Removing Indigenous Children from their Families in Crime Fiction



Banner Photograph for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

In I’ll See You in My Dreams by William Deverell a significant issue involves what happened with the victim, Dermot Mulligan, when he was principal of an Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan during the 1940’s.

The book touches upon the problems caused by the education of generations of Canadian Indians in residential schools. Thousands of Indian children, as young as 6 years of age, were taken from their families on their home reserves to attend these schools. At some schools they would get to go home at Christmas. At other schools they would be there from September to June.

The schools were part of the Federal Government’s attempt to assimilate Canadian Indians through education and taking away their culture. At the schools children were punished for using their native language or following any traditional cultural practices. Discipline was harsh. They would remain in the residential schools for up to 12 years.

There were major problems with physical and sexual abuse. There have been generational problems as the children who, essentially grew up without parents and other family, became adults and had their own children.

In recent years the issues of residential schools are being addressed through a Federal Government compensation system and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that is currently holding hearings across Canada.

I have represented Indians pursuing compensation. They consider themselves survivors of residential schools. It is a wrenching experience to listen to strong, physically powerful, men break down in your office recounting experiences some had not even told their families.

At the same time I have also represented individuals who worked in residential schools against whom abuse allegations have been made. While they face no legal or financial consequences it is also difficult to hear persons emotionally stating they are facing false accusations.

The residential schools deeply scarred generations of Canadian Indians.

Australia has its own issues with the removal of thousands of aboriginal children, now called the stolen children, from their families. At the Creative Spirits website it states:

            The stolen children were raised on missions or by foster  

            parents. They were totally cut off from their Aboriginality.

            They were severely punished when caught talking their

            Aboriginal language. Some children never learned anything

            traditional and received little or no education. Instead the

            girls were trained to be domestic servants, the boys to be

           stockmen.

In Arthur Upfield’s book The Will of the Tribe he talks about two educated aboriginal people, Tessa and the Captain. While educated they neither fit into white nor aboriginal society.

 

Denmark had a policy in place from the 1940’s to take Greenlander children to Denmark to live in boarding schools from as early as 10 years of age. In Peter Hoeg’s book Smilla’s Sense of Snow the lead character, Smilla Jesperson, is one of those children and the victim, Isaiah, another.

Smilla talks of the dislocation for the Greenlanders removed from their semi-nomadic life on the land to urban Denmark. Many found themselves isolated neither accepted by Danes or native Greenlanders. They struggle to find a place in society. I described Smilla as a misfit in Denmark.

In contrast is the experience of Jimmy Perez in Raven Black by Ann Cleeves. Children as young as 12 would be brought to Lerwick from the smaller Shetland Islands to live in a hostel so they could attend school. Perez from the more distant Fair Isle, could not go home for weekends. While required to move away for school at a young age there is not the same cultural dislocation as with indigeneous children.

I do recognize the impact on a person leaving home to go to school. I left home to attend boarding school when I was 15. It was the hardest year of my life going to live at a school where I did not know anyone. Yet my experience was mainly positive as I adjusted and matured. There was none of the abuse of Indian residential schools.

In Canada, Australia and Denmark each nation sought to eliminate the cultural identity and assimilate their aboriginal or indigenous people. The results were devastating to each country’s indigenous peoples with the effects continuing into the future. Australia described it best as “stolen generations”.