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Tragic Discoveries from the Canadian Indigenous Schools and other Events

Khalid Elhassan July 27, 2021 37 min

Painting by Kent Monkman of the tragic seizure of Indigenous children by the RCMP to place in mandatory boarding schools. Pintrest

Algerian troops at Monte Cassino in 1944 - many of them met tragic fates at the hands of their French overlords when they returned to French Algeria at war's end — Algerian troops at Monte Cassino in 1944 – many of them met tragic fates at the hands of their French overlords when they returned to French Algeria at war’s end. German War Machine

13. When French Settlers in Algeria Were Angered by the Natives’ Celebration of the End of WWII

WWII in Europe ended on May 8, 1945, with Germany’s surrender. It was a day of celebration in the victor nations, but the celebrations took a tragic turn in the French colony of Algeria. In the eastern Algerian town of Setif, thousands of native Algerian men, women, and children, held a parade to commemorate the victory. Over 200,000 Algerians had been conscripted by their French colonial overlords during the war, and the marchers planned to lay a wreath at a monument erected in honor of Algerians killed in the conflict.

However, the parade, whose numbers included many Algerian veterans recently returned from the front lines, angered French settlers and French police. The French feared both the march’s undertones of Algerian nationalism, and the assertion of a right to equality with French settlers. Algeria was considered a part of metropolitan France, but it was governed with a form of apartheid in which French white settlers were privileged above native Algerians. Any attempt by the natives to seek equality with French settlers was bound to upset the latter, and when that happened in Setif, things took a horrific turn.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.