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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 demonstrators met tragic fates in 1945. Jacobin

12. Victory Celebrations Took a Tragic Turn

Roughly 5,000 native Algerians marched in Setif to celebrate the end of WWII, and some of them carried placards that stated “We Want Equality“, and “End the Occupation“. Others called for the release of Algerian political prisoners held by the colonial authorities. When the marchers with placards refused to get rid of them, French settlers and police opened fire on the unarmed crowds. The result was an outbreak of riots, followed by attacks on French settlers throughout the region, in which about 100 were killed.

The head of the French government in Metropolitan France, General Charles De Gaulle, ordered the colonial authorities in Algeria to restore order by all means possible. The French military responded to the unrest in Setif with a campaign of collective punishment that entailed the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons of war against Algerian civilians. From the sea, French battleships and cruisers opened fire on native Algerian neighborhoods in Setif and its surrounding environs. From the air, French dive bombers struck and flattened over 40 Algerian villages.

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.