Visit to a Former Residential School

I visited the Residential School for First Nations students on Thursday Feb 28 with a group of educators from Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board.  We heard from a survivor of the school who entered it in 1942 at 6 years of age with his brother  and left at 16.  The Woodland Cultural Centre staff also told the  stories of others who had attended that they had collected. The visit made a profound effect on me. The tales and sights reminded me of the Borstal (a boot camp for young male offenders) I visited on a social work practicum long ago.  But of course these First Nation children had committed no offence.

The Residential school has been on the site in Brantford since the 1820s. The present brick building was built in 1902 and replaced two older buildings each of which burnt down, and were thought to have been set alight by the boys. Children attended it from the age of 2 to 16 years, came from across the Province from many different nations, and it was run by the Anglican Church. The school was closed in 1970; the last residential school closed in 1990.

The school consisted of a large building that housed about 80 children and a farm with an orchard, and barns for cows, chickens and horses. The boys and girls were housed in separate wings, had separate playrooms, slept in separate dormitories and were taught in separate classrooms. Brothers and sisters were only allowed to talk to each other once a month.

The survivor, Geronimo, told us that immediately on entering the school at 6 years, he was given a number, number 48, and he was referred to by this number from then on. His long hair was cut, his clothes removed and he was given other clothes. Work, school and Sunday clothing were provided. The children attended the Anglican Mohawk Chapel each Sunday even though many were of the Longhouse religion. Through others’ stories we heard that the clothing issued was inadequate as there was no seasonal clothing.  Their feet were always cold in winter, so if they could they would stand in warm cow dung to warm them, for which they would be punished afterwards. Geronimo was told where he had to sit at the classroom and dining room table, and the children had to line up for everything with the youngest children first. He was thus separated from his brother. He recounted what a considerable shock the regimented life of the school was to him, and how he cried all the time for the first week. Children could leave for a day once a month if their families came, and if they were collected they could go home in the summer. However, he only saw his mother once in the next ten years.

Geronimo emphasized that the children did all the work at the school. The boys ran the farm, and the girls cooked, sewed, cleaned, washed and mended clothes.  In addition, for half a day the older children were sent out each day to local employers. So there was not much schooling. There were playrooms but with little toys or games in them. To compensate, the girls made skipping ropes by knotting together small towels, and the boys swung on the hot water pipes that ran just under the ceiling. The latter was painful as the water was so hot. This was also an initiation rite set by the boys to join one or other of the gangs which were based on which First Nations the boys came from. The Mohawks were the most numerous group in the school.

The school was always short of money so that there was insufficient food, and what there was, was of poor quality. The staff had different and better food.  The children called the school Mush Hole because they were fed large amounts of porridge, but without milk or brown sugar. As the oats were bought in large quantities it became infested with weevils, and the children had to strain the maggots from the oats through their teeth. The children were always hungry. The boys had more opportunity to get outside than the girls, who were locked in at night, so they would go looking for food. The Brantford dump was opened  near the school, and the boys would climb out at night and look for food there. They also went over to the nearby candy factory where discarded candy was thrown out. They would wash off the rat poison covering the candy in the cattle water troughs before eating it.

Using one’s first language was punishable. A grandmother recounted to the curator how she still becomes agitated when she hears her first language spoken as she can feel again in her mouth the pain  of the needle that was inserted through the tongue as a punishment. The curator’s grandmother arrived at the school as a small child speaking Mohawk and Cayuga. An older girl took her under her wing, teaching her English and sharing her food with her, and this girl her grandmother regarded almost as her mother.

Punishments were frequent and there was flogging and caning of the hands. Because of the conditions, children were always running away. Sometimes in the summer they would take off down the railway track as they did not know the way home, as they came from Georgian Bay and beyond. Even if they came from nearby, they might not know, being little, the way to get home. Some would run away as a break from the school, coming back when they had nothing left to eat. They would then be locked in windowless cupboards under the stairs with bread and water only, for a couple of weeks. However, the survivors reported to their grandchildren that this punishment was better than being in the school. Girls also had to be careful in the laundry or the boiler room and make sure, if they could, that they were never alone with staff there, as the noise of the equipment masked any cries they might make.

As the adults bullied  and abused the children so the children picked on each other, with the youngest children at the bottom of the pile. They had to have their weekly shower first, and because there was insufficient hot water, they had theirs in cold water so the older children could have hot showers.

The basement shower room had windows. The girls took turns to cover the windows with towels so that a peeking caretaker could not look in on them as they showered.  Some of the windows looked out onto the front of the school, and here the children would wait hoping their parents were going to come to pick them up for the summer. The anticipation for the parents was great, and the desolation when parents came and children left with them, and no one had come for you, was dreadful.

Women’s groups from Brantford did come to provide some additional things to the children although they were oblivious to the real conditions of the school. The visitors would then be given tea and entertained with Mohawk hymns, even though many of the children were not Mohawk and they were not supposed to use a native language. In the Second World War, the local IODE brought pyjamas for the boys as a Christmas gift, with which they were pleased, as they did not have any night clothes and slept naked. When the visitors left the children were ordered to rewrap these gifts so they could be sent to the children in England who were suffering because of the war.

There was a large turnover of staff—some only stayed a couple of weeks—and the school was presided over by a headmaster.  There was no respect for whoever held this position or warm stories about teachers who had influenced their pupils.  One former resident told how she joined the older girls for the first time in cooking the food, which she had been looking forward to as there were opportunities to have access to more to eat. She was told that there was a special way the mashed potatoes for the principal had to be prepared otherwise she would get into trouble. She had to half the amount, place snot and phlegm on top of it and then cover with the other half of the mashed potatoes. On rainy days when the children could not play outside (the girls had a fenced in yard for this, but the boys more freedom) a basement corridor with locked doors at either end was used by one master to “box “with individual boys.

Although every attempt seemed to have been made to break the spirit of the children, the school did not always succeed then, but its long- term legacy was dreadful.  Those who were discharged from the school often had broken ties with their families, battled with addictions, and suffered from mental health problems. Geronimo said that because of his childhood spent in the Residential school, the most terrible thing for him was that he did not know how to parent his children. He had no loving model to look back on, only one of orders, regimentation, and punishment. So he did not know how to convey his love and affection.  His children and the children of other residential school survivors have suffered as a result. The compensation he has received from the government of Canada is totally inadequate for the degree of damage that was inflicted

We must not forget this history of abuse of First Nations children so that it is never repeated in any form. The lessons to be learned include dignity for all, inclusion, and respect for others. Those who have power and authority must never again be allowed to use their position to dominate those without.  Children anywhere, of any race or religion must be loved and nurtured. As a nation we must set about learning about our First Nations neighbors, and how to respect their teachings and heritage. The children of First Nations must be given all the opportunities that previous generations missed and that all children deserve.