This is indeed very sad.

This is quite horrible how people were/are treated because of various differences. Even though we have evolved in ways and habits it seems many of us haven't learned much from history.

There are another 150 similar sites that should be investigated.

Civilization is a thin veneer on the savage that is man!

Why so many children died at Indian Residential Schools

At some schools, annual death rates were as high as one in 20

Historical photo of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, once the largest facility in the Canadian Indian Residential School system. Already known to have been the site of 51 student deaths, recent radar surveys have found evidence of 215 unmarked graves. Photo by National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

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This week saw the discovery of something outside Kamloops, B.C., rarely seen in North America, much less in any corner of the developed world: Unmarked and previously forgotten graves, all belonging to children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.

In a Thursday statement, Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation said that a preliminary survey using ground penetrating radar had found evidence of 215 graves. Opened in 1893, Kamloops Indian Residential School had once been the largest residential school in Canada. The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has officially confirmed 51 deaths at the school, but the radar survey points to a mass of previously unrecorded fatalities.

Casimir called the discovery an “unthinkable loss that was spoken about but never documented at the Kamloops Indian Residential School,” adding that her nation is now working with the Royal B.C. Museum to seek out records of the 215.

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A 1931 photo of the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Photo by National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

As a child, Chief Harvey McLeod of the Upper Nicola Band attended Kamloops Indian Residential School stud. He told CTV this week that when schoolmates disappeared, they were simply never spoken of again. “I just remember that they were here one day and they were gone the next,” he said.

One of the most painful tasks of Canada’s seven-year Truth and Reconciliation Commission was an attempt to quantify the sheer number of Indigenous children who died at an Indian Residential School.

The commission ultimately determined that at least 3,200 children died while a student at a Residential School; one in every 50 students enrolled during the program’s nearly 120-year existence. That’s a death rate comparable to the number of Canadian POWs who died in the custody of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

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The result is that many of Canada’s most notorious residential schools sit amid sprawling cemeteries of unmarked children’s graves.

The Battleford Industrial School in Saskatchewan has 72 graves that lay forgotten until rediscovered by archaeology students in the 1970s. In 2001, heavy rains outside High River, Alta., exposed the coffins of 34 children who had died at nearby Dunbow Residential School. In 2019, archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar found the crudely dug graves of as many as 15 children surrounding the former site of Saskatchewan’s Muskowekwan Residential School.

A cemetery north of the former Brandon Indian Residential School. Eleven children are known to be buried here. Photo by Handout/Katherine Nichols

More than 2,800 names are logged on a memorial register maintained by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. The chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Justice Murray Sinclair, has said the true number of deaths could be as high as 6,000.

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But a true figure will never be known for the simple fact that death records – if they were kept at all – were often lacking even basic personal information. “In many cases, school principals simply reported on the number of children who had died in a school, with few or no supporting details,” reads the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

A memorial erected in 2001 to commemorate the previously forgotten graves of children who died at the Dunbow Industrial School in Alberta. Photo by FindaGrave.com

One third of children who died at a residential school did not have their names recorded by school administrators. One quarter were marked as deceased without even their gender being noted. Among the 2,800 names on the official memorial register are children known to recorded history only as “Alice,” “Mckay” or “Elsie.”

Bodies of children were not returned to families, and parents rarely learned the circumstances of a child’s death. Often, the only death notification would be to send the child’s name to the Indian Agent at his or her home community.

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Residential school students at a cemetery in Northern Quebec in November 3, 1946. Photo by Archives Deschâtelets

“It’s staggering to think that families would not have known what happened to a child that was sent off to the residential schools,” Ontario Chief Coroner Andrew McCallum said in 2012 as his office began an inquest into unrecorded residential school deaths.

In 1938, after one mother near Cornwall, Ont., learned of her son’s death at residential school due to meningitis, she was denied a request to return his body home for burial. “It is not the practice of the Department to send bodies of Indians by rail excepting under very exceptional circumstances,” read a response from the Department of Indian Affairs, adding that it was “an expenditure which the Department does not feel warranted in authorizing.”

