2“The Difficulties of Making an Indian into a White Man, Were Not Thoroughly Appreciated”: The Mohawk Institute, 1904 to the Present

Jennifer Pettit

Given that the Mohawk Institute had been burned to the ground twice, once by possible arson and another by confirmed arson, it was clear that the “difficulties of making an Indian into a white man, were not thoroughly appreciated.”¹ As Superintendent General of Indian Affairs Frank Oliver told the House of Commons in 1909, when it came to the church and state’s plan to assimilate Indigenous peoples such as the Six Nations, “there have been grave difficulties . . . that were not expected.”² By 1904, when the Mohawk Institute met its second fiery demise, it was obvious that the school was not meeting the initial visions of anyone, and was, in fact, bringing great harm to Indigenous students who attended. Yet, incredulously, the school would remain open for decades more. By 1970, when the Mohawk Institute finally closed, it would be even more evident that the Institute had ultimately failed all three parties involved—the Six Nations, the New England Company (the Anglican religious group who founded and managed the school), and the Canadian government. The Anglican Church apologized in 1993, but it would take until 2008 for the federal government to apologize for its role in the residential school system. Canada is still grappling with the legacy left by schools such as the Mohawk Institute and much work remains to be done before we have either truth or reconciliation.³

New Directions for Government Policy

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the system of schooling for Indigenous peoples had evolved into three types of distinct schools: day schools on reserves where students returned home each evening; boarding schools where students lived at the school and received basic training, often related to farming and domestic duties; and industrial schools such as the Mohawk Institute where children lived at the school but received more intensive training in trades than they did at the boarding schools. By 1900, there were 226 day schools, 39 boarding schools, and 22 industrial schools in operation in Canada—a far cry from the 1830s, when the Mohawk Institute was the only residential school in existence.⁴ The professed goal of church and state by the turn of the twentieth century was still “assimilation” into white, lower-class society. The question in the minds of church and government administrators, however, was whether the existing schools were working and whether assimilation should remain the goal of education policy.

The arrival of the twentieth century brought even greater pressure on Indigenous land; in the first twelve years of the 1900s alone, the population of Canada increased by almost 35 per cent.⁵ Many of these settlers came to Ontario, the home of the Mohawk Institute. Government officials began to seriously question the expanding system of industrial and boarding schools, which had grown at an astonishing rate. Scandals also plagued a number of the schools, and increasingly the government felt that boarding schools might suffice since Indigenous peoples were not utilizing the trade skills they learned at the industrial schools due to immigrants filling many of the manual labour positions, especially in more populated areas. Besides, by the turn of the century, training at many of the boarding schools rivalled that received at industrial schools. David Laird, Indian commissioner, claimed in 1904 that “the training of the children in perhaps half of these schools may be said to be almost equal to that given in industrial schools.”⁶ Government expenditures for the schooling portfolio in Indian Affairs had also greatly increased, especially at the more expensive industrial schools such as the Mohawk Institute. Most importantly, though, the industrial school system had failed to “civilize” Indigenous peoples such as the Six Nations.⁷ After attending, most students simply returned to the reserves. The 1906 Department of Indian Affairs annual report explained that industrial schools such as the Mohawk Institute would “turn out boys better equipped to live and work among other communities but [would] not apparently tend to produce amalgamation of races.”⁸

Government administrators decided that a change in policy was once again necessary, as circumstances in Canada had shifted due to increasing school costs, immigration, and rising racist sentiments. In addition, assumptions made in the early to mid-1800s, when the Mohawk Institute had been founded, about Indigenous peoples eagerly embracing church and state visions for schools had not proven to be true. Both Indigenous parents and students had pushed back against conditions in schools, particularly when principals such as the Reverend Robert Ashton at the Mohawk Institute created a harsh and abusive environment for students.⁹ It is not surprising that students chose to burn down the Mohawk Institute in 1903. Most Indigenous parents and students sought only the employment skills the schools could provide—“a means to an end”—rather than the cultural destruction the schools attempted to bring about. Frank Pedley, deputy superintendent general of Indian Affairs, explained that it “need not be expected that beyond the rare exceptions occasionally met with, they will manifest any desire for higher education.”¹⁰

As a result of all of these challenges, by 1910 church and state administrators officially abandoned attempts to completely assimilate Indigenous peoples into Euro-Canadian society and instead fashioned a school system that taught groups such as the Six Nations to accept isolation on significantly smaller reserves away from land coveted by Euro-Canadians. Frank Oliver said they needed a new plan whose “results will tend rather to improving the conditions of the Indian as an Indian, than making the Indian into a white man.”¹¹ Deputy Superintendent General Frank Pedley stressed “an effort [should now be] made to adapt the training to the requirements of the future pupils’ environments, and to avoid the danger of such treatment as might create a distaste, for conditions from which there might be no means of escape.”¹² In simple terms, government officials believed that Indigenous people only needed to be educated to a level sufficient to survive life on the reserves and nothing more. No longer were Indigenous peoples to be assimilated into lower-class society; now, they would exist segregated on reserves.

The main proponent of this new scheme was Duncan Campbell Scott, who became the superintendent of Indian education in 1909. In an about-face from previous policy, the Canadian government claimed that “it was never the policy, nor the end and aim of the endeavour to transform an Indian into a white man.” Instead, the new goal was “to fit the Indian for civilized life in his own environment.”¹³ These policy changes affected the next half century of school policy. Research consultant David Hoffman has written that after the policy changes in 1910,

the Department began to bring the churches’ administration of the residential schools into the framework that was to last essentially unchanged for five decades. In return for increased appropriations, the government placed greater demands upon the management of the boarding schools; soon, the upkeep of the buildings, pupils’ diets and classroom administration were to conform to standards established by the Department. Agreements were established between churches and the government specifying enrolment limits for each residence. The Department expected this to result in “greater efficiency.”¹⁴

Even with a new policy, schools such as the Mohawk Institute could not be completely abandoned by church and state officials since schooling was the main method they had for “managing” and converting Indigenous peoples. The superintendent of Indian education professed that “Without education and with neglect the Indians would produce an undesirable and often a dangerous element in society. Not only are our schools every day removing intelligent Indian children from evil surroundings, but they are very often ministering to a class which would be outcasts without such aid.”¹⁵ Federal politician Clifford Sifton shared similar sentiments: “I have no hesitation in saying (we may as well be frank) that the Indian cannot go out from a school, making his own way and compete with the white man.”¹⁶

