ABORIGINAL HEALTH IN THE AFTERMATH OF GENOCIDE

“Aboriginal Health in the Aftermath of Genocide: Healing and Reconciliation after the Indian

Residential Schools Experience in Canada” 1

Professor David B. MacDonald

Genocide and the intergenerational trauma that it produces have had a demonstrable effect on the

health and wellbeing of Aboriginal peoples. This chapter first lays the basis of a claim for the

violation of the United Nations Genocide Convention (1948) in the Indian Residential Schools

(IRS) system. The focus is Article 2(e), which prohibits the forced transfer of children from one

group to another. Second, the chapter outlines some of the effects of genocide on Survivors and

their families, focusing on three levels of analysis: PTSD and intergenerational trauma, theories

of historic trauma, and an overview of the health effects of racism and high allostatic load. These

levels are important when seeking to determine how genocide recognition would help alleviate

some of these problems. The chapter concludes by suggesting ways that healing and

reconciliation can go forward in the aftermath of genocide and what role genocide recognition

might play in this process.

Genocide and the Indian Residential Schools

The IRS system was one aspect of a much larger colonial project that began with early

European colonizers in the sixteenth century and continues to this day. The system marked a

deliberate attempt to destroy many aspects of Aboriginal distinctiveness over several generations to

facilitate colonization. It began in an era when the economic benefits of partnership with Aboriginal

peoples through the fur trade were largely irrelevant; rather than being economic assets, Aboriginal

1
. My thanks to the SSHRCC and the University of Guelph for funding this research. Thanks also to Paulette Regan,
Murray Sinclair, Shelagh Rogers, A. Dirk Moses, Jim Miller, Mike DeGagne, Andrew Woolford, Ry Moran, and
Magda Smolewsky. I dedicate this paper to the Survivors who are in many ways heroes to me.

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peoples were perceived as an impediment to further colonization (Miller 1996: 62–63). The federal

government worked closely with mainline Canadian churches, who were together responsible for

running most schools until the 1950s. The Catholic Church ran approximately 60 percent, the

Anglicans about 30 percent, with the Presbyterian, Methodist, and United Churches running most of

the remainder. From 1920 until the 1950s, attendance for children aged five to sixteen was

compulsory (Milloy, 1999; Miller, 2004, p. 84; MacDonald, 2007). At least 150,000 children

passed through 125 institutions, the last of which closed only in 1996. There are approximately

75,000 Survivors alive today, and many face a myriad of social, economic, and other problems as a

result of their experiences, on which this chapter later focuses.

A number of recent studies allege that genocide occurred within the IRS system, claims

which this chapter supports (Chrisjohn and Young, 1997; Grant, 1996; Neu and Therrien, 2003;

Woolford, 2009; Powell, 2011). The term genocide was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin, who

described it as “a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of the essential

foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves”

(1944, pp. 27-28). The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, which flowed from Lemkin’s

efforts, defines genocide as follows:

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a
national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group:
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about
its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

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The founders of the IRS system, I have argued in previous publications (see MacDonald,

2014), possessed a specific intent to commit 2(e), forcibly transferring a significant proportion of

Aboriginal children as a means of bringing out the destruction of the group in whole or in part.

Statements and papers by political leaders and senior administrators such as MP Nicholas Flood

Davin, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs Hector Langevin, Prime Minister John A

MacDonald, Indian Affairs official Hayter Reed, Deputy Minister of Indian Affairs Duncan

Campbell Scott and many others, convey a strong intention that the schools were to be used as a

vehicle for forcibly removing indigenous cultures, languages, spiritual practices and other aspects

of identity from Aboriginal children, with the end goal of making Aboriginal peoples as distinct

groups disappear (MacDonald, 2014, pp. 312-13).

