Indigenous children forced to pray to god in a residential school ran by the Canadian government and Catholic Church
This photo was taken at the Bishop Horden Memorial School aka Moose Factory Indian Residential School on Moose Factory Island, Ontario at the southern end of James Bay.
It was operated from 1906 to 1976 by the Anglican Church as part of the network of Indian Residential Schools.
Acts like these were common; children were forced to worship in the manner of whatever church was running them. Non-compliance resulted in beatings.
Canadians are finally realizing the cultural genocide that occurred at these “schools “.
From the 1870s to 1996s, 150,000 aboriginal children were taken from their families and sent by the federal government to church-run schools.
The quality of instruction was sub-par, many children were physically, sexually, and mentally abused, and at least 4000 children died in the school system.
What happened to the thousands of children who died? Schools and the government would not pay to have bodies shipped back to their families.
And so they were placed in coffins and buried near the schools — some in marked graves, some in unmarked graves. Often, their parents in far-away reserves were never told what happened.
Recently, the remains of 215 children have been found buried on the site of a former residential school in Kamloops.
Some of remains are believed to be of children as young as three.
All of the children had been students at the Kamloops Indian Residential School – the largest such institution in Canada’s residential school system.
Theodore Lee is the editor of Caveman Circus. He strives for self-improvement in all areas of his life, except his candy consumption, where he remains a champion gummy worm enthusiast. When not writing about mindfulness or living in integrity, you can find him hiding giant bags of sour patch kids under the bed.