Most of the churches were also not ready to abandon the school system as school officials remained committed to the religious conversion of the students throughout the life of the Institute. They agreed with the government’s plan of focusing on day and boarding schools, as these cost far less to operate. As a result, boarding schools flourished while many industrial schools languished or closed altogether. Government spending on boarding schools increased to $521,076.44 in 1915, up from $241,756.53 in 1913. During the same period, funding for industrial schools fell from $316,836.66 in 1913 to $290,644.62 in 1915.¹⁷ The Mohawk Institute, however, continued to function and grow. By the turn of the century “there were 125 children living at the Mohawk Institute (including some from other First Nations), and 520 children attending the nine local day schools. In 1920, there were 134 students living at the Mohawk Institute and 546 attending the eleven local day schools.”¹⁸

The Mohawk Institute Rises from the Flames

After the fire in 1903, the NEC decided to rebuild the school. The newly rebuilt Mohawk Institute opened in October of 1904. It was an impressive, large brick building that is still standing today. Principal Robert Ashton described the school in the following way:

The new building occupied in October last is in the form of the letter H, built of red brick, with cut stone basement, roofed with shingles, laid on asbestos paper. The main building is 79 x 42 feet, and has two wings 60 x 36½ feet each. The building is two stories high with basement and attic. The Main Building.—In the basement are the stores, including insulated cold store, officers’ dining-rooms, boiler-room, girls’ clothing-rooms and lavatory. On the first floor are the offices, sewing-room, and female officers’ rooms. The second floor contains the superintendent’s residence and two sick-rooms. North Wing.—In the basement is the kitchen and dining halls; on the first floor, class-room, master’s room and farm men’s rooms; on the second floor is the boy’s dormitory. South Wing.—The basement comprises the girls’ play-room, boot-room and flushwater-closets; on the first floor is the class and assembly room, and on the second floor is the girls’ dormitory. Each dormitory has an iron fire-escape and door opening into the main building. Boys’ play-house, 74 x 20 feet, two and a half stories; laundry, 30 x 20.3 feet, two Stories; dairy, 18 x 13 feet; barn and cow-stable, 97 x 35 feet; silo (cement), 30 x 16 feet; hog-pens, 72 x 30 feet and 60 x 13.4 feet; horse and cattle stables, 82.8 x 22.5 feet, with room for sixteen horses and sixteen cattle. Other buildings are: carpenter’s shop, implement-house, drive-house, wagon-shed, poultry-house, two greenhouses and an ice-house.¹⁹

School administrators like Ashton felt confident that the new Mohawk Institute would continue to be of use, claiming that the Six Nations possessed sufficient skills to permit them to subsist on the reserve with little interference.²⁰ W. F. Webster, for instance, sent by the NEC to report on the Six Nations in 1908, agreed, claiming that on the reserve “the farming was . . . nearly as good as that of adjoining portions of Ontario farmed by White men.”²¹ To support the plan of turning students into farmers, Institute administrators reduced trades instruction almost completely and concentrated their efforts on teaching the children farm skills.

Complaints in this era about the lack of government concern for industrial schools were common. In 1904, for instance, the Presbyterian Committee to Investigate Schools claimed that the Department of Indian Affairs did not value the industrial schools or care about the happenings of the students.²² In 1907, Peter H. Bryce, a medical inspector for the department, released his damning Report on the Indian Schools of Manitoba and the North West Territories. Bryce described the conditions in the schools as appalling, which he blamed on a lack of funding. He cited several issues with schools such as staff ineffectiveness and parental concerns and said the death rates of children in the schools was shocking—24 per cent of all pupils who attended school were known to be dead, and at File Hills, a boarding school in Saskatchewan, 69 per cent had died. Bryce claimed that boarding schools were preferable and that the government needed to undertake proper financial management and control of the schools.²³

While Bryce did not examine the Mohawk Institute, there is no doubt that at least some of his findings can be applied to the school. As Kathleen McKenzie and Sean Carleton have demonstrated, Bryce’s report was made public through numerous newspaper articles, yet very little was changed in response to the report.²⁴ A year after its release, in 1908, the government passed guidelines to further enhance compulsory attendance.²⁵ In 1920 the Indian Act made attendance at residential schools compulsory for status children between the ages of seven and fifteen.

Both the NEC and the Indian Department seemed pleased with how Ashton was managing the school, despite the dissatisfaction shown at Six Nations. The NEC, for instance, wrote about their “great satisfaction” with the school, and the Indian Department claimed that the school functioned “in a highly satisfactory manner.”²⁶ Principal Ashton boasted that the girls trained at the Mohawk Institute were “in great demand” and that the boys were pursuing several vocations including that of printer, typewriter, and timekeeper, in addition to finding work in factories and as farmhands.²⁷ This conflicts with an investigation by Samuel H. Blake, an executive on the board of the Missionary Society of the Church of England in Canada, whose general investigation of the residential school system found that no trades were being taught at the majority of industrial schools, and that those that did offer trades instruction were limiting such training to just a few students.²⁸

The Six Nations community was divided in their support for Ashton and the Institute. While some continued to show their support, others were not impressed with either Ashton or the Institute and claimed that “a widespread interest in the matters of education” was taking place on the reserve.²⁹ Discontent with the qualifications of teachers who graduated from the Mohawk Institute heightened during this period. According to one complaint, reported in The Globe and Mail, one school led by teachers who had graduated from the Mohawk Institute had “failed for twenty years to produce a pupil to pass the entrance examinations to the high schools.”³⁰ Teachers did not have to be certified, and Indigenous teachers were paid less than teachers in non-Indigenous schools.³¹ Increasingly, places in the Mohawk Institute were being filled by children deemed by the department to be orphans and destitute, and the school roster included only a small portion of the Six Nations community; there were only seventy children at the Institute in 1906, for instance, out of one thousand children of school age on the Six Nations reserve.³² Parents who disliked sending their children away from home were angered that the high school accepted graduates of the Mohawk Institute before graduates of the day schools.³³ Rumours of harsh punishments at the school also caused discontent. The NEC wrote to Principal Ashton and requested that a “Punishment Book” be kept of any harsh punishments because of allegations that a “Davis” boy had been hurt at the Institute. The Company stressed that only a “birch rod” should be used to discipline the students.³⁴ To ensure their concerns about the school system would be heard, in 1906 the “Indian Rights Association” came to the Hamilton conference to air their grievances. In addition to many complaints about the reserve schools, the delegation said that children who wanted to go to the Mohawk Institute were being denied admission “because they were not orphans.”³⁵ In 1911, shortly after the announcement of the new government policy to educate Indigenous peoples for life on the reserves, the Reverend Robert Ashton decided to retire (likely at the urging of the NEC); he stayed on as chaplain. His son, Alfred Nelles Ashton, assumed the role of principal.

