A view of the Indian in Kamloops in 2008 Image credit: Bruce Raynor/Shutterstock. com
The bodies of 215 young people were found in a mass grave near a former boarding school used to “assimilate” Canada’s aboriginal youth, highlighting a forgotten era in the country’s recent history.
The bodies were discovered at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School earlier this month, according to an announcement made on Thursday, May 27 through The Chief of the First Nation Tk’emlups te Secwepemc.
While rumors of mass graves on the school grounds were known to the local community, their extent had never been officially documented or recognized. It is unclear how the young people died, however, it appears that they suffered abuse in the residential school system. So far, the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation has revealed the identities of more than 50 of the buried youths who died between 1919 and 1964.
“We had wisdom in our network that we had to verify. To our wisdom, young people who lack are undocumented dead,” Rosanne Casimir, leader of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, said in a statement Kukpi7. “Some were only 3 years old. ” We looked for a way to verify this out of respect and love for the lost youth and their families, understanding that Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc is the last resting position for those young people.
The Kamloops Industrial School in Kamloops, British Columbia, opened in 1890 under the direction of the Roman Catholic Church and has become the largest school in the Indigenous Affairs residential school system. It was taken over by the federal government in 1969. yet closed in 1978.
During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Canada operated a residential school formula for aboriginal people, administered largely through the Catholic Church, the formula being a state-supported colonial effort to forcibly “assimilate” Canada’s Aboriginal peoples into European-Canadian Christian culture. well separated from their families and ordered to attend boarding school where they were not allowed to practice the classical culture of their families.
Their strategies were incredibly destructive and aimed at eliminating indigenous cultures and their languages, prolific physical and sexual abuse within the system and a shocking number of young people died in schools, the precise figures are unknown, but it is estimated that more than 6,000 young people died while attending school.
Canada has officially identified this terrible bankruptcy in history through Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Its number one report, published in 2015, concluded that its schools constituted a “cultural genocide. “
Despite this recent discovery at the Indian residential school of Kamloops, many politicians were remorseful. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted: “The news that remains uncovered in the old residential school of Kamloops breaks my center, it is a painful reminder of this darkness and shame. bankruptcy in the history of our country. “
In the past, the Catholic Church has refused to apologize for abuses that occurred in Canada’s residential schools under his leadership. Prime Minister Trudeau personally wrote to Pope Francis apologizing in 2018, but the appeal was categorically rejected. Now there are new calls for the Church to condemn its role in the tragedy.
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