20/S1 HMRT 2023 A - Literature and human rights

Saul states on page 78 of chapter 21: "We were marched everywhere. In the mornings, after the priests had walked through the dorms ringing cowbells to scare us awake, we were marched to the latrines. We stood in lines waiting our turn at the toilets- a dozen of them for a hundred and twenty boys. Some of us soiled our pants during the wait, because we were strapped if we left our beds at night. We had half an hour to wash, make our beds and prepare ourselves for the march to chapel. There we sat dully in our seats while father Quinney said a mass in Latin. At the end he pronounced the greatness of the Catholic god." They were then marched to the dinning room for breakfast which consisted of bland oatmeal, toast and powdered milk. All the while, the priests and nuns ate a breakfast of much more taste, eggs with bacon or sausage. The priest would call out grace and the lot would sit in silence to eat. Girls would do labour consisting of cooking, cleaning and crafts such as sewing and making clothing. Boys would do most labour outside such as cleaning horse/cow stalls, worked on the fields hoeing or tending vegetables, and doing carpentry work. The children spent only one hour each day in the classroom to learn rudimentary arithmetic and English. (Page 79).
So, in short, Saul and the rest of the kids at St.Jerome's residential school were made for marching, labour, and forced religion. Only to be put to bed just to wake up and do it all over again, everyday.

In real-world experiences there are a lot of similarities, if anything, the things I have found on the internet are more gruesome and horrific. Assimilation would begin with the loss of the children's Indigenous mother tongue, where the children would be abused mentally and physically for not speaking English- even though most of these children did not know any English at all. This is stated in Indian Horse as well, except Saul was one of few children who could communicate in English. Children were brainwashed to disregard their Indigenous beliefs and history to practise Christianity. Again, the same as said in Indian Horse. One difference stated in my source from Facing History and Ourselves (https://www.facinghistory.org/stolen-lives-indigenous-peoples-canada-and-indian-residential-schools/historical-background/experience-students) was that children in these residential schools were oftentimes not just made to stay in bed all night (meaning they couldn't get up to use the washroom if needed) but they were actually made scared to get out of bed; Being told that the devil was waiting for them under the bed if they were to get up. The difference here is just that Saul's story in Indian Horse did not include horror and scare tactics, it only stated that the children would be punished for doing so. Some differences I noticed from A Typical Day at Res School (http://rschools.nan.on.ca/upload/documents/section-3/a-typcial-day-at-residential-school.pdf) was that the boys would wake up first to tend the animals before anyone else, then they would go about their day. The schooling is said to be around 3 hours long, one hour for religious studies and the next two were for academics. The students would then do their labour jobs throughout the evening.
From the view of the book, Saul's relationship with hockey and father Leboutilier in a way hides the reality of their awful day to day lives in residential schools. Saul had a passion, something to keep him busy, a team, friends who he could call brothers and a coach who supported him and showed him compassion. However, this was not the reality for most kids in these schools, it is rare that children had access to a break from the harsh reality of residential schooling. So although this novel does show some factors, the true horror of it all is lessened by his luck and hockey lifestyle.

On page 79 of chapter 21, it quotes "They called it a school, but it was never that. Most of our days were spent in labour. Even the youngest of us had to work. The girls were kept busy in the kitchen, where they baked bread, to be sold in town, or in the sewing rooms, where they made our clothing out of the heavy, scratchy material the school got from the army. The boys mucked out the stalls of the cows and horses, hoed the fields, harvested the vegetables or worked in the carpentry shop, where they built the furniture the priests sold to the people of White River. We spent an hour in the classroom each day to learn the rudimentary arithmetic and English..."

This paragraph from the book illustrates a similar reality to what children actually endured in residential schools. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, "Until the late 1950s, residential schools operated on a half-day system, in which students spent half the day in the classroom and the other at work. Tasks were separated by gender. Girls were responsible for housekeeping (cooking, cleaning, laundry, sewing), while boys were involved in carpentry, construction, general maintenance and agricultural labour."

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/residential-schools

Additionally, children in schools were often abused and experimented on. According to Global News, students were used for experiments in malnourishment. The article reads the following:

"Students were given more or less milk, some were given vitamin C tablets (and others were not), some were given vitamin-enriched flour, and others were not. The intent was to determine whether these dietary interventions cut the incidence of various diseases – but the control group students were never given the chance to share in any benefits, and in some cases, children were denied access to dental care or iron supplements. They were also used as research subjects without their or their parents’ consent."

https://globalnews.ca/news/2402492/residential-schools-subjected-students-to-disease-abuse-experiments-trc-report/#:~:text=Corporal%20punishment%20was%20common%20at,students%20also%20experienced%20sexual%20abuse.

Based on the book's description of a "tasteless" breakfast that included porridge, dry toast, and powdered milk, I think it is safe to assume that many students in the book probably also went malnourished due to poor dieting.

(I also just added this in because I was unaware that some students in the system had become experimental subjects and I think it's really important to know the extent of how much they were tortured. It just reaffirms that these events were part of a genocide.)

