Residential Schools

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Pages: 3

Aboriginal Studies

Sofia: Topic One- Residential Schools, and their impact on identity.

Residential schools were government-funded religious schools built to assimilate Aboriginal children to European culture. First Nation, Inuit, and Metis children were taken from their families, stripped of their clothes, and forced to adapt to Christian-Canadian culture. Churches such as the Anglican, Catholic, United, and Presbyterian ran residential schools on a day to day basis. Nuns would abuse, lecture, and rape Aboriginals. They didn’t think of them as being people, there for, treated them worse than animals. The government believed these children needed to become apart of the Canadian culture, and used this as an excuse to disregard their own. How could you value something you know nothing about? The government pushed away the value of Aboriginal culture by neglecting to be educated on it. Their culture and beliefs were simply wrong. To the government, the children still had a chance to be apart of the “best, most relevant,” culture. In 1879, the first residential schools were built, and John A. Macdonald was the prime minister. He and his cabinet gave the power to churches to treat Aboriginal children anyway they
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For example, Metis people had many traditions. Such as, the Metis Sash, Fiddle Music ceremonies, and Jiggling. All of these are unique, and represent some of their core values. They also dressed a certain way. A skirt, red woolen hat, deerskin pants, and long hooded coat called “capot,” was a very common combination. Men also wore colourful sash around their waist. It was a part of who they were, just as nike and adidas are apart of my culture today. Their language was and is Michif, which is a mixture between French (European) and Cree (Aboriginal). All of Aboriginal groups have their own practices as