Hey remember when they found over 200 bodies of native children buried behind a residential school and the world cared for… what, a week?
They’ve counted about 6,000-7,000 now, for those of you who do still care
It should NOT fall on Indigenous people’s shoulders to keep this known still. We’ve been doing that for generations at this point and NO ONE wants to listen to us.
We’re tired, mourning and constantly reopening our trauma and pain to keep people caring about us. It’s terrible.
I should start by noting that I am white, and not Canadian, and that if op wants me to remove this comment for any reason, please let me know.
This is a map of all the residential schools in Canada:
Each dot on this map represents a residential school. Blue dots mean the school is considered completely searched. Yellow dots mean they are either in the process of being searched or there are plans to be searched. Red dots indicate that no search has happened and that no search is currently planned
There were more than 130 residential schools in Canada. This map suggests that only six have been fully searched, and a little more than a dozen partially searched (I counted 15 yellow dots). That leaves at least 109 schools completely untouched.
Let that sink in; if 6,000-7,000 unmarked, indigenous children’s graves were found by searching less than a fifth of all the schools, how many are still undiscovered.
Wikipedia estimates that the body count could be over 50,000, and honestly, that could be a low estimate
Residential schools were also common in the US. Although the programs were generally called “Indian boarding schools,” they had the same violently abusive christian framework, many many children died or disappeared in them, and those who survived were left with generations of trauma.
There were at least 367 in 29 US states, and while they were operated with state and federal funds from the 1820s to the 1960s, the total number of children who were taken has never been fully accounted for. In 1925 over 80% of school-age Native children in the US were enrolled in a residential school, about 61 thousand (stats via National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition).
Hey, I want to stress to everyone that even searching the schools will still not recover all the lost. That blue dot in Nova Scotia? That’s Shubenacadie Residential School. Shubie is next to a large river. I’ve heard folks say they disposed of the deceased by washing them down that river. I’m inclined to believe it.
How many schools did not bury their dead on site? How many children will never be found? That is also important to remember.
Australia had similar schools that took indigenous kids away from their families and tried their hardest to whitify them.
To my knowledge, these schools have not yet been systematically searched for unmarked graves.
But make no mistake, thousands of indigenous children were killed at the Australian missionary schools too. The US, Canada, and Australia were all colonised by the same culture. If there’s thousands of murdered indigenous kids throughout the first two, you can bet your bottom dollar that the exact same thing went down here too.
Every single school needs to be searched. Every single possible child needs to be accounted for. As the person above me said, there’s a countless number of children whose bodies will never be accounted for. But those we can find, those we can count, should be found, and mourned.
Forever ago I did a quick portrait of Zélie in the place she keeps coming back to in her dreams (don’t wanna spoilers so I won’t say more). I always wanted to revisit it and add Tzain and Amari (she’s crying ‘cause she thinks it’s beautiful, it’s her thing, don’t judge)
I wish I had gotten to it sooner after reading the book, hopefully im not completely off.
Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi
Adeyemi, if you like a action packed fantasy book, that book is for you
