Métis Residential Schools
Nobody’s Children:
The Metis in Residential Schools
February 1, 2014
The history of the Métis and Residential Schools is not new. For a century, the mutual lives of the Métis children were controlled by the missionaries and the Catholic Church, and became wrapped up in Federal Government policies. The Metis Residential School experience was similar to the Aboriginal one; that of social exclusion and mental and physical abuse. The procedures that were created for the Métis in Residential Schools harshly exposed how bureaucrats felt about the social order of the Métis’ station in the New Canada. The Residential Schools took part in creating a lower class structure for the Métis, which separated them even further from their First …show more content…
Many missionaries determined that the success of their lessons was reliant on how long these children remained in the Missionary Schools and away from the influence of their traditions and families. While many Métis did go to school, the missionaries were still powerless to sway the Francophone Métis communities. Missionaries eventually forcibly removed these French-speaking Métis children from their homes and put them in a setting where punishment, conformity, Christianity and European Values replaced Métis and First Nations traditions and culture. This was an entirely new and alien approach for the Métis, who had always had taught their children by example and …show more content…
While Indian Affairs did not want to make funds available for Métis children education, other areas permitted Métis children into the schools. The Missionaries found an unexpected advantage for filling up the chairs in some Catholic run schools that came with the connection between the church and the Métis. To increase school attendance, the schools would accept the Metis with the sick and underage First Nation children. Furthermore, some of the more anxious school administrators appealed to the Government to take Métis children who were existing in poverty, based on the capacity of their parents to pay for their keep, either through a work-for-education plan or by using their personal settlement funds. This is likely how the first of the Métis children may have appeared in these schools. Parents and their children would perform general repair work or labour on the school farms as a kind of
The Metis in Residential Schools
February 1, 2014
The history of the Métis and Residential Schools is not new. For a century, the mutual lives of the Métis children were controlled by the missionaries and the Catholic Church, and became wrapped up in Federal Government policies. The Metis Residential School experience was similar to the Aboriginal one; that of social exclusion and mental and physical abuse. The procedures that were created for the Métis in Residential Schools harshly exposed how bureaucrats felt about the social order of the Métis’ station in the New Canada. The Residential Schools took part in creating a lower class structure for the Métis, which separated them even further from their First …show more content…
Many missionaries determined that the success of their lessons was reliant on how long these children remained in the Missionary Schools and away from the influence of their traditions and families. While many Métis did go to school, the missionaries were still powerless to sway the Francophone Métis communities. Missionaries eventually forcibly removed these French-speaking Métis children from their homes and put them in a setting where punishment, conformity, Christianity and European Values replaced Métis and First Nations traditions and culture. This was an entirely new and alien approach for the Métis, who had always had taught their children by example and …show more content…
While Indian Affairs did not want to make funds available for Métis children education, other areas permitted Métis children into the schools. The Missionaries found an unexpected advantage for filling up the chairs in some Catholic run schools that came with the connection between the church and the Métis. To increase school attendance, the schools would accept the Metis with the sick and underage First Nation children. Furthermore, some of the more anxious school administrators appealed to the Government to take Métis children who were existing in poverty, based on the capacity of their parents to pay for their keep, either through a work-for-education plan or by using their personal settlement funds. This is likely how the first of the Métis children may have appeared in these schools. Parents and their children would perform general repair work or labour on the school farms as a kind of