The Tumultuous Years of Alfred Nelles Ashton

When Alfred Nelles Ashton was appointed principal (the first headmaster who was not an Anglican reverend), it was not due to his skills, but because he was the son of Robert Ashton, who had served as principal for four decades. His arrival corresponded with an increase in government funding; the Canadian government increased its per capita grant to $100 for 120 students.³⁶ The NEC thus agreed to take on the financial management of all the Mohawk Institute buildings. This increased funding should have led to better conditions “behind the bricks” of the school, but that would not be the case. Alfred Nelles Ashton’s time as principal would be marred by scandal and discontent.

When Alfred Nelles Ashton took over the Mohawk Institute, he set about making physical improvements at the school such as new student desks and an improved lavatory. Ashton indicated that the Mohawk Institute now had “a staff of 12, including 3 farm-hands and a gardener.” Academically, the Institute now followed the curriculum set by the Indian Department. He described the boys’ work in the following manner: “Farming, gardening and the care of green-houses form the principal occupation of the boys, and include the management of a dairy of over 35 cows, and the raising of pigs, also the cultivation of plants and flowers for market.” The girls’ work was as follows: “The girls are trained for domestic work, including sewing, dress-making, cooking, backing, laundrying and butter-making. They make all their own clothes, also those of the boys.”³⁷

As shown in Evan Habkirk’s chapter in this volume, in 1912, Ashton proudly reported that the school’s Cadet Corps had won first place in the central Ontario competition, and that new beds and laundry equipment had been ordered for the school. A new greenhouse and poultry house had also been constructed and improvements to the building’s appearance such as renovations to the girls’ dressing room and painting of the barns and outbuildings were carried out. Recreational activities expanded to include fishing and shooting at a miniature rifle range.³⁸

During Alfred’s tenure as principal, however, complaints were often raised by parents. Alfred was an alcoholic and concerns about his leadership began to mount. Parents said their children were “being so poorly fed and suffering such indignities at the hands of the officers of this Institute that many of the children [were] compelled to run away from the School.” Others wrote the department to say “that the children are being punished from time to time in a shameful manner for trifling offences and that they are treated from time to time as though they were criminals. For instances [sic], boys are whipped until they are cut, girls have their hair cut off close to the scalp, for punishment, and parents are not allowed to see their children if they (the children) happen to be under punishment at the time.”³⁹

Fearing that schools like the Mohawk Institute might open their doors to a wider pool of prospective students due to complaints, the government reiterated in 1912 that such schools were not intended for children of mixed ancestry. According to Duncan Campbell Scott, “A Half-breed, being legally ‘a person’ within the meaning of the Act, that is not an Indian, he is an ordinary citizen of the country and the problem of his education belongs to the Provinces not to the Dominion.”⁴⁰ In 1913, however, he said that if a child of mixed ancestry was living on a reserve then they could be admitted to a school at the federal government’s cost: “it was conceded that all children, even those of mixed blood, whether legitimate or not who live upon a reserve and whose parents on either side live as Indians, even if not annuitants, should be eligible for admission to the schools.”⁴¹

What stood out most about Alfred Nelles Ashton’s tenure as principal was a court case, addressed in Diana Castillo’s chapter, which involved female students—Ruth and Hazel Miller—who had absconded from the Institute. As a punishment they had their hair cut off and Ruth was locked in a small cell for three days without access to proper food. Ruth was whipped thirteen times as well. Her sister was also locked in a small room. Duncan Campbell Scott investigated the school but found no wrongdoing and said the case was unwarranted.⁴² Ruth’s father sued the school and the Ashtons; the jury awarded him $400 in damages.⁴³

In the spring of 1914, as the dust was settling from the court case, Alfred’s sister, Alice Boyce, expressed serious concerns about her brother’s worsening alcoholism and his “physical unfitness” for the position of principal of the Mohawk Institute. As a result, the NEC requested that Alfred take a holiday to the United States and that Alice take over temporary management of the school at a salary of $800 per year. She would be the only woman to ever serve as principal. The Company planned to send out a deputation to Canada in the fall to further investigate, but the outbreak of the First World War halted this plan. Alfred Nelles Ashton publicly admitted his faults and pledged to do better, but Alice said she could not work under him if he were to return as principal, not even in the role of overseeing the female students. In 1914, Alfred enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Alice was replaced in mid-1915 when the NEC sent Reverand Cyril M. Turnell to take over the management of the school. Ashton served with the 38th Regiment and was wounded in service. He did not return to the Mohawk Institute, instead becoming a fruit farmer in Grimsby. Having been replaced, Alice opted to care for her parents.⁴⁴

Changes in the Approach to School Management

The Reverend Cyril M. Turnell served as principal for the duration of the First World War. He was an Englishman who came to Canada for this purpose, after having worked at several schools in the United Kingdom. His tenure was shaped by the events of the First World War. In recognition of the increased cost of the war, in 1918 the Department of Indian Affairs approved a temporary increase of ten dollars in the per capita grants given to schools.⁴⁵ That year, the department elaborated on the direction of its policy for the graduates of schools such as the Mohawk Institute. The goal, where possible, was to educate Indigenous students alongside non-Indigenous pupils, rather than build separate secondary or post-secondary institutions. The deputy superintendent general explained that “it is not the policy of the Department to establish schools for the higher education of Indian children. On the contrary our present policy is to make use in so far as possible of the educational institutions in the province [of Ontario].” Despite the policy, few graduates of the Institute pursued higher education.⁴⁶

By 1918, enrolment grew to 140 students and Turnell attempted to make several improvements.⁴⁷ That year, the Mohawk Institute held “short courses in agriculture” for the Six Nations community on topics relating to the planting and growing of crops and vegetables, as well as raising dairy and beef cattle, horses and hogs. These lectures were “accompanied by practical work with the stock.”⁴⁸ Principal Turnell attempted to relax some of the heavy disciplinary measures initiated by Alfred Nelles Ashton and to improve the diet of the students. There was said to be a “glimmer of hope” when he became principal.⁴⁹ Turnell attempted to keep communication lines open with Six Nations and he allowed children to go home during the holidays. There were said to be no truancies while he was principal.⁵⁰

Turnell had grand plans for the school, such as further increasing enrolment. The NEC, however, felt Turnell was taking a softer approach to the school than they desired; they also claimed he was mismanaging the school and that he took too many vacations. He was thus fired. Duncan Campbell Scott made the case that Turnell should not be blamed for the issues facing the school and said he would like him to be reinstated. In the end, Turnell resigned and in 1918 moved to Jamaica, at which point Alice Boyce was reinstated as principal.

