Looking Back at the ‘Unmarked Graves’ (kids, good)

[pdw]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Minor quibble but residential schools did not assimilate Indigenous kids to French Canadian culture. Even in Québec itself residential schools taught in English with only 1-2 3 exceptions.

That’s important to note, I did not realize that. Considering the dismissive attitude towards French by some Anglo federal administrations, it’s not particularly surprising

[Suesbal]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Minor quibble but residential schools did not assimilate Indigenous kids to French Canadian culture. Even in Québec itself residential schools taught in English with only 1-2 3 exceptions.

I figured that some of the Catholic-run schools would be staffed with French-speaking priests and nuns.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Suesbal

I figured that some of the Catholic-run schools would be staffed with French-speaking priests and nuns.

No. Even when the Catholic Church personnel were French Canadians they still taught English to Indigenous kids. That was the mandate given to them.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by pdw

That’s important to note, I did not realize that. Considering the dismissive attitude towards French by some Anglo federal administrations, it’s not particularly surprising

It was another era.

[pdw]

I’d rather not get lumped in with such a horrific system of forced assimilation if I were French Canadians. The Anglo colonial policies in the Americas stand out with their more racially focused attitude. In the Spanish Empire, the idea was that the colonies were equally “Spain” as the country in Europe and things like race mixing, etc were permitted and even encouraged to bring the two sides of the Atlantic together. Not that Latin America didn’t have its own atrocities to the indigenous people throughout, but the Anglo idea of “white man’s burden” and the idea of essentially replacing the indigenous population with English speaking whites stands out as particularly bad. You see languages like Mayan, Quechua, Guarani, etc doing much better than say Cree in Canada today. I could be wrong but I’d imagine the New France line of thinking would have been closer to Spain than Britain’s colonialist perspective. All were wrong of course

[Luisito80]

Originally Posted by pdw

You see languages like Mayan, Quechua, Guarani, etc doing much better than say Cree in Canada today. I could be wrong but I’d imagine the New France line of thinking would have been closer to Spain than Britain’s colonialist perspective. All were wrong of course

Places like Mesoamerica and the Andes were much more populated. Also groups like Mayans and Quechua were agriculturalist. it was easier for them to adapt to Spanish rule. It is true race mixing was way more common in Spanish colonies, but another big difference is that groups like Mayans would not accept a mixed person as one of their own or as native. This is true even now. Very different situation to Canada where a large proportion of Natives have white blood and in some cases seem to be more white than Native.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by pdw

I’d rather not get lumped in with such a horrific system of forced assimilation if I were French Canadians. The Anglo colonial policies in the Americas stand out with their more racially focused attitude. In the Spanish Empire, the idea was that the colonies were equally “Spain” as the country in Europe and things like race mixing, etc were permitted and even encouraged to bring the two sides of the Atlantic together. Not that Latin America didn’t have its own atrocities to the indigenous people throughout, but the Anglo idea of “white man’s burden” and the idea of essentially replacing the indigenous population with English speaking whites stands out as particularly bad. You see languages like Mayan, Quechua, Guarani, etc doing much better than say Cree in Canada today. I could be wrong but I’d imagine the New France line of thinking would have been closer to Spain than Britain’s colonialist perspective. All were wrong of course

Not sure if it's anglo vs the rest thing or if it's a Protestant vs Catholic thing.

If you look at colonialism Catholic peoples were much more likely to mix with Indigenous people (forming couples, getting married, having kids or even simply having sex) whereas Protestants were more likely to keep their distances. This applies to the anglo colonies around the world but also for example to the Protestant Boer-Afrikaner population in South Africa.

If you look at the Americas the mixed Spanish-Indigenous or Portuguese-Indigenous types are way more common than any mix with Anglos.

Even in Canada and even outside Quebec, Indigenous people who are mixed with European blood are much more likely to be French-Indigenous than British Indigenous. Even if their language is generally English due to Canadian government assimilationist policies.

[Luisito80]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Not sure if it's anglo vs the rest thing or if it's a Protestant vs Catholic thing.
.

Good point.

[Acajack]

As for French Canadians' involvement in residential schools, it's not really a question of washing our hands of something nasty. Many French Canadians were involved to some degree. Like Catholic Church personnel as has been mentioned and of course some French Canadians were federal public servants based in Ottawa working on the residential school program as well.

For example the building that houses the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa used to be named for Hector-Louis Langevin, one of the creators of the residential school system.

But even so, the schools were never meant to frenchify the Indigenous kids. It was all about anglicizing them. Canada wasn't into frenchifying anyone, and even French Canadians were the focus of anglicization efforts and policies around the same time.

[pdw]

It’s good be to accurate, for some reason I had an image in my head of French Canadian nuns beating native kids with a ruler telling them to speak French. I suppose they were telling them to speak English even if the staff were Francophones themselves.