Primary source analysis: Truth

and Reconciliation Commision,

Survivors Speak
Names: Sebastian Mujica, Riya Gohal, Zayed Bin Monsur
Bui Hoang Phuc, Punya Gulati.
Background

Photograph of a museum display, label reading:

“Latch keys made of can-opener and kitchen spoon
for thieving.” From the Kamloops Kuper Island Indian
[Residential] School.

This picture is only a peephole to other numerous

possible and unimaginable practices of Residential
Schools of that time.
WHO?
● The residential schools in Canada were
introduced and operated by the government
and church officials. They were white
supremacists who designed these schools to
deliberately abolish the culture and identity of
the children. They were solely responsible for (Huffpost,2018)
the cultural genocide that had occurred in the
schools.
● The children that were admitted in these
schools were Indigenous and were forced out
of their homes to attend the school through
brutality.
● The latch keys that were discovered were
made by the same children to be able to feed
themselves as they were severely
malnourished under the care of the school
authorities
(Saskarchives,2011)
WHEN?
The Kuper Island Indian Residential School on Kuper
Island, British Columbia operated from 1889 to 1975.

Allbert Elias described how he was sent to the

aglician school in 1952
- 1896, students set fire the school.
- 1916, a survey carried out that of 264 formers
students 107 had died.
- 1959, two sisters drowned while trying to escape.
- 1966, one student committed suicide.
- More than 160 unmarked graves were
discovered.
WHERE?

-The school was located on Kuper

Island

-The Roman Catholic Diocese of

Victoria was in charge of the school,
with Rev.G. Donekele as principal

- The place was known as Alcatraz

because it looked like a prision

-It was so bad two girls drowned

trying to escape
 WHERE?
WHERE
-Some of the testimonies I found show us
the true physical and psychological abuse
that these kids went through was more than
inhumane there are even some testimonies
of rape.

A survey carried out in 1916 showed that of

264 former students 107 had died. This was
not a separate case many other residential
schools had the same mindset when it came
to separating the child from the Indian. Using
brutality and torture to achieve its goal.
 WHERE?
-In 1907, Indian Affairs chief medical officer
Peter Bryce reported some truly disturbing
findings to his superiors. After having visited 35
of these schools in Canada, Bryce reported that
25 percent of all children who had attended
these schools had died; at one school, the
number was 69 percent

-Some did such horrible things that the

government is still dealing with the problems
they caused for example St Anne's residential
school was so bad that in 2004 the government
was presented with 156 lawsuits from the
victim's descendants from the school
WHY?

The main motive of Indian Residential schools was to assimilate the Indigenous
children into body politic, thus they wanted to carry out their wishes on them by
subjecting them to ruthless behaviour which even included malnutrition and severe
starvation to an extent that the children had to make latch keys from spoons and
knives so that they could satisfy their hunger.

But if they wanted to

assimilate them into body
politic, WHY did they make
the children starve?
WHY?
Nutritional deficiency in
Canada

Canada suffers from severe

nutritional deficiencies, AE Cladwell
sees in it a perfect capitalist
opportunity to carry out the
experiments during their unethical
research on these children, thus
treating them as lab rats.They saw
the poor background of the families
of indigenous children to be used in
their defence for keeping these
children underfed and
malnourished.
References
Tamara Starblanket, THE HORROR: Canada’s forced transfer of Indigenous Children.

Truth and Reconciliation commision, survivors speak. (2015)

Allison Daniel, "Nutrition researchers saw malnourished children at Indian Residential Schools as perfect test subjects," The Conversation, June
28 2021.

Indian Residential School History & Dialogue Centre Collections.

https://collections.irshdc.ubc.ca/index.php/Detail/entities/48

“B.C. First Nation says more than 160 unmarked graves found”, CBC News, July 13 2021.

https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6100201

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Kuper_Island_Indian_Residential_School

https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/news/more-than-160-unmarked-graves-found-at-site-of-former-residential-school-near-vancouver-island-100
610922/

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kuper-island-joseph-sisters-1.6475691