In terms of genocidal action, we have legislation in 1920, when IRS attendance was made

compulsory for all Aboriginal children aged 7 to 15 (Remembering the Children 2008). Section

119 of the Indian Act empowered truant officers to “take into custody a child whom he believes

on reasonable grounds to be absent from school contrary to this Act and may convey the child to

school, using as much force as the circumstances require” (Aboriginal Affairs Canada, 2010).

A larger climate of legal suppression made it exceeding difficult for Aboriginal parents to

resist the coercive nature of the system. This includes the outlawing of the potlatches in 1884,

give-away ceremonies amongst Prairie First Nations, the Thirst Dance of the Saulteaux and Cree,

and the Blackfoot Sun Dance (Furniss, 1995, p. 24). In 1885, the pass system prohibited travel

from the reserve without the written consent of the Indian agent or employer (Carter, 1999, pp.

162-163). In 1927, an amendment to the Indian Act made it illegal for Aboriginal people to hire

lawyers in pursuit of land claims or other matters, and until 1960, Aboriginal peoples did not

have the right to vote without renouncing their status. These and other impediments scotched

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Aboriginal abilities to combat the forced removal of their children to a system that proved to have

devastating consequences.

Within the schools themselves, a very high level of coercion over the lives of Aboriginal

children extended the ambit of forcible transfer. The Assembly of First Nations has described the

schools as “total institutions”, wherein “all activities of the children -- eating, sleeping, playing,

working, speaking -- were subject to set time tables and to regulations determined by staff

comprised of supervisors and teachers who, for the most part, belonged to a variety of Christian

denominations.” (1994, pp. 3-4). To further the transfer process, children’s names were replaced

with numbers and/or new Christian names, hair was shorn, personal possessions were

confiscated, clothing was replaced with uniforms, and other indicia of a child’s identity were

systematically suppressed (2013, p. 351). Corporal punishment was widespread, as was verbal,

psychological, physical, and sexual abuse (Milloy 1999 Chapters 5, 6 and 7; Miller 1996 chapter

11). Survivor testimony recounts that sexual abuse rates at some schools reached 75 percent, with

physical abuse rates even higher (Rice 2011). In 2002, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation

itemized just some of the abuses they had encountered in the course of hundreds of survivor

interviews:

… kidnapping, sexual abuse, beatings, needles pushed through tongues as punishment for

speaking Aboriginal languages, forced wearing of soiled underwear on the head or wet

bedsheets on the body, faces rubbed in human excrement, forced eating of rotten and/or

maggot infested food, being stripped naked and ridiculed in front of other students, forced

to stand upright for several hours – on two feet and sometimes one – until collapsing,

immersion in ice water, hair ripped from heads, use of students in eugenics and medical

experiments, bondage and confinement in closets without food or water, application of

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electric shocks, forced to sleep outside – or to walk barefoot – in winter, forced labour, and

on and on” (AHF, 2002, pp. 6-7).

Such atrocities have had a traumatic effect on tens of thousands of survivors, with a knock-

on effect on families and communities. For several decades, many survivors were reluctant to

discuss their experiences with their children or within the wider community. Public discussion

began in 1990 when Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs leader Phil Fontaine openly declared his history

of physical and sexual abuse (CBC Archives, 1990). The 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on

Aboriginal Peoples further highlighted problems in the IRS system: under-funding, widespread

verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, a “very high death rate” from tuberculosis, “overcrowding, lack

of care and cleanliness and poor sanitation” (MacDonald, 2007, p. 1009). Various actions by the

federal government and the churches involved in the schools began in 1998 with a ‘Statement of

Reconciliation’, accompanied by a $350 million “Healing Fund”, a series of apologies by the

churches, together with class action suits initiated by Survivors. The 2006 Settlement Agreement

saw widespread compensation, a formal apology by the prime minister, and the creation of a Truth

and Reconciliation Commission.