Alice Boyce said she was glad to return to the school as it would enable her to care for her elderly parents after she lost a large sum of money in an unsuccessful railroad investment. She had come to Canada with her father, Robert Ashton, as a child. She had grown up at the school and thus was very familiar with it. She trained as a nurse prior to becoming principal.⁵¹ Boyce seemed to care more about the children than had her father or her brother, though she, too, was said to be a strong disciplinarian. This coincided with a growing lack of interest in Indigenous schooling. Many Indigenous peoples did not respond to the school as positively as they had when the Institute opened eighty years earlier because, increasingly, they felt the school had little to offer them other than serving a welfare function for impoverished or orphaned children or providing a home for children with disciplinary issues. School records in this era, for instance, describe children in the following ways: “orphan”; “illegitimate”; “deaf mother who was living with a man who was not the father of the child”; “parents dead”; “mother dead, father ‘abnormal’”; “admitted on warrant, was ‘uncontrollable’ at home”; and “mother sick in hospital, father deserted.” Since many of the children who attended were disadvantaged in some way, and thus had little prior exposure to schooling, the level of academic difficulty at the school had to be lowered to accommodate these students.⁵²

Government officials did not seem to be particularly concerned with the quality of management at the school in the 1920s, likely because the government was concentrating on postwar recovery. When Edward, the Prince of Wales, visited the Mohawk Institute in 1919, Boyce allowed the children to sing hymns in Indigenous languages in his honour. While in Brantford, the Prince of Wales also unveiled a bronze tablet that listed eighty-eight members of Six Nations who had lost their lives fighting in the First World War.⁵³ That year, the Indian Department stressed that schools such as the Mohawk Institute “compare[d] favourably with white schools similarly situated with respect to the work in the classroom, and in accommodation and equipment provided.”⁵⁴ Upon graduation, each male student was provided with “a grant of cattle, horses, implements and building material.”⁵⁵

The NEC, however, still found it difficult to fund the school during this era. They sold off part of the Manual Labour Farm and the Babcock Lot to help make ends meet. As a result, in 1918, the Department of Indian Affairs took on the responsibility for the majority of expenses at the school. The per capita grant went from $120 to $220 per year (though this would be reduced to $180 and then $160 by 1922). Indian Affairs also signed a lease for the Institute for twenty-one years and, in 1922, enlarged the main building.⁵⁶

Boyce concentrated on trying to improve conditions for the children in the face of financial difficulty. To better the health of the children, she sent them to a dentist and oculist (her interest in health likely sprang from her background as a nurse). Boyce also worked to raise funds to send female students to business school. She succeeded in getting groups to issue invitations to the students for town events and the children entered contests at the local fairs to display their knowledge of carpentry, sewing, and agriculture. In addition, the cadets from the school marched in parades and local merchants sponsored a Sports Day.⁵⁷ The children were also rewarded with rides in the school truck, and on important occasions such as Christmas they received special treats like plum pudding, figs, and candies. Some parents asked the school to keep their children during the holidays since they could not afford to buy presents or transport them back home, and they assumed the children would be treated well.⁵⁸ Boyce reported that the children had access to many forms of recreation and that they attended the circus when it came to town. She claimed that while the children at the Mount Elgin residential school were dirty and only changed their clothing once a week, the uniforms of the students at the Mohawk Institute were clean and very attractive—the boys wearing marine uniforms with black and red stripes and the girls “dresses of aeroplane linen trimmed with blue and . . . black hats.”⁵⁹ Much of this clothing, as well as other goods, had been donated by the Canadian military, and the older girls worked to sew uniforms for the children at the school. While the “Good Conduct Badges” had to be discontinued due to a lack of funds, pupils who were well-behaved were given fifteen cents per month; these funds were placed in a fund controlled by a committee of pupils who spent it on activities that benefited the students. Money was deducted from this fund when clothing was ruined or if school property was destroyed or lost.⁶⁰ Several letters of appreciation from students during this period can be found in Record Group 10 at Library and Archives Canada. Emily Pheasant, for example, wrote in 1921 that she was “very glad to get home again . . . but . . . would sooner go back to school.”⁶¹

Despite these positive aspects, the Institute was not without troubles. Children during this period still continued to run away and commit other offences. Boyce claimed that many were leaving to meet boyfriends or girlfriends, citing one student who ran away to spend the night with a suitor at the Brantford Hotel. Others ran away to go home and help with work on the reserve. When the public discovered that one student had contracted a sexually transmitted infection while in the care of the Institute, an investigation was launched. It was discovered that she had contracted the disease during a sexual assault.⁶² Boyce’s response to rule breakers was swift and harsh—she has since been described as being “over-vigilant in meting out discipline.”⁶³ Duncan Campbell Scott, however, said that the general public did not comprehend the difficulties of running the school and disciplining the children, and claimed that Boyce was doing an excellent job of dealing with issues.⁶⁴

Financial challenges meant increased manual labour, especially for the male students, though Boyce claimed that “in no single instance [did] any boy [have] to neglect his lessons or miss school in order that so much should be done.”⁶⁵ To help offset costs, Boyce requested that her pay be reduced from $1,000 to $600 per year so that she could hire a “playground mistress” and “farmerette” to help teach the girls at the school.

The other industrial schools in Ontario seemed to experience more difficulties than did the Mohawk Institute from the 1880s to the early decades of the twentieth century. The Mount Elgin school expanded under little scrutiny, such that by 1906 conditions there had degenerated to the point where they were no longer acceptable.⁶⁶ Indigenous resistance, financial difficulties, and poor conditions also plagued the Wikwemikong and Shingwauk schools.⁶⁷ Unlike these institutions, the Mohawk Institute continued to maintain what government officials saw as fair conditions and reasonable attendance rates.⁶⁸

The Indian Department was pleased with the efforts of Boyce and the Mohawk Institute. In 1922, when the courts decided that the Institute’s farm belonged to the Six Nations, the department agreed to pay them $500 per year in rent so that the Institute could continue to use the land for farming purposes.⁶⁹ The Indian Department and the NEC made an agreement at this time that the department would rent the Mohawk Institute from the Company for one dollar per year for twenty-one years. In return, the Company stipulated that the principal be an Anglican minister and offered to provide a yearly grant of £1,000.⁷⁰ In 1922, the Schultz Brothers Company added an addition to the rear of the school at a cost of $35,180.⁷¹ This was the first addition to the Mohawk Institute that had not been financed by the NEC. At the end of 1922, soon after the addition was completed, Alice Boyce married Sydney Rogers and, in keeping with what was “proper” for a married woman, resigned, at which point he took over as principal of the school. The department seemed keen on his appointment, saying that Rogers possessed “considerable administrative ability” and that they expected “a career of much usefulness in his case.” This would not turn out to be the result.⁷²

