Native Canadians take action against churches over fate of Native children

[Jay GW]

Banning and Boycott Order, Issued under the Land Law Jurisdiction of the Indigenous Nations of Turtle Island ("North America") against the following Persons and Church Corporations:

Luigi Ventura, Papal Nuncio of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada
Andre Gaumond, President of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
Raymond Roussin, Archbishop of the Vancouver Diocese

Andrew Hutchison, Primate of the Anglican Church of Canada
Michael Ingham, Bishop of the New Westminster Diocese

Jim Sinclair, General Secretary of the United Church of Canada
Peter Short, Moderator of the United Church of Canada
Darryl Auten, President of B.C. Conference, United Church
Doug Goodwin, Executive Secretary of B.C. Conference


All persons are hereby compelled by moral and indigenous tribal laws to shun any contact with the aforementioned persons and church organizations; to deny them any funding, acknowledgement, or association; and to urge all others to refrain from any such contact with them.

This Banning and Boycott is ordered by the Elders of the Indigenous Nations listed below, because of the refusal of these persons and churches to identify the fate and the buried location of the children who died in "Indian Residential Schools" run by their churches, and to return these remains to their people, and to take responsibility and be prosecuted for the deaths of over 50,000 of these children at the hands of their religion.

Issued this Ninth Day of May, 2006, on the Territory of the Coast Salish Nations, by Thirty Hereditary Elders of the Haida, Cowichan, Coast Salish, Ahousat, Cree, Anishinabe, Mohawk, MiqMaq and Metis Nations.

A representative of three major indigenous groups in Guatemala presented a formal protest letter or "denuncia" to Monica Izaguire of the Canadian Embassy in Guatemala City.

This protest letter accused Canada and its mainline churches of committing and concealing acts of Genocide against its native populations for more than a century, in their Indian Residential Schools and hospitals.

The letter called for the Canadian government to support an international investigation into these allegations of Genocide by Canada and its churches.

http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org/banningandboycott.html

As in Australia, it was common in Canada to take children away from Native families and try to raise them as "White" people in dormitory schools. Many children died and no one knows where the bodies are.

[Rhea]

I cannot imagine the feeling of anguish and despair if my children were taken from me. I just can't imagine.

[Jack Shaftoe]

My ex-girlfriend is Cree-Saulteau. She once told me her mother would threaten her with residential school if she didn't behave.

[PopeInTheWoods]

As in Australia, it was common in Canada to take children away from Native families and try to raise them as "White" people in dormitory schools. Many children died and no one knows where the bodies are.

Sold off the lot of them for medical experiments, no doubt.

[WishboneDawn]

Jay, thank you. I certainly knew about the church residential schools and much of the damage they've done but I'd never heard about the missing children.

[Nice Squirrel]

This is more of a Church and State thing.

[ModernHeretic]

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but weren't most of these Indian Schools run a long time ago, like 50-100 years or more? If so, would the churches in question even have records of all the people that came through, much less where they were buried?

I mean, I feel for the natives here, but it is really even possible for the churches in question to comply with their requests?

[Happy Wonderer]

The last school was closed in 1996, although the government started phasing them out in 1950. Fifty years is not a very long time (says someone in their mid-40's)

It is tempting to think that all of this stuff went down in the distant past, but some stuff is quite recent. The natives of Alert Bay only got their potlatch masks back in 1975 http://www.umista.ca/home/index.php, potlatches were illegal up until the early 50's. Think about that -- harmless religious ceremonies were banned even after our great crusade for freedom in World War II.

[WishboneDawn]

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but weren't most of these Indian Schools run a long time ago, like 50-100 years or more? If so, would the churches in question even have records of all the people that came through, much less where they were buried?

I mean, I feel for the natives here, but it is really even possible for the churches in question to comply with their requests?

You have no idea about churches and records, do you? :)

The reason people can research their family trees back to the middle ages is because of church records. They have the records and they have means of getting in contact with and interviewing the people who worked at and ran those schools. They can do this if they want to.

[Seeker630]

As in Australia, it was common in Canada to take children away from Native families and try to raise them as "White" people in dormitory schools. Many children died and no one knows where the bodies are.

Canadians and Austrailians need not fear--they certainly weren't the only ones to engage in this sort of behavior. It happened here in the U.S. too. I have visited the old Spanish fortress in St. Augustine here in Florida. At one point it was also being used to Christianize Native children--they had been forcibly taken from their parents and reservations.

[never been there]

To put the time frame in perspective, the 1940s was the decade of my parents' birth - so the first generation to grow up without parents have grandkids who've been raised by kids with no clue of family life, and it's not getting better with each generation. The objective of the Canadian government in setting up the residential schools was to destroy aboriginal culture, and to be honest, they succeeded. The sexual abuse and alcohol are just a bonus.

At the Manitoba Museum you can see old Hudson Bay Company photos from the 1930s - the Cree and Anishinabe are wretched from the famine of that decade, but their pride in their survival is untouched. Today I ride the bus and see the faces of people who are in permanent mourning for their own lives. It gets to be a bit much being exposed to such visible grief every day. There are plenty of individuals who are doing fine, but not enough to carry the whole weight for their people.

It's really impossible to see how we're going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. I think of North American Jewish culture as the best possible model of keeping a cultural identity through oppression while fitting in and succeeding - not that it helped in Europe last century.

Some churches have been quite serious about wanting to fork up cash, if nothing better can be found, as a sign of contrition, while others have been bold enough to suggest that the government (i.e. me and 30 million close friends) should pay their damages because they'd go bankrupt if held to account for their actions. But they all get named together in this protest document because if 10% of your people got buggered by a United Church lay brother, they expect to see the UCC named no matter how much better they are than the others.

[GaryP]

Sorry if this is considered off-topic, but for those interested in this subject there's a great movie RE: the Australian version of this issue; The Rabbit Proof Fence. IIRC, it's based on the true story of two sisters snatched by the RCC.

[Padre Bear]

Sorry if this is considered off-topic, but for those interested in this subject there's a great movie RE: the Australian version of this issue; The Rabbit Proof Fence. IIRC, it's based on the true story of two sisters snatched by the RCC.

Avery worthwhile film.