Missing Aboriginal Children In Kamloops
By Christina Fenske
They matter so let’s not forget them. Now that they are found, it’s our job to keep their memory alive, not just for them but for their loved ones too and the others that suffered alongside them. There are many missing aboriginal children still out there right now and I’m sure it won’t be long before they uncover them too. If you have a chance, please take some time in your day to send out positive thoughts and love to those in mourning and those who are also able to start healing their hearts too.
Another reason not to forget about them is so this never happens again. It wounds my heart to hear of such a tragic and horribly heart breaking part of Canadian history. That these people suffered not only breaks my heart but is nothing, in comparison to what their family’s have had to endure for so long. I’m not ignorant of the privilege I have as a Caucasian female, from a middle-class family in Richardson, Saskatchewan which is about 15 minutes South East of Regina. I never had to endure the hardships that this aboriginal group of children would have had to struggle through day-after-day of physical, emotional, and psychological abuse and torture. I can’t begin to imagine their horrific challenges. I’m grateful they were found though and that the healing journey can begin.
It makes it all the more real when you hear about these stories and even though you know it’s part of Canada’s history, I guess there is a part of it that seems surreal and so removed from it all. Or at least until this happened, than it became all the more real. To know the history is one thing but to hear what they found makes it more real for those of us who can’t begin to fathom the hardships and the struggles of the Aboriginal people. Not as thorough history, as those who lived through it, by any means but for those of you who may not be aware of the history…
About 150,000 Aboriginal children were taken away from their family’s at a young age to be placed in Residential Schools. Some children were as young as 3 years old. The justification for this was that the government wanted to assimilate them into our society by stripping them of their traditions, language, and culture. This was done primarily to eliminate and “kill the Indian in the child”. They were believed to be savages in our society and were treated worse than animals at the time. They were sterilized of any traditional gifts they had been given from their parents, and their ancestors. These children were meant to be Canadianized and DeIndianized. Disgusting, that’s all I can say, there is no good way to describe this horrendous atrocity.
The Catholic Churches would go onto manage 60 percent of these Residential Schools according to ‘The Conversation’, 2021. The state used the churches because of their huge network, to attempt to eradicate the Aboriginal children from our society. It took whatever means needed to do this. The Kamloops Residential School is just one example of this with its undocumented disposal site for all the children that supposedly went missing or ran away. They were instead hidden like garbage in a large dumpsite, and likely killed or died of Tuberculosis and unbeknownst to their family.
Colonialism had a essential part to play in this story, with politics at the forefront of our history. Unfortunately, even after death the burden of the uneven distribution of life continues on. Impacting Aboriginal way of life today and for always being effected now going forward.
The main reason for the political control is that the Canadian government and the Catholic Churches wanted to remain in power of the Aboriginal people in life and in death. This is present in how the church denied Aboriginal persons the ability to mourn their children at the time, and to have a say in how they lived and how they died. What a sad reality that befalls us. The Catholic Church according to The Conversation reported that Aboriginal lives weren’t worth being known, nor did they matter enough to be remembered.
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