6/25/21 751 Unmarked Graves Found at an Indian School in Saskatchewan

Marieval Indian Residential School opened in 1899 and stayed open for 98 years on land that belongs to the Cowessess First Nation, a Canadian Indian group.

During that time, 751 children and, possibly, adults were buried there. At first, according to Chief Cadmusn Delmore of the Cowessess, they had grave markers, but they had been removed in the 1970s by the Roman Catholic church, which ran the school with the aim of assimilating Indian children into the majority culture -- an odd goal, considering that people of a darker hue were often rejected by whites for their skin color.

Like the residential school in Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, where 215 children were found in unmarked graves, the news brought about handwringing by the Canadian government and its private citizens -- and in the United States as well, because we, too, ran schools designed to take the Indianness out of the Indians.

Justin Trudeau released a statement saying “My heart breaks for the Cowessess First Nation, and for all Indigenous communities across Canada,” he said. According to the Canadian government, more than 150,000 First Nation, Métis, and Inuit students were enrolled in the residential school system, most in schools run by the Catholic church.

In the United States, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, herself of indigenous descent, started, on Tuesday, a review of America's Indian boarding schools.

Unlike the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation, which was affected in Kamloops, the Cowessess Nation has expressed its anger.

“Removing headstones is a crime in this country,” said the community’s chief, Cadmus Delorme. “We are treating this like a crime scene.” He said further that “The Pope needs to apologize for what happened to the Marieval Indian Residential School.”

Says the head of the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations, Chief Bobby Cameron, “We are seeing the results of the genocide that Canada committed — genocide on our treaty land.”

Because China has faced criticism over charges of genocide against Uighurs, it has been critical of the human rights records of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. On Monday, Trudeau responded, “Where is China’s truth and reconciliation commission? Where is their truth?"

As an aside, the 1850s through the 1920s was also a time of brutal workhouses for indigent and inconvenient people -- 163 poorhouses in Ireland, 700 in England, where the system began. Compassion was in short supply in several English-speaking countries.

Why were North American whites so determined to erase the Indian past?

Was there any real hope of assimilation, the stated goal of these schools?

What were the attitudes that created such determination to break down one way of thinking and build it back up to match the majority (white) culture?

Do you have any insights about the comparison between Indian schools and British poorhouses?

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/24/first-nations-saskatchewan-unmarked-graves-496082?fbclid=IwAR39Lrtx9-PlKdK_XRFhGFKeY0tFlXjV1J3NQ6uxEEdln9FkDeK3bl_8aqk