"They offered us some ice cream... After we were finished we were loaded back up into the car, but they never went back the way they came... I fell asleep and I never woke up until we were coming up the Mohawk Institute. But after I got old enough I realized that I was kidnapped. My Dad didn't know... They didn't care how they got the children here." ~ school resident
"There's so many things that happened to us when we were here. Right now its seems that I am traveling back in my younger days. I could hear the kids... I'm feeling too weak." ~ survivor of school who can not talk about it.
"I didn't want to eat the pourage, because it... didn't taste right. The other girl that I saw, she got sick. Same thing happened to me... One of the helpers - the big girls was the one, pulling my hair. A nun was standing beside her, grabbed the spoon and fed me my vomit. I couldn't swallow it at first. I couldn't swallow it." ~ school resident
"We were ellectricuted in the electric chair... If you don't behave you will get ellectricuted... People would cry. People would squirm and different reactions." ~ school resident
[in dentist chair with hands and feet tied] "my hands were tied up like this. So was my legs... And that priest started to kiss all over my face and I was scared. And I cried and I cried." ~ school resident
"According to the police documents [sexual abuse] was rampant. Children sexually assaulted by nuns, by priests, by school employees and sometimes by each other." ~ Narator
"He was always touching you... He would start here and then his hands would fall down." ~ school resident
"They ran away and what they left behind was a mess. I don't think we will ever recover, in our own lifetime, from what happened. They still continuing to hide until there's nobody left to fight - until all of us are gone." ~ school resident
(2019) The #UNIGNORABLE issue of intergenerational
trauma | Truth and Reconciliation
(2019) Native American Boarding Schools
https://youtu.be/Yo1bYj-R7F0
"The Native American boarding school era is a dark chapter of American history. The policy was known as "assimilation" - everything native was to be stripped away. The thought was to kill the Indian and save the man. Their language was to be unspoken." ~ Narator
"My mother was taken away when she was nine years old and was not allowed to return until she was 18. I've learned that the worse thing was the sexual abuse and then the emotional abuse that accompanied it in many of the schools." ~ child of school resident
"They all looked at me when they were giving me my hair cut... My long hair falling off. I was really hurt. That was the teaching from my grandfather was 'your long hair is your strength' and 'your long hair is your wisdom'." ~ school resident
"When I went to boarding school they chopped off my long hair and I remember crying and crying..." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor says she felt helpless
https://youtu.be/9GChd5_RT6A
"They pulled their pants down and started whipping them and I had to watch my little sister get whipped and I couldn't do anything to help her...[crying] My very first experience of somebody coming of age was a very violent one... the nun went in and started yelling at her and started hitting her, called her a dirty little savage... When you look out in the street and you look out on some of our people and you look at some of the issues they have to carry and where does that trauma come from? It comes from the place of being in the residential schools. It comes from that history. It comes from that pain that's been passed down through the generations." ~ school resident
"They pulled their pants down and started whipping them and I had to watch my little sister get whipped and I couldn't do anything to help her...[crying] My very first experience of somebody coming of age was a very violent one... the nun went in and started yelling at her and started hitting her, called her a dirty little savage... When you look out in the street and you look out on some of our people and you look at some of the issues they have to carry and where does that trauma come from? It comes from the place of being in the residential schools. It comes from that history. It comes from that pain that's been passed down through the generations." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor: 'I grew up hating the colour of my skin.' https://youtu.be/j2ITeM8D93Y
"And then you have the older children coming to you and telling you not to cry, because its going to get worse... [I remember] her telling me to get in that shower and... "wash until you take all that brown skin off because God doesn't like brown skin"... I grew up hating the color of my skin. I wanted to be white. I was broken inside, thinking how can I make that change and be accepted... I pray that people find peace within themselves, to help us - to open their own hearts so that everybody can start working together."
(2018) Residential school survivor to Canadians: Have some empathy
https://youtu.be/ZdnEPvNGUYY
"Witnessing the sexual abuse of a little boy. That traumatized me. I think in time people need to know and understand not just about the abuses but the impacts - the harmful impacts that we have still today." ~ school resident
"Witnessing the sexual abuse of a little boy. That traumatized me. I think in time people need to know and understand not just about the abuses but the impacts - the harmful impacts that we have still today." ~ school resident
(2020) Inside The Mohawk Institute Residential School
https://youtu.be/a5_RxYXopdU
(2020) Survivor Geronimo Henry recalls his experience at the Mohawk Institute Residential School https://youtu.be/jd4rz_6FGKs
"We did a lot of crying here. We did a lot of fighting..." ~ school resident
"Every time you tell your story your healed a little bit." ~ school resident
(2018) Why language is vital for this Inuk residential school survivor
(2020) Survivor Geronimo Henry recalls his experience at the Mohawk Institute Residential School https://youtu.be/jd4rz_6FGKs
"We did a lot of crying here. We did a lot of fighting..." ~ school resident
"Every time you tell your story your healed a little bit." ~ school resident
(2018) Why language is vital for this Inuk residential school survivor
https://youtu.be/RvuUZfDPSpQ
"I consider my children, grandchildren and others lucky that they do not have to go through all that." ~ school resident
(2018) From residential school to one of Manitoba's 1st Indigenous nurses https://youtu.be/XdGnI_J_BLg
"[When my father dropped me off at the school] he said, "I can not take you home. We'll go to jail. You have to stay here."... My dad was crying and he drove away." ~ school resident
"We were always punished for trivial things." ~ school resident
(2012) Residential School Survivors Set To Detail Abuse