In a video for CBC, Chief Robert Joseph shares his experiences in a residential school. Of particular interest is when he notes that boys and girls were segregated. Though never explicitly mentioned in the novel, it appears that this was also the case for Saul and his peers. He says that "the girls were kept busy in the kitchen, where they baked bread to be sold in town, or in the sewing rooms, where they made our clothing out of heavy, scratchy material the school got from the army." (79). Furthermore, "The boys mucked out the stalls of the cows and horses, hoed the fields, harvested the vegetables or worked in the carpentry shop," (79). In this way, Saul suggests an enforced separation between the boys and girls through their assigned tasks. Not only do these roles enforce stereotypical gender roles, but Joseph also notes that they resulted in a lack of social skills for the children as they grew up. However, while Joseph notes that he was punished for interactions with his female peers, Saul interacts with a girl at the end of chapter 21 when they are shelling peas. Accordingly, I wonder how strict these rules were in each residential school and how much they varied. 

Video:   

I am not sure how I could advance on this discussion further than my peers but I wanted to look at the topic of the "day in the life" from another direction. I found this video that was filmed in 1955, the video aims to make residential schools look amazing. I was blown away by the fact that almost every video clip shown of the children they are laughing and smiling, this was obviously manipulated by a series of films cut together to make the children appear as though they were always happy. The video promoted residential schools showing the children learning, exercising, playing games. The employees of the school (specifically it's principal who owned various residential schools across Canada) were painted as seemingly nurturing. The video made the teaching of English seem vital to learn further knowledge, as though they were not able to do the same in their own language, disregarding the fact that they are punished if to speak in their language. The video promotes how they can return home during the summer as though the school was like a vacation away, disregarding the fact that they were forcibly torn from their family's, communities, and homes in the first place.
From what we know about residential schools, based on information from the novel and prior knowledge, this video is clearly propaganda. It was created to paint the school as necessary, helpful, and even joyful. This is what the government wanted people to assume about residential schools, largely ignoring the daily torture and abuse the children were subject to. It breaks my heart to think of how this particular school probably actually functioned on a daily basis, I wonder how many children in this video were smiling to avoid being punished later.

This short documentary I have linked comes from The Fifth Estate and tells the stories of trauma Indigenous people went through at St. Anne's Residential School in northern Ontario. The school and area reminds me a lot of St. Jerome's as described by Saul and the trauma experienced is similar as well. Although it touches on many incidents at the school, a large focus was on the sexual abuse that happened to the children. It seems very similar to the fictional accounts at St. Jerome's but something I hadn't thought of which was highlighted is the number of people not believing the survivors of the sexual abuse. In Saul's case, he tells his adopted parents of what happened to him and it is easy for them to believe as they experienced the same thing. The amount that this has happened to children in real life on a day to day basis in these schools is astonishing, but the fact that to this day many people still do not believe survivors is even more heartbreaking.
Another similarity I found was when a woman talks about the quality of the meals she ate while there which was almost the exact description Saul gave. There are many similarities to the real-world accounts and the fictional one, including children going missing often, the beatings, and the types of abuse. One thing about St. Anne's that really haunted me which was different than St. Jerome's was one of their heaviest punishments. In St. Jerome's case it was the Iron Sister, in the case of St. Anne's it was a makeshift electric chair.

As outlined in chapter 21, children at St. Jerome’s were forced into a daily routine where they were abused, discriminated against and forced into labour. As soon as they woke up each morning, they “stood in lines waiting [their] turn at the toilets—a dozen of them for a hundred and twenty boys” where some of them “soiled [their] pants during the wait” (78). While these conditions were less than ideal, the children were only given a half hour to wash, make their beds and prepare for chapel. During chapel, the children were told “we brought you here to save you from your heathen ways, to bring you to the light of the salvation of the one true God. What you learn here will raise you up, make you worthy, cleanse your body and purify your spirit” (78). Essentially, as soon as the children woke up in the morning their culture was disrespected, and they were taught to adhere to the Catholic religion.
Further, the children were forced into labour for most of the day where the “girls were kept busy in the kitchen” and the boys “mucked out the stalls of the cows and horses, hoed the fields, harvested the vegetables and worked in the carpentry shop” (79). Although most of their day involved labour, they attended “school” for one hour. As Saul notes, “there were no grades or examinations. The only test was [their] ability to endure” (79). In the schools, abuse was common. If a student answered a question wrong, they were forced in front of their class to face the wall and pull their pants down to be strapped. Moreover, if a child died at the school there was no funeral.
Everyday the children at St. Jerome’s lived in fear. When reading the novel, I was reminded of the story of Chanie Wenjack. On October 16 1966, Wenjack escaped from the Cecilia Jeffrey School during their afternoon time on the playground (Canadian Encyclopedia). Although Wenjack told his friends that he wanted to see his father, his reasoning for running away remains unclear and it is believed that he ran away because he was lonely or because he was sexually assaulted (Canadian Encyclopedia). On the day of the escape, Wenjack and two of his friends walked for eight hours before stopping at a cottage, where Wenjack then went his separate way to find his father. All he had with him was a glass jar with a few matches and he survived for the next 36 hours in below freezing temperatures. On October 23, his body was found beside a train track. The story of Chanie Wenjack is one that serves to exemplify the horrifying conditions that Indigenous children were subject too where they would risk their lives to escape if it meant freeing themselves from the Residential schools.
Attached below is a short Heritage Minute video about Wenjack, and a CBC news video that goes more into depth about Wenjack’s story and the residential school system more generally.



https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/charlie-wenjack#:~:text=Chanie%20Wenjack%2C%20an%20Anishinaabe%20boy%20from%20Ontario%2C%20ran,treatment%20of%20Indigenous%20children%20in%20Canadian%20residential%20schools.