Declining Conditions Under Principal Sydney Rogers

Sydney Rogers was not a well-educated man, but he had previously been a book clerk and served in the First World War. Rogers came to the Institute in 1919 as the boys’ master and married Alice at the end of 1922.⁷³ Since Boyce was retained as “lady principal” for the Institute, few changes initially occurred in terms of the school’s daily functioning. The Mohawk Institute remained a “model” for industrial and residential schools in this period, and Russell Ferrier, the superintendent of Indian education, claimed that “no residential school in Canada . . . [was] subjected to the same continuous stream of visitors as the Mohawk.”⁷⁴ However, the Institute’s finances continued to be an issue. Since most industrial schools were only receiving $120 per capita, in 1922 the government reduced its yearly grant to the Mohawk Institute to $160 per pupil. In addition to this amount, the Institute received about $50 per student from the NEC grant.⁷⁵

The department continued to favour boarding schools during this period, and by 1923 the distinction between boarding and industrial schools had disappeared completely. The two categories thus merged to form the new classification of “residential school,” and the focus on training students in the trades decreased even further.⁷⁶ “Residential school” is the term used most often today to refer to the church- and state-run school system created for Indigenous students. This name change fit with the policy of educating Indigenous students for life on the reserve rather than integration into non-Indigenous society—trades were far less important on the reserves than were farming activities.

The quality of instruction was not the main concern of Principal Rogers. A typical day at the school paralleled a regular day spent on a farm: The children rose at 6:00 a.m. and tended to the animals or made breakfast. Officially, work or school began at 8:15 a.m. and went until lunch at 12:15 p.m. Work or school continued from 1:30 to 4:00 p.m., supper was served at 5:45 p.m., and at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. the children retired.⁷⁷ A school inspector in 1923 declared that “no provision for systemic instruction in the principles, either of household science, manual training or agriculture,” existed at the Mohawk Institute.⁷⁸ It was clear that basic manual labour rather than academic schooling received the most attention, which is not surprising given church and government goals for the schools, and since the agricultural activities helped finance the Institute. Rogers’s reports seldom mentioned classroom activities, and instead were filled with references to farming, gardening, and domestic activities. Rogers reported, for instance, that he had to discontinue classroom activities completely during harvest time.⁷⁹

In 1923 the Institute became the focus of several newspaper articles. The Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council of Chiefs (the hereditary council) asked Evelyn Johnson, the sister of the poet Pauline Johnson, to raise public awareness about conditions in the school. Johnson vehemently criticized the Mohawk Institute in The Toronto Sunday World. She claimed the Institute was “a home for many orphaned boys and girls as well as other children,” and that she spoke to a missionary on the reserve who said that “they had met no one . . . who likes the Mohawk Institution.” Johnson said that the education the children received was inferior, that they ran away because they were hungry, and that they were being improperly disciplined.⁸⁰ The department, however, promptly dismissed her concerns, maintaining that the article contained “not one single word of truth.”⁸¹

An official report commissioned by the department on the Six Nations that same year delved further into issues on the reserve with the hopes of finding evidence to replace the hereditary chiefs with an elected council. The report said that waiting lists continued at the Mohawk Institute and that a “large number of the Indians, both men and women, are keenly alive to the benefit of education.”⁸² The report also observed, however, that the Six Nations wanted to attend schools for white children: “the Indians . . . were unanimously of the opinion that it was very much to the advantage of their children to attend the white schools, and there to mingle with the white children. As one Indian put it, ‘We do not wish to be a people apart, we want our children to grow up good Canadians like the rest.’”⁸³ The report said there was still a role for the Mohawk Institute, but again as more of a welfare provider than a school:

The Mohawk Institute, situate [sic] in Brantford, already referred to, performs a function quite apart from the general educational system. As I have stated, it provides vocational and academic training for orphans, for deserted children, and for the children of the very poor. This function is necessary, and must not be interfered with. At the present time its accommodation is nearly all taken up by children of this class.⁸⁴

In a supplement to the main report focusing specifically on the Mohawk Institute, Andrews interviewed staff who said the food, discipline, and conditions at the school were reasonable to very good.⁸⁵ Notably, he spoke to no current students in the school, who, as Rick Hill’s conclusion in this book demonstrates, likely would have painted a different picture.⁸⁶

As Principal Rogers took on more of a leadership role, conditions at the Mohawk Institute deteriorated. Fighting often occurred among the children; Rogers said a “Jesse James Gang” appeared among the girls and that fighting was common among the boys.⁸⁷ Health conditions were also far from ideal. Records show that Rogers ordered six pounds of vermin powder and one gallon of bed bug poison for the school.⁸⁸ Most students at the school in the 1920s, however, were fairly well-behaved, likely because many did not have a home and because they knew how few positions there were at the school.⁸⁹ Likewise, Rogers claimed that parents ensured the prompt return of their children after the holidays, and that when students ran away, few people on the reserve provided shelter for them.⁹⁰ After two girls ran away in 1929, Rogers claimed they were “the first in years to abscond.”⁹¹ The boys, though, were clearly less obedient. Two of them, armed with clubs, had “openly defied the Principal,” and Rogers had to have a system of alarms installed to keep the boys from sneaking into the girls’ dormitory at night.⁹²

Rogers was a strong advocate of what he thought to be appropriate discipline. When graduates of the Institute failed to do well at the local collegiate school in Brantford, Rogers blamed their failure on the lack of discipline at the schools.⁹³ In her testimony to the 1923 investigation into the Mohawk Institute by Colonel Andrew Thompson, Alice tried to justify the discipline meted out by her husband, claiming that he used only a regulation school strap, and only struck students on the hands.⁹⁴ In her testimony to the investigation, Mohawk Institute teacher Susan Hardie claimed the following: “In answer to the question, ‘What is the discipline imposed?,’ Miss Hardie replied, ‘It is not severe,’ and to the question, ‘Is whipping used?,’ she said, ‘Yes, and I have to do it for all the girls. I do not have to whip more than once a month on an average.’”⁹⁵ Hardie, a Mohawk woman from Six Nations, was a graduate of the Mohawk Institute who began teaching there in 1887. She would remain a teacher at the Institute for decades, retiring in 1936 at the age of seventy.⁹⁶ Though she was proud of her work, many former students do not remember her fondly.⁹⁷

There were other issues plaguing the Institute in this era as well, many of them to do with finances and Rogers’s generally poor administrative skills. In addition to asking for more hours of religious instruction,⁹⁸ the NEC asked the department to purchase the parts of the Institute still owned by the Company for £9,000; the department claimed that it could not afford this.⁹⁹ The entire time Rogers acted as principal , the department had been troubled by his poor accounting abilities, inadequate reporting, and his inability to make enough profit from the farm to help pay for the costs of running the school. Rogers was also criticized for making “unauthorized expenditures” and not paying bills on time.¹⁰⁰