"I consider my children, grandchildren and others lucky that they do not have to go through all that." ~ school resident
(2018) From residential school to one of Manitoba's 1st Indigenous nurses https://youtu.be/XdGnI_J_BLg
"[When my father dropped me off at the school] he said, "I can not take you home. We'll go to jail. You have to stay here."... My dad was crying and he drove away." ~ school resident
"We were always punished for trivial things." ~ school resident
(2012) Residential School Survivors Set To Detail Abuse
https://youtu.be/VirdmvVAbIc
"His actions of sexual abuse went on through the school year. He made nightly visits to me. My brother would not cooperate. Instead he ran to the window and he jumped out of it." ~ school resident
(2016) A residential school survivor shares his story of trauma and healing https://youtu.be/ddZEeeaozDE
"I was physically abused a superviser... " ~ school resident
"Canadians need to become alies with [us] so they can learn about the true history of Canada." ~ school resident
(2010) Interview With St. Anne's Residential School resident
"His actions of sexual abuse went on through the school year. He made nightly visits to me. My brother would not cooperate. Instead he ran to the window and he jumped out of it." ~ school resident
(2016) A residential school survivor shares his story of trauma and healing https://youtu.be/ddZEeeaozDE
"I was physically abused a superviser... " ~ school resident
"Canadians need to become alies with [us] so they can learn about the true history of Canada." ~ school resident
(2010) Interview With St. Anne's Residential School resident
https://youtu.be/PSR1uIyq2rU
"They were abusive to all the kids." ~ school resident
(2014) Chief Robert Joseph - Part 2: Residential School Experience
"They were abusive to all the kids." ~ school resident
(2014) Chief Robert Joseph - Part 2: Residential School Experience
https://youtu.be/_D2hk7JEQtI
"They were so cruel. Actually thats why I'm deaf - both ears - I can't hear, because we got cuffed in the ears so often... I left there. I was totally broken." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor says being separated from her family was the worst https://youtu.be/bt6iOj_pkfw
"That loneliness, that separation from your family is the worse thing that anybody can do to you." ~ school resident
(2016) SLEEPING CHILDREN AWAKE (Full Version)
"They were so cruel. Actually thats why I'm deaf - both ears - I can't hear, because we got cuffed in the ears so often... I left there. I was totally broken." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor says being separated from her family was the worst https://youtu.be/bt6iOj_pkfw
"That loneliness, that separation from your family is the worse thing that anybody can do to you." ~ school resident
(2016) SLEEPING CHILDREN AWAKE (Full Version)
https://youtu.be/u0JAzgzKVZA
"There was a lot of shame. I didn't want people to know what I was going through." ~ school resident
(2012) Native American Boarding Schools 101
"There was a lot of shame. I didn't want people to know what I was going through." ~ school resident
(2012) Native American Boarding Schools 101
https://youtu.be/YlG2-7yI3mc
"It wasn't really about education. We didn't really learn basic English." ~ school resident
(2015) An elder's story: The truth about Residential school
"It wasn't really about education. We didn't really learn basic English." ~ school resident
(2015) An elder's story: The truth about Residential school
https://youtu.be/UAL5KSWFTNI
(2015) Marlene Bird: Aboriginal woman's story of struggle and survival https://youtu.be/kgFnPB2gHw8
(2020) My Auntie survived residential school. I need to gather her stories before she’s gone | Inendi https://youtu.be/ToUVHjr1xK0
"It was like hell on earth." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor explains the impact on her family
(2015) Marlene Bird: Aboriginal woman's story of struggle and survival https://youtu.be/kgFnPB2gHw8
(2020) My Auntie survived residential school. I need to gather her stories before she’s gone | Inendi https://youtu.be/ToUVHjr1xK0
"It was like hell on earth." ~ school resident
(2018) Residential school survivor explains the impact on her family
https://youtu.be/nJ64DItsIi0
"Things really did happen to us and its effected us in many ways, personally." ~ school resident
(2016) Healing a Nation Through Truth and Reconciliation | Chief Dr Robert Joseph | TEDxEastVan https://youtu.be/rJQgpuLq1LI
"We stand in a moment of the greatest promise that I've ever seen for this country; a moment where we can reflect upon our relationship with each other, to learn to honor each other, to respect each other, to hold each other up... Reconciliation isn't just for aboriginal people and churches and governments, its for all of us and so we need you - we need you to be a part of this great dream - this idea that we can live together in this country, together as one... One day soon, we will have achieved a country that is reconciled, where EVERY kid knows that they're important, that they're valued, that they're loved and that they have a future in our great country" ~ Canadian school resident
"There was some very caring and compassionate people during that time that advocated for Native Americans" ~ Narator
"Things really did happen to us and its effected us in many ways, personally." ~ school resident
(2016) Healing a Nation Through Truth and Reconciliation | Chief Dr Robert Joseph | TEDxEastVan https://youtu.be/rJQgpuLq1LI
"We stand in a moment of the greatest promise that I've ever seen for this country; a moment where we can reflect upon our relationship with each other, to learn to honor each other, to respect each other, to hold each other up... Reconciliation isn't just for aboriginal people and churches and governments, its for all of us and so we need you - we need you to be a part of this great dream - this idea that we can live together in this country, together as one... One day soon, we will have achieved a country that is reconciled, where EVERY kid knows that they're important, that they're valued, that they're loved and that they have a future in our great country" ~ Canadian school resident
"There was some very caring and compassionate people during that time that advocated for Native Americans" ~ Narator
~
Note to Natives who shared their feelings and experiences in the videos; Watching the videos helped me to realize more about what happened to you and also helped some confusing puzzle pieces click together in my related situation. I needed this more than I can say. Thank you so much for sharing.
A Native Song of Hope
Jana Mashonee - The Spirit Of One
https://youtu.be/bw_U821YTCc
"We are all one people and its hope we're thinking of.
We have found the answer and the answer is Love."
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