The main killer was disease, particularly tuberculosis. Given their cramped conditions and negligent health practices, residential schools were hotbeds for the spread of TB.

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The deadliest years for Indian Residential Schools were from the 1870s to the 1920s. In the first six years after its 1884 opening, for instance, the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School saw the deaths of more than 40 per cent of its students. Sacred Heart Residential School in Southern Alberta had an annual student death rate of one in 20.

Graphic showing the death rate at Canadian Indian Residential Schools. Right up until the 1950s, the schools were seeing a rate of fatalities well beyond anything seen among the non-Indigenous community. Photo by National Truth and Reconciliation Commission

But despite occasional efforts at reform, even as late as the 1940s the death rates within residential schools were up to five times higher than among Canadian children as a whole.

The deadly reputations of residential schools were well-known to officials at the time. Kuper Island Residential School, located near Chemainus, B.C., saw the deaths of nearly one third of its student population in the years following its opening in 1889. “The Indians are inclined to boycott this school on account of so many deaths,” wrote a school inspector in 1922.

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Kuper Island Residential School. The school would come to be nicknamed “Alcatraz” for its remote location and appalling conditions. At least 121 are known to have died there, including two sisters who drowned while attempting to escape. Photo by National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation

Exacerbating the death rate was the absence of even the most rudimentary medical care. Survivors described classmates becoming increasingly listless with TB until they were quietly removed by authorities.

James Gladstone, who would later become the first Status Indian appointed to the Senate of Canada, in his memoirs described a fellow student who died after school administrators failed to find him medical care for stepping on a nail. “I looked after Joe for two days until he died. I was the only one he would listen to during his delirium,” wrote Gladstone.

Accidents were the next big killer. Firetrap construction and the non-existence of basic safety standards frequently hit residential schools with mass-casualty incidents that, in any other context, would have been national news. A 1927 fire at Saskatchewan’s Beauval Indian Residential School killed 19 students. Only three years after that, 12 students died in a fire at Cross Lake Indian Residential School in Manitoba.

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From a Calgary Herald report of the 1927 fire at Beauval Indian Residential School.

Despite this, “for much of their history, Canadian residential schools operated beyond the reach of fire regulations,” wrote the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

But probably the most resonant of residential school deaths was the number of children who froze or drowned while attempting to run away. Several dozen children would die this way, with schools routinely making no attempt to find them and failing to report their disappearances for days.

One particularly notorious incident occurred on New Year’s Day, 1937, when a group of four boys ranging in age from 7 to 9 ran away from Fraser Lake Indian Residential School intending to reunite with their families at the Naldeh reserve seven miles away.

The school didn’t bother to assemble a search party until the boys had been missing for more than 24 hours. When they did, they found all four frozen to death less than a mile from home.

I posit we NEVER die but to allow this to happen shows hate for and assumed superiority over your fellow humans! What did those in charge gain by this? The politicians of the day probably encouraged this! I doubt they didn't know how these children were treated! "Oh, for heaven's sake, they're only Indians!"

I recall my mother ignorantly singing a song of her times about the death or injury of either an Indo.Guyanese or indentured  immigrant! Something about his being injured by a tramcar: ' send fuh de guvnur, de guvnur seh, 'coolie' nobaddy!' She sang this in loving.fun to tease her half-cullie son, me! I didn't object because I didn't care! It didn't apply to.me! As Rama would agree, wouldn't you, Rama?

This could happen to koolies in Guyana one day if we don't get our own country.

@Prashad posted:

This could happen to koolies in Guyana one day if we don't get our own country.

Don't delay. Try and establish Prashadistan.

Flags on federal buildings being lowered in memory of Kamloops residential school victims

Remains of 215 children found at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School

The Peace Tower flag in Ottawa and flags at all other federal buildings across the country will soon fly at half-mast, following the discovery of 215 victims of residential schools in Kamloops, B.C. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

The Canadian flag at the Peace Tower in Ottawa was lowered to half-mast on Sunday, following the discovery of the bodies of 215 children at the site of a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C.

