Native residential schooling in Canada. The system’s repercussions in Tomson Highway’s "Kiss of the Fur Queen" and Basil Johnston’s "Indian School Days" E-Book

Patrick Schmitz

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2009 im Fachbereich Didaktik für das Fach Englisch - Landeskunde, Note: 2,0, Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: With the help of these two pieces of literature, I will analyse how native authors reprocess their own experiences in residential school and how they present life in those schools they attended. The question to be answered is whether there are any significant similarities or variations as to the description of life in residential schools between those given in primary or secondary literature.

Leseprobe

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction

2. Historical Survey

4. Residential Schools in Primary Literature

4.1 Situation in Residential Schools

4.3 Aspects of Language

4.4 Consequences

5. Conclusion

6. Works cited

Page 1

Thema:

A Report on Native Residential Schooling in Canada and the System’s Repercussions as Presented in Tomson Highway’sKiss of the Fur Queenand Basil Johnston’sIndian School

Page 1

1. Introduction

There is no denying the fact that native people have exceedingly suffered from manifold

attempts to become absorbed into the non-native society of Canada throughout the 19thand 20thcentury.

Nowadays, it is possible to observe all of these consequences induced by the government’s efforts to assimilate the aboriginal people. Native people struggle - among other things - with alcoholism, sexual abuse, a high delinquency rate and a growing alienation from their own cultural background. Yet, besides examining these consequences, it is also of utter importance to study one of those issues haunting the Canadian Native community: the education of First Nation children in residential schools run both the Canadian government and different ecclesiastic orders.

In the course of the 18thand 19thcentury, the role of native people had slowly changed from that of a trade partner or fighting ally to the subject of the said assimilation, i.e. a troublesome element, which had to be made part of the ‘superior’ white society (cf. Miller 1997: 3; Hylton 2002: 11). One can distinguish between various non-native partners interracially ‘cooperating’ with the native people during these centuries: fur traders as the first European inhabitants and the Natives’ trade partners and later, settlers and soldiers as their fighting allies. But as the political situation in Europe and Northern America altered after the Anglo-American War in 1812, these former partners and allies commenced to regard the Natives as an obstacle to the development of a Euro-Canadian society.

In this situation the young state took action and began to plan its attempt on assimilating the Indians into the lower stages of the Canadian society (cf. Barman et al. 1996: 36; Trevithick 1998: 50; Miller 1997: 62).

One can thus conjecture that the government’s policy was established to alienate the Native people from their lifestyle and culture (cf. Miller 1987: 3; Schäfer 2005: 85; Kelm 1996: 52, 60; Barman et al. 1986: 1f, 4; McKegney 2007: 66; Stout & Kipling 2002: 29; Hylton 2002: 14) and - as we will point out throughout this term paper - that this policy was a cardinal source of these issues the native community is facing today.

Just to give an example for the statement mentioned above: The author of the workCanada’s Indian Administrationstated the following in 1945: “In other words the extinction of Indians as Indians is the ultimate end [of the said policy]” (Miller 1987: 3), while Duncan Campbell Scott, then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, said in the year 1920: “our objective … is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politics” (Miller 1997: 114).

Page 2

Casting a glance on the other side of the coin, we should record that native people mostly did not want their children to become transformed into proper, i.e. ‘white’ and ‘western-oriented’ Canadian citizens, as the government planned them to become.

Indians wanted the government to educate their children so that they would be capable of coping with Western society and entering a fair economical contest with the settlers without being forced to forget about their own identities (cf. Miller 1987: 8; Million 2000: 95; Miller 1997: 409).

Chief Keketoonce at the Saugeen Indians for instance announced that he wished to become Christian: “I shall desire to see my children read the good book … and if I can only hear my children read I shall be satisfied” (Miller 1997: 77). Here, the emphasis is clearly put on becoming a Christian and on the ability to read and not on anything else. The third party who played a role in the education of Indians - the church - aimed at transforming the Indians from pagans into ‘adequate’ Christians.

That is to say, some missionaries changed their style of converting native people by shifting their place of work to the existing schools (cf. Miller 1987: 9; Schäfer 2005: 85; Kelm 1996: 59; Wasserman 2005: 27; Million 2000: 94f; Trevithick 1998: 50f; Haig-Brown 2006: 29, 34; Milloy 2000: 53).