Rogers purchased a farm adjoining the Mohawk Institute, which he planned on turning into a riding school. The Indian Department discovered, however, that Rogers was using school labour and machinery on his personal farm. Soon after, the police arrested Rogers for drunk driving. As a result of these incidents, the department, without consulting the NEC, fired Rogers on 28 May 1929. This “precipitated a small crisis”: Who would be the new principal, and how would they be chosen and appointed? The department assumed that its lease with the NEC stated that the new principal would have to be an Anglican clergyman, but this was mistaken (the lease did not dictate such terms). Regardless, the department consulted with the bishop of Huron, who nominated the Reverend Horace W. Snell as Rogers’s replacement.¹⁰¹

Challenging Decades: The 1930s and ’40s

Few government policy changes happened during the tenure of Principal Horace Snell. By 1923, when boarding and industrial schools were merged to form the new category of “residential” school, almost half of the industrial schools in Canada had closed, making the Mohawk Institute of particular note since it had been open almost one hundred years by this point. It is obvious that the schools had not lived up to policy-makers’ expectations by this time. What officials thought would be a quick, easy, and inexpensive way of dealing with the “Indian problem” was in fact a costly failure. Instead of abandoning the failing system, however, some schools such as the Mohawk Institute remained open for another half century in another form—that of the residential school.

During this period schools would deteriorate even further. In 1936 the federal government made the Indian Department into a branch of the Department of Mines and Resources, but otherwise, as historian John L. Tobias writes, Indigenous affairs were left “in a state of flux” with the government making only “ad hoc decisions.” Tobias believes this lack of a clear policy was possibly the “result of the realization that all previous policies had failed to attain the goal established for Canada’s Indian administration.”¹⁰² Likewise, in a study prepared for the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, David Hoffman notes that there were very few changes to education policy between 1923 and 1950, the period roughly coinciding with Snell’s time as principal of the Mohawk Institute. Hoffman found that the department rarely even made statements during this era about its objectives for residential schools.¹⁰³

Since Principal Snell was brought up on a farm, NEC and government administrators were hopeful that he would be a competent principal. He had been born in Canada and raised in Oxford County, Ontario. He was ordained as an Anglican minister and served in several parishes in the southern part of the province. Overall, Snell made relatively few changes to how the Mohawk Institute was managed, though he did seem to want to make some improvements, such as buying the children toothbrushes (which he ended up purchasing with his own money). As principal, Snell generally waited to deal with problems as they arose, rather than making proactive changes, and he seems to have taken little initiative in school matters. The reports for the school from the 1930s are concerned primarily with the Institute’s physical appearance, and such safety items as fire extinguishers and alarms.¹⁰⁴

Snell, however, proved to be less concerned with the financial conditions of the school, and more than once the department warned him to watch his spending and to follow their orders.¹⁰⁵ The Mohawk Institute required a substantial amount of money to function—the costs of running the school exceeded the expense of operating all of the day schools on the reserve, even though many more students were enrolled in those schools. In 1929, for example, it cost $22,266 to run the day schools and $23,870 to run the Mohawk Institute.¹⁰⁶

The safety of the school, the quality of teaching, and the conduct of the children also came under scrutiny during Snell’s time as principal. In 1936, one student died when a maypole at the school came loose and crushed her, causing internal injuries.¹⁰⁷ Children were still spending half of their day, at least, in work rather than in the classroom.¹⁰⁸ Peter Smith, who attended the Mohawk Institute in this period, said the following about his time at the schools: “We worked on the farm, we were hungry all the time. We had a team of horses—you had to clean all the stock, all the stables—you had to work all the time. We got up at 6 in the morning and we worked until 6 at night.”¹⁰⁹ Snell told the Indian Department that he could not find suitable teachers for the vocational training that was supposed to be taking place.¹¹⁰ Academic standards also decreased since more and more children were considered orphans or juvenile delinquents. The Indian agent at Walpole Island, for example, suggested that two boys who were caught breaking into houses should be sent to the Mohawk Institute.¹¹¹ The presence of such children suggested that the school had become more of a detention centre than an academic institution. Some citizens in Brantford complained that boys from the Institute stole money from milk bottles and pestered people to hire them to do odd jobs.¹¹² The department warned Snell that they had heard reports that the boys were visiting “the garbage dump early in the mornings, between seven and eight, to collect and eat scrap candies and biscuits.”¹¹³

Despite all this, Principal Snell did not see the school as functioning poorly. He wrote that children were pleased with their time at the school and that they were “taking their places creditably in all walks of life”; some were “leading farmers on the Reserve, others [were] in business or industry, while many [were] making good wives in well-kept homes.”¹¹⁴ He claimed that “truancy [had] almost entirely ceased” and that “corporeal punishment [was used] only on very rare occasions.”¹¹⁵ These claims conflict with students’ accounts. One student, for instance, complained that one Mr. Logan, who worked at the school, took him into the henhouse and hit him “with a belt” until he was “covered with bruises.”¹¹⁶ Snell responded to the complaint by saying he felt that the boy deserved such punishment.¹¹⁷

With the expiration of the government’s lease with the NEC, coupled with the outbreak of war, faith in the residential school system was starting to wane. Robert A. Hoey, the superintendent of welfare and training, wrote in 1941 that the policy of the government was to promote day schools over residential schools: “The tendency on the part of the Government in recent years has been to multiply Indian day schools rather than residential schools. You may be interested to learn that a great deal of criticism has been directed against residential schools since I entered the Department about 5 years ago. There seems to be a growing feeling that with the exception of the remote northern regions our Indians have outgrown the necessity for such institutions.”¹¹⁸ At this time the Canadian government was grossly underfunding residential schools; in 1941, for instance, in the United States the “per capita grant for a boarding school with fewer than 200 pupils was $335. The 1941 per capita grant for the Canadian schools, most of which had fewer than 200 pupils, was only $170.”¹¹⁹

In 1943, the NEC decided to end its grants to the Mohawk Institute. The Company agreed to care for the Mohawk Chapel and keep a clergyman at the Institute.¹²⁰ When the Second World War ended, a new lease was finally agreed between both parties. As had previously been the case, the NEC asked the Canadian government to purchase the Mohawk Institute. In the end, however, a new twenty-one-year lease was negotiated in 1946, after which management of the school remained in the hands of the Company.¹²¹

The Indian Department claimed that Snell had “never been a good administrator at any time.”¹²² As a result, a committee, including representatives from Six Nations, was formed to seek out a new principal. Joseph C. Hill, a teacher from Six Nations with excellent credentials, was suggested. Hill possessed certificates in areas such as manual training and religious instruction, and he had owned a grocery store and taught at day schools. He seemed perfect for the position, but the bishop of Huron felt that appointing an Indigenous person to the position would not be desirable.¹²³ In August 1945, he sent the Reverend W. J. Zimmerman to serve as principal. While it is impossible to know what might have happened under Hill at the school, it is likely that it would have been a much better experience for children than what occurred under Zimmerman.