The Department of Canadian Heritage said flags at all federal buildings and establishments across Canada would be lowered until further notice "in memory of the thousands of children who were sent to residential schools, for those who never returned and in honour of the families whose lives were forever changed."

Justin Trudeau

@JustinTrudeau - · -3h

Officiel du gouvernement - Canada

To honour the 215 children whose lives were taken at the former Kamloops residential school and all Indigenous children who never made it home, the survivors, and their families, I have asked that the Peace Tower flag and flags on all federal buildings be flown at half-mast.

The bodies of the 215 children were discovered during a search of the grounds of the former residential school, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation announced Thursday. A statement from the First Nation said that the missing children, some as young as three years old, were undocumented deaths.

Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir told CBC's Daybreak Kamloops on Friday that more than symbolic gestures are needed to address the tragedy.

"It's all good and well for the federal government to make gestures of goodwill and support regarding the tragedy," Casimir said. "There is an important ownership and accountability to both Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc and all communities and families that are affected. And that needs to happen and take place."

Flags lowered across the country

Flags across the country have also been lowered or will be lowered in honour of the children, including at the British Columbia legislature, the Manitoba legislature and Ottawa's city hall.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said on Twitter on Sunday that flags at Ottawa's city hall would remain at half-mast "for one hour for every child whose life was taken."

B.C. Premier John Horgan issued a statement Friday on the discovery.

"This is a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. And it is a stark example of the violence the Canadian residential school system inflicted upon Indigenous peoples and how the consequences of these atrocities continue to this day," he said.

A National Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support for former students and those affected. Emotional and crisis referral services can be accessed by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866 925-4419.

@Prashad posted:

This could happen to koolies in Guyana one day if we don't get our own country.

I hate to say it to you, of all people,Prash, but f off, Prash! Go to Prashadistan! It's near.Hell!

@Former Member posted:

I hate to say it to you, of all people,Prash, but f off, Prash! Go to Prashadistan! It's near.Hell!

It happened worst in Guyana already. Guyana is a racist shithole hell on Earth. Those sleeping East Indian children got killed with AK-47s BY GROWN West African Black Guyanese Racists.

@Prashad posted:

It happened worst in Guyana already. Guyana is a racist shithole hell on Earth. Those sleeping East Indian children got killed with AK-47s BY GROWN West African Black Guyanese Racists.

How many children were killed? Where? When?

Is Truduea a sincere person? He continually speaks of indigenous rights but does his utmost to belittle strong native voices-remembering Jody.

@seignet posted:

Is Truduea a sincere person? He continually speaks of indigenous rights but does his utmost to belittle strong native voices-remembering Jody.

What else is new?

@Former Member posted:

How many children were killed? Where? When?

You see fellas. A coconut fell on shallyv's head and knock out his marbles.

@Prashad posted:

You see fellas. A coconut fell on shallyv's head and knock out his marbles.

Ahhhhh, so that's how castration is performed in Guyana?

'Unthinkable' discovery in Canada as remains of 215 children found buried near residential school

By Paula Newton, CNN, Updated 7:00 AM ET, Tue June 1, 2021, Source - https://www.cnn.com/2021/05/28...ps-school/index.html

Harvey McLeod attended Kamloops in the late 1960s. He said the school scarred generations of First Nation members.

It closed permanently about a decade later and now houses a museum and a community facility with both cultural and memorial events.

Community leaders say the investigation will continue in conjunction with the British Columbia Coroner's Office and that community and government officials will ensure the remains are safeguarded and identified. Chief coroner Lisa Lapointe issued a statement saying that her office is early in the process of gather information.

"We recognize the tragic, heartbreaking devastation that the Canadian residential school system has inflicted upon so many, and our thoughts are with all of those who are in mourning today," she said.