Trauma and the IRS System

In a supposed era of reconciliation (however contested) the long-term legacies of the IRS

system are now being subjected to details scrutiny. A particular focus has been on the negative

mental health impacts of the system on individual Aboriginal survivors, their families, and their

wider communities. Various models below engage different levels of harm with the ultimate goal

of promoting some form of healing for those damaged by the ongoing legacies of the IRS system

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and the larger colonial context that brought this and other structurally violent processes into

being.

As recent studies have revealed, a significant percentage of Survivors display symptoms

of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a term first developed in 1989 by the Diagnostic and

Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS IV) of the American Psychiatric Association. For

example, an early study in British Columbia of 127 survivors revealed: “64.2 per cent of these

individuals met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD” (Mitchell and Maracle, 2005, p. 16). Trauma

can be defined as “an event in the subject’s life defined by its intensity, by the subject's

incapacity to respond adequately to it, and by the upheaval and long-lasting effects that it brings

about in the psychical organization” (Hendershot, 1999, p. 73). Mitchell and Maracle note how

PTSD can affect four aspects of an individual’s life: “Mentally, people who are traumatized may

develop negative beliefs about themselves and their world. Emotionally, they may experience

cycles of denial and anxiety. Physically, they can experience sleep disturbance, heightened

sensitivity and anxiety, nightmares, and flashbacks. Behaviourally, they may avoid certain

situations, isolate themselves socially, drink, and become increasingly aggressive” (2005, p. 16).

Work on intergenerational trauma builds on clinical studies of Holocaust survivors and

their children during the 1960s, that is, the study of how “survivor syndrome” impacted on

children through secondary or intergenerational trauma (Ehlersa et al., 2013, p. 180). From the

mid-1990s, work applying intergenerational and historic trauma to Aboriginal peoples was

notably associated with Lakota mental health researcher Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart (2000),

and psychologist Eduardo Duran. Holocaust Survivors, as well as Armenian genocide survivors

and Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II all displayed similar symptoms

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of trauma which they passed on to their children (Ehlersa et al., 2013, pp. 180-81; Bombay et al.,

2009, p. 15).

Bombay et al. in their seminal study of trauma and IRS Survivors have noted a wide

range of factors producing trauma: “neglect and abuse, a regimen of strict discipline, the loss of

identity, and feelings of shame and isolation. Cultural expressions through language, dress, food,

or beliefs were suppressed, often by physical force, and children were taught to be ashamed of

their culture.” (2009, p. 14). PTSD underscores the reality that its symptoms are not the result of

personal choices or individual deficiencies, but are the product of externally imposed conditions

which produce response reactions in individual victims (Mitchell and Maracle, 2005, p. 17).

Important to the study of IRS-related trauma has been an emphasis on its impact on the

larger community. In 2001, Brasfield identified a “residential school syndrome” with PTSD-like

symptoms, but with community aspects as well. He noted: “there is a significant cultural impact

and a persistent tendency to abuse alcohol or other drugs that is particularly associated with

violent outbursts of anger” (2001). Brasfield distinguished RSS from PTSD by adding new

symptoms to the definition, such as rejection of Aboriginal culture and language, the persistent

abuse of drugs and alcohol, and the lack of a particular “traumatizing incident” which could be

isolated as the primary cause of the trauma (Robertson, 2006, p. 9). Charles and DeGagné have

taken this further in their analysis of how the “disculturation and the loss of self” and the

emulation of “abusive and oppressive behaviors” resulted in lateral violence in families and

communities (2013, p. 350). Of central importance here is the intergenerational transmission of

survivor trauma, which if unresolved is normalized and passed down to later generations (Stout

and Peters, 2011, p. 11).

How is this trauma manifested? Bombay et al. (2014) note an almost 10% higher rate of

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suicidal ideation amongst those who had at least one IRS survivor parent, compared to Aboriginal

people whose parents did not go. Other negative activities such as smoking were also higher

amongst second generation Survivors. Overall the second generation seems to be affected by

stressors that could lead to depression and trauma in adulthood (pp. 326-7).