The Dark Days Under the Reverend W. John Zimmerman

John Zimmerman was born in New Hamburg, Ontario. He was an ordained priest and had attended the University of Toronto and Columbia University. Prior to coming to the Mohawk Institute, Zimmerman had worked as a missionary on the Big Island Lake Indian Reserve in Saskatchewan. Zimmerman’s appointment as principal coincided with the end of the Second World War. Indigenous soldiers had fought and served admirably in the war, and this made officials begin to reassess existing policies and embark on a new era of integration. This was a significant change from the policies of segregation that Duncan Campbell Scott had emphasized in the early years of the twentieth century. Increasingly, administrators were questioning the goals of the government’s education policies for Indigenous peoples. In 1946, Hugh Castledon, a member of Parliament from Saskatchewan, claimed that only 16,000 of the 130,000 eligible Indigenous peoples in Canada that year received any educational training. Of that number, only 883 reached grade 7, 324 obtained grade 8, and only 71 completed grade 9.¹²⁴ In addition, this was a time when the Indian Department experienced financial difficulties and residential schools were very expensive to maintain and run.¹²⁵ In 1948, a special joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons on the Indian Act recommended significant changes. Moving forward, Indigenous children were to be taught alongside non-Indigenous children—integration rather than segregation.¹²⁶ In 1951 a new Indian Act stated that while the goal of “civilization” should be retained, it should not be “directed or forced,” as it had been up to that point.¹²⁷ In the act the ban on Indigenous ceremonies and dances was lifted, as was the ban on pursuing land claims. More control was granted to band councils, particularly in the area of spending. New guidelines about the legal definition of an “Indian” were also made in the act. Despite these policy changes, many orphans and unwanted children still attended the Mohawk Institute. Government administrators said the Institute should primarily admit children who were orphans, destitute, or whose home conditions were poor. One student, for instance, was denied entry and told to go to a day school as he had two parents and a “suitable” home.¹²⁸

Principal Zimmerman claimed to have made the school as appealing as possible by undertaking plans such as acquiring a skating rink and building a hockey team. Despite these changes, many conditions at the school still cried out for improvement. Bernard F. Neary, the superintendent of welfare and training for Indian Affairs, reported in 1946 that one teacher taught eighty-seven children in one room.¹²⁹ In addition, a doctor’s report on the school disclosed many unsatisfactory sanitary conditions. For example, dishwater was not changed often enough and dishes were dried with dirty towels; the towels in the washrooms were filthy; the girls used reusable sanitary napkins; the flour and sugar were exposed to mice; and the bread was open and exposed to flies, while rats infested all of the outbuildings.¹³⁰ Another doctor found that milk was not being cooled properly and that the Institute was using ice made from canal water, which had been condemned for use.¹³¹ Zimmerman also worried that children might contract sexually transmitted infections through the sharing of so many items including towels.¹³²

Zimmerman’s time as principal was a difficult period for students. Though he often wrote to the department about improving conditions in the school and began activities such as trips to the movie theatre and camping trips to Christian Island, he was seen as a strict and indeed violent disciplinarian.¹³³ Students have shared accusations of beatings and sexual abuse in which he participated. In 1946, not long after Zimmerman took over as principal, an investigation into conditions at the Mohawk Institute was launched by the Indian Affairs Branch. The investigation was in response to complaints from groups such as the Brantford Women’s Council who were concerned about a “lack of sufficient clothing and educational facilities.” Conditions in the school were described as “abysmal and below any standard suitable to human living.”¹³⁴ The department claimed that conditions at the school had deteriorated as the NEC suspended their grants to the school after the outbreak of the Second World War.¹³⁵ In response, Archdeacon A. L. G. Clarke said that “the Indian Department is responsible for the buildings, upkeep and repairs,” and that, while the NEC had “leased the buildings to the department,” it had to stop paying a grant to the school since “its real estate in London had been reduced to rubble from bombings” during the war.¹³⁶ A newspaper article a few days later said the faults at the school rested with the federal government, which was not properly funding the Mohawk Institute: “it is difficult to make good bricks without straw, neither is it possible to run a good school without essential physical plant, equipment and educational accommodation.”¹³⁷ The “Supreme Court Grand Jury” was thus tasked with making an inspection of the Institute (the first time this had been done). They reported that Principal Zimmerman provided a detailed tour of the school and that they found everything in “smooth running order” and commended him on “his capable management.”¹³⁸ They did describe some areas of the school, however, as in desperate need of repair and recommended that chairs be purchased for the dormitories. The “Grand Jury” also said conditions at the school would need to be monitored closely via other investigations.¹³⁹ There is no indication that the inspectors spoke to any of the students to hear their opinion about life at the school. The Brantford Women’s Council again expressed their ongoing concerns as well.¹⁴⁰

Often students were unhappy with the situation they found themselves in, and during the 1950s numerous children ran away from the school. Some students left to meet up with boyfriends or girlfriends, but many others left in the hopes of returning home. Others claim they left because they were mistreated. Many simply felt that no one cared for them. In 1949, twenty-five girls ran away from the Mohawk Institute at the same time. They were caught, but within two weeks of their return ten ran away again. Several of the girls were committed to a reformatory and the individual who sheltered them on the reserve was charged under the Juvenile Delinquents Act.¹⁴¹ The Institute permitted the dismissal of students who constantly ran away and warned parents that students could not be discharged “to suit their whims.”¹⁴²

The department set out specific punishment guidelines to ensure that children were not being abused, but when Zimmerman caught boys “in the act of homo-sex” (likely rape) while the other boys watched the “filthy business,” he felt that spanking “their posterior ends . . . might do some good.”¹⁴³ Many former students describe having experienced extreme abuse while in the Institute, not only from administrators, but at the hands of other students as well.¹⁴⁴ Former student Russell Moses recalls horrific disciplinary tactics used in this era as well: “I have seen Indian children having their faces rubbed in excrement, this was done by a gentleman who has now gone to his just reward.” Flora Moore said she was severely punished simply for “playing around” in line: “The guy picked me up by the back of my neck, he kicked my butt, and then he took me to the room, and I don’t know what happened there, but all I know was that I had strap marks on my body, and my hands were blistered. . . . I never told anybody. . . . That was the first I ever encountered physical abuse. . . . And I could never sleep after that.”¹⁴⁵