In 2015 Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Commission released a report detailing the damaging legacy of the country's residential school system. Thousands of mostly indigenous children were separated from their families and forced to attend residential schools.

The report detailed decades of physical, sexual and emotional abuse suffered by children in government and church run institutions.

'Horrific chapter in Canadian history'

"The news that remains were found at the former Kamloops residential school breaks my heart - it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country's history. I am thinking about everyone affected by this distressing news. We are here for you," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted Friday.

In an interview with CNN, Carolyn Bennett, Canada's minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations, says this revelation speaks to all Canadians about a "very painful truth" and a "horrific chapter in Canadian history."

"This was the reason why five of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission wanted us to deal with the missing children and the unmarked graves because they knew there was much more than what they had been able to ascertain at the hearings," said Bennett.

The commission recommended 94 calls to action as remedy and healing. Indigenous rights' groups says very few of them have been acted upon, including the need for health and educational equity between indigenous and non-indigenous children.

In 2019, Trudeau said he and his government accepted the harm inflicted on indigenous peoples in Canada amounted to genocide, saying at the time that the government would move forward to "end this ongoing tragedy."

McLeod says the residential school system scarred generations in his family and the abuse he suffered at the school in Kamloops terrorized him, his family and his classmates.

A childhood photo of Harvey McLeod, at left.

"The abuse that happened to me was physical, yes, was sexual, yes, and in 1966 I was a person that didn't want to live anymore, it changed me," said McLeod, comparing the trauma he suffered to that of a prisoner of war.

He says he entered the school in 1966 along with most of his siblings.

"Seven of us went at the same time, same school that my mum and my dad went to, there wasn't an option, it was a requirement, it was the law. And I can only imagine what my mom and my dad, how they felt, when they dropped some of us there knowing what they experienced at that school," he said.

As was documented by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, many of the children in residential schools did not receive adequate medical care with some dying prematurely of diseases like tuberculous.

The commission estimates that more than 4,000 children died while at residential schools over a period of several decades, but the final commission report acknowledges it was impossible to know the true number.

McLeod says this week's discovery at his former school has already helped community members he knows discuss the abuse they suffered and the inter-generational trauma it has caused.

He says he would like to be engaged in healing and now wants to avoid pointing fingers or blame.

"I have forgiven, I have forgiven my parents, I have forgiven my abusers, I have broken the chain that held me back at that school, I don't want to live there anymore but at the same time make sure that the people who didn't come home are acknowledged and respected and brought home in a good way," he said.

So, DG, this topic is a memorial to the kids, huh? Jeez, how tear-jerking!

B.C. First Nation that discovered unmarked Kamloops graves joins Trudeau in calling for apology from Catholic Church

Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir stands outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School after speaking to reporters on Friday, June 4, 2021.

DARRYL DYCK/The Canadian Press

The head of the B.C. First Nation that shocked the world with the discovery of unmarked graves at its former residential school has joined leaders across Canada – including the Prime Minister – in a call for the Catholic Church to apologize for its role in the country’s colonial education system.

On Friday morning, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation held its first news conference since last week, when it announced the discovery of the remains of 215 former Kamloops Indian Residential School students. Kukpi7 (Chief) Rosanne Casimir said her community recently met with the local Catholic bishop, but still wants a public apology from the Vatican. She said the missionary order that ran the school has kept its internal records secret, adding that the remains appear to be of children whose deaths were undocumented and who were put in unmarked graves.

“We do want an apology – a public apology – not just for us, but for the world,” Kukpi7 Casimir told reporters from across the globe. “[We are] holding the Catholic Church to account – there has never been an apology from the Roman Catholics.”

Discovery of children’s remains at Kamloops residential school ‘stark example of violence’ inflicted upon Indigenous peoples

Opinion: We witnessed the cruelty of residential schools as child-care workers. We will not remain silent about what we saw

Opinion: The shame of residential schools must be worn by us all – not just historical figures

Earlier in the week, the Archbishop of Vancouver apologized and pledged new resources to help make amends for the devastation wrought by the Indian residential schools, which Ottawa financed and churches ran for more than a century, with tens of thousands of Indigenous children forced to attend.

