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Duncan Campbell Scott was to run the residential faculty system at its peak— that’s, between 1913 and 1932. Scott was what could be referred to as an excessive assimilationist. As a profession civil servant, he was concerned in Aboriginal affairs all through his profession (he proposed a number of amendments to the Indian Act and negotiated one of many main treaties). Extra importantly, he oversaw the operation of the residential colleges. Scott was an lively official, and whereas he appears to have appreciated some components of the indigenous cultures, he additionally contributed a lot to their destruction.1 Furthermore, in 1924 he proposed an modification to the Indian Act that banned these beneath its jurisdiction from hiring attorneys (with out the DIA’s approval) to signify them in land and rights claims.2 For these and plenty of different contributions, consultants name Scott the “architect of Indian insurance policies” throughout the first many years of the 20 th century.3

In 1920, Scott additionally pushed for and handed an modification to the Indian Act making faculty attendance obligatory for all First Nations youngsters lower than 15 years of age. Because of the modification, indigenous enrollment rose to about 17,000 in all colleges and to greater than 8,000 in residential colleges by the tip of his tenure. Based on Scott’s reviews, at this level, 75% of First Nations youngsters have been enrolled in some faculty, which he attributed to a rising motivation amongst them to take up Western training. Clearly, the truth that the training was now obligatory and that, since 1930, it included all youngsters between the ages of seven and 16 had one thing to do with these numbers.4

Whereas Scott didn’t assume that training alone was adequate for civilizing the Indigenous Peoples of Canada, he pushed closely for it. When he mandated faculty attendance in 1920, he acknowledged, “I need to do away with the Indian downside. I don’t assume as a matter of reality, that the nation should constantly defend a category of people who find themselves capable of stand alone. . . . Our goal is to proceed till there’s not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the physique politic and there’s no Indian query, and no Indian Division, that’s the entire object of this Invoice.”5 Due to his radical place, it’s simple to grasp why he’s typically related to the saying “Kill the Indian, save the person.”6 Within the dialogue about whether or not the Canadian assimilation insurance policies and the Indian Residential Faculties constitutegenocide, this method is usually key proof. Scott summarized the prevailing attitudes of Canadian officers: the First Peoples, regardless of many agreements with the Crown that assured their independence, have been to be eradicated as distinct nations and cultures.

By the flip of the 20 th century, there have been 18 industrial and 36 residential colleges; three many years later, on the peak of the system’s operation, there have been 77 state-funded residential colleges in Canada.7 Shortly after, there have been 80 colleges, of which “over one-half—44—have been beneath varied Catholic orders, 21 beneath the Church of England (later the Anglican Church of Canada), 13 beneath the United Church, and a pair of beneath the Presbyterians.”8 Over the 150-year span of theIndian Residential Faculties system, Canada noticed near 150 colleges and 150,000 pupils.

Though Scott was pleased with his work and the rising numbers of scholars in residential colleges, issues weren’t wanting up. Numbers in colleges, wrote Brian Titley, “didn’t robotically translate into numbers being assimilated. Undoubtedly, the college expertise profoundly affected the outlook of younger Indians . . . The overwhelming majority remained distinctly Indian and solely marginally within the workforce, if certainly in any respect. When it comes to its targets, then, the coverage of teaching the Indian youngsters in segregated day and residential colleges failed.”9

Past the failure of the faculties with regard to their goals of assimilation, Scott was blamed for the neglect and dying of many youngsters. Dr. Bryce, as we have now seen, discovered Scott’s penny-pinching to be the primary impediment in selling fundamental reforms that would have saved many lives. However no person listened to him. A defeated, getting old man, Bryce printed a pamphlet in 1922 referred to as “The Story of a Nationwide Crime.” In it he argued that “Scott, particularly, had constantly did not acknowledge and handle native well being wants.”10 It’s now estimated that at the very least 6,000 college students died within the residential colleges. Most mother and father by no means knew that their youngster had perished.11 The dying toll of so many college students from tuberculosis and different illnesses within the residential colleges has not too long ago prompted a heated debate about Canada’s duty for these deaths.