Historical Trauma and Allostatic Load

Embedded within the effects of the IRS system is a much larger context of

intergenerational trauma resulting from colonialism, racism, and ongoing structural violence. In

this model the colonization and occupation of the Americans constitutes genocide, and

indigenous peoples suffer from the intergenerational traumatic effects of it on an ongoing basis.

Wesley-Esquimaux and Smolewski notably trace a continuous process of “unremitting trauma

and post-traumatic effects” since European contact and conquest in 1492, beginning with

massacre and the spreading of disease and its radical depopulation of indigenous peoples, through

to the present day (2004, p. 1). The continued and daily stressors of colonialism and historical

trauma can be described as “psychological baggage” inherited by offspring from their parents and

grandparents and then passed along as these offspring have families of their own. (2004, p. 3).

Hartmann and Gone also note that if unresolved such trauma can effectively “snowball” as it

builds up over successive generations increasing “legacies of risk and vulnerability to BH

problems until healing has occurred” (2014, p. 275).

In trying to understand precisely what issues are of central importance across generations,

Whitbeck et al developed the “Historical Loss Scale,” a 12 item scale compiled with help from

indigenous elders to attempt to begin qualifying which losses were most salient to indigenous

peoples, in terms of what they prioritized as the most important and how often they thought about

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the issues. Loss of traditional lands, languages, culture, and spiritual practices figured

prominently in this landmark study, as did broken treaties and mistreatment by government

officials (2004, pp. 124-25).

In addition to the specific traumatic Aboriginal encounters in the IRS system,

contextualized within the trauma of continued colonization, measuring allostatic load has been

used to understand the health challenges marginalized groups face in a white dominated society.

Allostatic load refers to the “wear and tear” the body experiences when it confronts a repeated

array of stressful situations (Juster et al., 2009, pp. 1-2) This wear and tear can accumulate, and

“lead to a multisystem dysregulation state and further to poor health.” Grundy and Read observe

that “Allostatic load is likely to develop when acute stress response becomes chronic.” (2012, p.

2) This can produce a negative cycle whereby high levels of stress result on addictive behavior

designed to respond to the stress (alcohol, cigarettes, poor eating habits, lack of exercise, etc),

which further increases the allostatic load (2012, p. 2).

Ahmed et al. observe that a high allostatic load has serious health repercussions affecting

“mortality, cardiovascular disease incidence, and decline in cognitive and physical function”

(2007, p. 324). This agrees with later study by Bombay et al., which highlights similar problems

such as “heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, diabetes, and exacerbation of

immunologically-related illnesses and neurodegenerative disorders.” “In addition,” they observe,

“stressor experiences may precipitate mental disorders, such as depression, PTSD and substance

abuse disorders” (2009, p. 8)

The larger context of this work was and remains a high level of settler racism against

Aboriginal peoples, exemplified by sedimented structural inequalities which have been normalized.

Aboriginal peoples, due to the ongoing legacies of colonialism, are often blamed for problems

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which have their origins in settler government policies and institutionalized racism. An October

2014 nationwide poll demonstrated that of a representative sample of Canadians, 37% would not

‘be OK with a romantic relationship with an aboriginal person,’ 25% would be not feel comfortable

‘having an aboriginal neighbour,’ while 24% nationally would not feel ‘comfortable working for an

aboriginal person.’ Surprisingly, these statistics were not highlighted as problematic, given that the

focus was on the even higher level of prejudice evident in the prairie provinces of Manitoba,

Saskatchewan, and Alberta where there are comparatively larger Aboriginal populations

(Levasseur, 2014).

Bombay et al. note widespread discrimination across a range of life areas including

employment, healthcare, the judicial system, and education. A recent study by the authors

highlighted that 99 percent of Aboriginal adult respondents “reported experiencing at least one

incident of discrimination, of varying severity, in the preceding year” (2009, p. 15). This has a

direct knock on effect on Aboriginal health, as they are “more likely to experience chronic

physical health problems such as diabetes, arthritis/rheumatism, high blood pressure, and heart

disease … and there is reason to believe that they suffer from disproportionately high levels of

mental health problems, including depression, substance abuse and PTSD” (2009, p. 8).