But Kukpi7 Casimir and members of Canada’s federal cabinet say they want a papal apology, which was a key call to action in the 2015 final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) that the Liberal government accepted.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he asked Pope Francis to issue such an apology a number of years ago while visiting the Vatican. Mr. Trudeau said that as a Catholic, he is deeply disappointed by the church’s refusal to accept its role in the residential schools legacy.

He added that now is an important moment to reach out to parishes, bishops and cardinals to demand the institution be accountable. He also said the government hopes the church will change its position.

“Truth is at the heart of understanding our past and preventing further damage in the future,” he said. “We need to have truth before we can talk about justice, healing and reconciliation.”

The announcement of last week’s discovery garnered national and international attention, and led to commemorations across the country using shoes of young children to symbolize those who never came home.

NDP MP Charlie Angus said it has been three years since his party brought a motion to Parliament calling for a formal apology from the Catholic Church, and for the institution to turn over all documents pertaining to residential schools. He also said it sought to have the church pay the share it owes to survivors under a compensation agreement.

“It’s been three years and we’re still waiting,” he said.

On Friday, nine UN human rights experts, five of whom are special rapporteurs who study issues such as the rights of Indigenous peoples around the world, called on Canadian authorities and the Catholic Church to conduct investigations related to the remains of the children at the Kamloops school.

“We urge the authorities to conduct full-fledged investigations into the circumstances and responsibilities surrounding these deaths, including forensic examinations of the remains found, and to proceed to the identification and registration of the missing children,” they said in a statement released on Friday in Geneva.

The experts also called on the government to undertake similar investigations at all other Indigenous residential schools.

“Large-scale human rights violations have been committed against children belonging to Indigenous communities. It is inconceivable that Canada and the Holy See would leave such heinous crimes unaccounted for and without full redress,” they added.

The experts called on the government of Canada to fully implement the TRC’s recommendations. “For far too many years, victims and their families have been waiting for justice and remedy. Accountability, comprehensive truth, and full reparation must be urgently pursued,” they said.

The Prime Minister said on Friday that it has been a painful week for “so many Indigenous people and communities across the country.” He said $27-million announced this week, first earmarked in the 2019 budget, will be “deployed immediately” to communities to “find and honour children who died at these institutions.”

“This is something that communities have asked for, and we’ve long been here to support that,” Mr. Trudeau said. “We also know that residential schools were only one piece of a larger, colonial system. And the work to right these wrongs, both past and present, is far from over.”

Kukpi7 Casimir characterized the money as “not new funding” and noted many First Nations want to do their own searches of former school sites with the type of ground-penetrating radar that found the remains in Tk’emlúps.

“Our costs are still to be determined as we are still investigating,” she said. “It’s still early days and we’re still just beginning.”

Former TRC chair Murray Sinclair told a House of Commons committee on Thursday that an independent study is needed on where the burial sites are and “what the numbers are going to tell us.” He said a parliamentary committee should oversee the investigation to ensure it is done properly.

Mr. Sinclair, who is a retired senator and judge, also said the RCMP had begun an investigation and that in a “typical heavy-handed” way, were “simply intimidating people rather than helping them.”

The office of the local RCMP detachment in Kamloops confirmed on Thursday it has opened a case related to the remains, but its commanding officer denied there was any tension, and said his investigators are consulting with the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation.

Kukpi7 Casimir did not address any current tension between local Mounties and her nation, but she acknowledged the RCMP’s history involves forcibly removing Indigenous children from their families to bring them to residential schools.

She said her nation decided not to demolish the school that once created so much pain because they view it as part of the country’s “ugly truths” that can be used to improve society for future generations.

“For us, it is a very huge piece of history that we do not want to be forgotten,” she said.