Citations

• 1 : For instance, he was accountable for “the outlawing of Aboriginal dance together with the non secular and cultural ceremonies inside which such dancing occurred such because the Potlatch and the Sundance.” Nancy Chater, Applied sciences of Remembrance: Literary Criticism and Duncan Campbell Scott’s “Indian Poems” (grasp’s thesis, Toronto College, 1999), 25-26, accessed September 12, 2014.

2 : Nancy Chater, Applied sciences of Remembrance: Literary Criticism and Duncan Campbell Scott’s “Indian Poems” (grasp’s thesis, Toronto College, 1999), 26, accessed September 12, 2014. 3 : Brian Titley, A Slim Imaginative and prescient: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada (Vancouver: College of British Columbia Press, 1986), 22. 4 : Brian Titley, A Slim Imaginative and prescient: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada (Vancouver: College of British Columbia Press, 1986) 91-92. 5 : Nationwide Archives of Canada, File Group 10, vol. 6810, file 470-2-3, vol. 7, 55 (L-3) and 63 (N-3). 6 : This phrase is incorrectly attributed to Scott, although he would probably have agreed with this concept. It belongs to the American Captain Richard H. Pratt. See Mark Abley, “The person wrongly attributed with uttering ‘kill the Indian within the youngster’,” Maclean’s, accessed September 12, 2014. See additionally “‘Kill the Indian, and Save the Man’: Capt. Richard H. Pratt on the Schooling of Native People,” Historical past Issues web site, accessed September 12, 2014. genocide : In 1944, Raphael Lemkin coined the time period genocide to explain the intentional and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group. Genocide stems from the Greek phrase genos, which implies “race,” and cide, which implies “to destroy.” It was legally outlined within the Conference on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 (the Genocide Conference). When the Canadian authorities selectively ratified the Genocide Conference in 1952, it excluded essential components of the conference. Many indigenous leaders, activists, and politicians have publicly referred to as on the Canadian authorities to acknowledge the Indian Residential Faculties system as genocide. 7 : James R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Imaginative and prescient, 116; Reality and Reconciliation Fee of Canada, They Got here for the Kids, 6. 8 : George Erasmus, “Notes on a Historical past of the Indian Residential College System in Canada,” introduced at “The Tragic Legacy of Residential Faculties: Is Reconciliation Attainable?” convention, hosted by the Meeting of First Nations/ College of Calgary, March 12-13, 2004. 9 : Brian Titley, A Slim Imaginative and prescient: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada, 93. Indian Residential Faculties system : Starting in 1883, the federal authorities sought a system to enroll indigenous youngsters in colleges. The residential colleges system was half of a bigger authorities agenda to assimilate indigenous individuals into settler society by means of training. Relying nearly solely on church buildings to offer the academics, directors, and non secular instructors, the system was severely underfunded and marked by inferior academic requirements and achievement: neglect, malnutrition, abuse, and illness have been extensively reported. Lately, researchers found that some colleges even carried out harmful medical experiments. Additionally it is estimated that greater than 6,000 college students died of illness and abuse whereas enrolled. Over a 150-year span, the federal government and church buildings operated near 150 colleges the place some 150,000 indigenous youth have been enrolled. 10 : Megan Sproule-Jones, “Crusading for the Forgotten: Dr. Peter Bryce, Public Well being, and Prairie Native Residential Faculties,” Canadian Bulletin of Medical Historical past 13 (1996), 218-19. 11 : John Paul Tasker, “Residential colleges findings level to ‘cultural genocide,’ fee chair,” CBCNews, Could 29, 2015, accessed June 16, 2015. See additionally Brenda Elias, “The problem of counting the lacking when the lacking weren’t counted,” paper introduced on the Worldwide Affiliation of Genocide Students convention, “Time, Motion, and House: Genocide Research and Indigenous Peoples,” July 16-19, 2014, College of Winnipeg.