Overcoming these problems is complicated by the fact that racism and colonization create the

conditions for these social problems, while the social problems in turn reinforce racist

stereotypes: “of the “drunken Indian” or the hyper-sexualized “squaw,” the casting of Indigenous

parents as perpetual “bad mothers” … or “deadbeat dads” … or media portrayals of Indigenous

leadership as corrupt and/or inept…” (Allan and Smylie, 2015, pp. 3; 15).

Genocide Recognition and Healing

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Recognition should comprise (at least) Acts passed in provincial legislatures and the

federal parliament recognizing that genocide was committed in the IRS system, and mandating an

annual day of commemoration, a public apology by the Prime Minister and the Governor

General, and some form of memorialization through monuments, additions to school curricula,

designated museum exhibits and a national museum devoted to a full exploration of the system

and its legacies. The promotion of Aboriginal self-determination, honouring of the treaties,

revival of Aboriginal languages and cultures, and the return of stolen lands could also follow on

from this recognition.

Unfortunately, genocide recognition is unlikely to occur in the near future. Razack has

termed Canadian history a “fantasy” (2002, p. 2) insofar as we tend to disavow notions of conquest,

invasion, and genocide, promoting instead myths of peaceful settlement and colonization. In a

report prepared for the Law Commission of Canada in 1998, Claes and Clifton were clear that

“Knowledge of the genocidal intent of the colonisers is well entrenched in aboriginal consciousness,

but is still unknown and unrecognised by the larger Canadian public” (1998, p. 30). Almost two

decades later, no official body has yet recognized the forced removal of 150,000 children as

genocide, including the TRC, which signally failed to mention the term in their Interim Report or in

any other publications, despite personal statements by Chief Commissioner Sinclair that genocide

was committed (see MacDonald, 2014). Similarly, no level of government from municipal to

federal has recognized genocide in the residential schools.

By contrast, the federal government has recognized five other genocides through Acts of

Parliament: the Armenian genocide, the Ukrainian famine, the Holocaust, Rwanda and the

Srebrenica massacres of 1995. These genocides and not the violation of 2(e) in the IRS system also

figure prominently in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights (Moses, 2012, p. 232). At the same

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time too, elaborate memorials to the victims of communism and to the Holocaust are being

constructed in Ottawa, while nothing comparable is even being planned to memorialize the IRS

system and the hundreds of thousands of forcibly removed children.

Some genocide scholars see denial as the final stage of genocide, the last phase of

dehumanization of the victims (Moshman, 2007, pp. 126-27). In the Canadian context, Stanley

has outlined the problem of ‘“white” denial,’ in part the “myth that there is no racism” Canada.

(2000, p. 81). Backhouse has noted more broadly how Canada is marked by what she calls an

“ideology of racelessness,” a “national mythology that Canada is not a racist country, or at least

is much less so than our southern neighbour, the United States” (2010, p. 14). These evasions and

denials make free and frank discussion of genocide unlikely, with actual official recognition more

unlikely still. Ervin Staub, a major theorist of ethnic conflict and of reconciliation after genocide,

observed recently that:

Anyone who has worked with Survivors of genocide, or engaged with groups that

have survived genocide … will know that Survivors desperately want to have the

truth of what was done to them be established and their suffering acknowledged.

Acknowledgement, especially when it is empathic, is healing. … Acknowledgment

from the perpetrator group of their actions, expressions of regret and empathy, are of

special importance to Survivors (2008, p. 5).

