28. Thousands of Indigenous Children Died From Neglect and Abuse in Canada’s Mandatory Boarding Schools
In addition to cruel treatment, Indigenous kids in the mandatory boarding schools were often housed in overcrowded dormitories, with poor sanitation, unclean water, no or inadequate sewage, and insufficient heating to cope with Canada’s harsh winters. Between that and an absence of medical care, diseases such as influenza and tuberculosis were rife. Because the amount of federal funding depended on enrollment figures, schools enrolled sick children to boost their numbers. In one school, student death rates reached 69 percent. About 150,000 Indigenous kids were placed in mandatory schools. Because of poor record-keeping, the number of school deaths is unknown, but estimates range from a low of 3,200 to highs of more than 30,000.
Perhaps the final tragic twist in a tale already full of the tragic is that the end result of the Indigenous kids’ education was often adults unable to fit back into their original communities. After years of speaking only English or French in boarding schools, many had forgotten their Indigenous languages by the time they graduated, and were no longer able to communicate with their relatives. However, they were still Indigenous, and despite the Residential School System’s professed assimilationist intent, they were denied assimilation because of the racist and exclusionary attitudes of mainstream white Canadian society.