If there is dissonance in understanding between the victimized group and the perpetrator

group, this makes it “difficult for Survivors to heal, look into the future, and move on

psychologically.” Staub points in particular to the Armenian community faced with ongoing

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Turkish genocide denial, a struggle which consumes enormous amounts of energy and creates

considerable frustration (2008, p. 6). One can apply this feeling to Aboriginal peoples, who are

suffering from the ongoing effects of colonialism. Vollhardt and his co-authors have also noted

the destructive effects of denial, in that it “is extremely emotionally challenging and presents a

major obstacle to positive intergroup relations in the aftermath of violence” (2014, p. 306).

Moving forward: “Acknowledgment may restore moral order … and help victim groups feel

safer because the repetition of atrocities seems less likely … Acknowledgment may also validate

the group’s experiences … and enhance collective self-esteem, thereby empowering previously

disempowered victim groups” (Vollhardt et al., 2014, p. 307).

The question therefore is not only why governments won’t recognize Aboriginal genocide,

but why other genocides are recognized and commemorated instead, and why Canadian leaders who

have had a demonstrably destructive influence of Aboriginal lives such as John A. MacDonald

continue to be feted and their crimes elided. The official building housing the Prime Minister and

his staff is named after Hector Langevin, another key architect of the IRS system. There seems to be

an obvious glass ceiling through which Aboriginal history cannot pass. As such these positive

memorial activities, which I support, should not be used to leach moral capital from Aboriginal

peoples.

Some Recommendations

This is a small chapter and it is well beyond its scope to suggest a full gamut of changes that

could ameliorate the situation. Within the context of genocide and recognition, official

recognition would move things in a good way. It could:

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1. Highlight that the crimes of the IRS were aimed at the group and not just individual; the

Settlement Agreement only compensates for individual abuse and not collective loss of

culture, language, community, spirituality, and a sense of identity.

2. Recognize that despite genocide, Aboriginal communities and individuals have shown a

high level of resilience. Genocide recognition will put into context the severity and long

lasting nature of the forces arrayed against Aboriginal peoples, and demonstrate both the

difficulty of the struggle and the heroism of the resilience.

3. Achieve at least parity in recognition with the five other groups in Canada recognized to

be victims of genocide. This will help build a certain level of moral capital while

encouraging alliances with other victims of genocide.

4. Reinforce the message that the problems survivors and their families face are not just

result of the IRS system but also a result of continued colonization. This may help to

decrease the level of allostatic load and reduce health problems in the sense of reducing

the internalization of self-criticism and self-abuse that seems to be a concomitant to

colonization.

5. Reduce the level of structural racism in Canada by laying the basis for a very strongly

critical examination of institutions in light of their past and potentially ongoing genocidal

effects. A recognition of genocide must impel change including changing names of

buildings, streets, and waterways to reflect Canada’s Aboriginal heritage, while refusing

to continue to honour those who were a party to genocide.

6. Reinvigorate traditional beliefs and ways of knowing and being by demonstrating how

forcible Christianization was wrong.

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7. Buttress settler and galvanize Aboriginal support for the return of stolen land, the

honouring of the treaties, the incorporation of UNDRIP into Canadian law, the

achievement of Aboriginal self-determination, the protection of the environment and other

goals Aboriginal peoples deem to be salient for them.

Of course many of these are long term goals and there is the possibility that in the short term,

and given the racism in Canadian society, that a genocide debate may only exacerbate current

tensions and increase allostatic load. The primary challenge rests not with survivors and their

communities but, as Chrisjohn and Young point out, with settlers, who in manifesting their own

Residential School Syndrome have sought to “(1) obliterate[e] another people’s way of life by

taking the children of the group away from their parents and having them raised in ignorance of,

and/or with contempt for, their heritage; while (2) helping himself/herself to the property of the

target group” (1997, p. 101). While this volume is focused on Aboriginal health, the sickness and

dysfunction which brought this system into being came from settlers – both elites and their

supporters – who tried to destroy ancient civilizations and drive them from their homelands – and

fortunately failed in their efforts to do so.

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