Not surprisingly, during the 1950s neither students and their parents nor the government were pleased with life at residential schools. Starting in the 1950s “there was a dramatic rise in Indian enrolment in Provincial school systems.”¹⁴⁶ Little wonder given the conditions in many of the schools such as the Mohawk Institute. In 1957, Indian Affairs Branch Director H. M. Jones wrote that “No one can defend the salaries residential schools are presently paying their help nor in some instances the quality of the food and clothing.”¹⁴⁷ A 1956 study revealed that 61 per cent of children in residential schools had attained the equivalent of grades 1 to 3, and less than 0.5 per cent had reached grade 12 levels.¹⁴⁸ An overreliance on children’s physical labour in schools was still taking place.¹⁴⁹ The federal government began to encourage greater parental involvement in schools via school committees: “In 1963, the Department provided for the organizing and minimal funding of these Committees. By 1971 there were 215 such Committees in existence, with greatly increased areas of responsibility.” By this time only fourteen teachers in residential schools in Canada were Indigenous.¹⁵⁰ In the 1960s the department made it clear that its view was that residential schools were to draw from a limited pool of children—“[those] from broken homes or whose parents [were] unable to provide the proper care,” as well as “children of migrant hunters and trappers whose life makes day school arrangements impracticable.”¹⁵¹

Closure of the Mohawk Institute

In 1966 government administrators undertook A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies. This two-volume report, which came to be known as the “Hawthorn Report,” claimed that the schooling of Indigenous peoples was necessary if they were to “fit properly and competently into our economic and social structure.”¹⁵² The report recommended, “without basic question,” “the principle of integrated education.”¹⁵³ The Caldwell Report of 1967 reiterated concerns with the number of students in residential schools for welfare rather than educational reasons.

In 1969, in what has become known as the White Paper, government administrators declared their plan to repeal the Indian Act and absolve themselves of responsibility for Indigenous affairs. In their minds, these actions would bring an immediate end to the “Indian problem” since Indigenous peoples would lose their status. As part of this new policy, the federal government planned to close residential schools, citing low attendance and high costs. This new approach did not differ from those of years past—the government was still forcing Indigenous peoples to accept the place that the government had designated for them. Indigenous reaction to the White Paper was swift and strong, with the government’s actions “caus[ing] the reawakening of political consciousness and the emergence of provincial and territorial organizations [of Indigenous people].”¹⁵⁴ Indigenous groups, led by the National Indian Brotherhood, responded to the White Paper with their own plan entitled “Citizens Plus” (commonly referred to as “The Red Paper”). Moving forward, control of the education of Indigenous children became a key goal of such groups. The Brotherhood also wrote an important policy paper entitled Indian Control of Indian Education. Its message to church and state administrators could not have been clearer: Get out of the “business” of supposedly educating Indigenous children and youth and devolve that role to Indigenous nations. In the end, the government would not act on the White Paper, but the move to close the remaining residential schools was already well underway.

By the end of the 1960s, most of the children attending the Mohawk Institute were not from nearby, so the school’s ostensible utility began to be challenged. Many Cree children from northern Ontario arrived in the early 1960s, and they generally spoke Cree and French as their first languages.¹⁵⁵ The experience of these children is a part of the school’s history that is yet to be studied. By 1960, over one-quarter of Indigenous students in Canada were enrolled in provincially controlled institutions rather than schools intended solely for Indigenous students.¹⁵⁶ By 1968, of 68,386 Indigenous students in Canada, only 9,071 were enrolled in residential schools.¹⁵⁷ At the Mohawk Institute, only 25 of the 96 students came from southern Ontario, the area the school was intended to serve, and enrolment was expected to drop to 25 students due to the opening of more reserve schools in Quebec and northwestern Ontario.¹⁵⁸ Rather than using the schools as welfare agencies, the department ensured that many children deemed to be in need of care were adopted primarily by non-Indigenous families during what has come to be known as the “Sixties Scoop.” Additional day schools, improved roads and housing, and alternate boarding services also diminished the need for schools such as the Mohawk Institute. If the Mohawk Institute closed, the children could be placed in homes and sent to day schools in places such as Brantford, Caledonia, or Hagersville, or they could attend non-Indigenous schools in Brantford.¹⁵⁹ Since it cost $235,000 per year to run the Institute, it did not seem economically sound to keep the school running for a relatively small number of students who could be educated elsewhere.¹⁶⁰ As of 1969, residential schools were to exist as “a supplementary service provided by the Department to Indian Children who, for very special reasons, [could not] commute to federal day schools or provincial schools from their homes.”¹⁶¹ Finally, in June 1970, the government decided to close what had formerly been known as the “model” industrial school, which had been in existence for a century and a half—the longest of any residential school in Canada. By that time, over the school’s long and dark history, over 21,000 children had spent time behind the bricks.¹⁶²

The Mohawk Institute: 1970s to the Present

At the time of the closure, newspapers reported that few of the last residents of the Mohawk Institute were from Six Nations (only twenty-three of the final ninety-six)—most were from northern Ontario and Quebec.¹⁶³ The school was said to be housing “children from broken homes and reserves without schools.” The government indicated that it was “holding [the school] at the request of the elected council” and that the school was being “constantly patrolled” in case of any violence.¹⁶⁴ The school was finally completely vacated in March 1971.¹⁶⁵ That year, the Six Nations Elected Council agreed to the provincial commemoration of the school through a plaque that was erected in 1972.¹⁶⁶

After the Mohawk Institute closed, a battle over who would control the school ensued. In the end, the Department of Indian Affairs gave the school building to the Six Nations. McMaster University was keen to use it as a satellite campus, but instead in 1972 the school was turned into the Woodland Indian Cultural Educational Centre (now known as the Woodland Cultural Centre). The Woodland Cultural Centre focuses on the revitalization of Indigenous cultural heritage, directly combating the assimilationist ideologies of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School.¹⁶⁷ In these early years, the centre sought to preserve and revitalize Eastern Woodlands culture through exhibits, with a mandate to collect research materials and artifacts for its library and museum (now totalling over fifty thousand artifacts). In 1975, the centre expanded to encompass the arts, and in 1984, it launched a language program. Today, the Woodland Cultural Centre describes itself as “an organization with historic expertise and strong community connections” and with “a key role to play in knowledge and learning through its program offerings, including education, museum, language, library and arts.”¹⁶⁸

The school building built in 1904 still stands today. In 2013, after damage from a failing roof necessitated repairs, the Woodland Cultural Centre organized a consultation with the Six Nations community, among other First Nations and survivors, to see what they wanted to happen with the former school buildings. Some expressed a desire to tear down the buildings, but 98 per cent of the people who participated in the feedback process opted to undertake renovations and keep the Mohawk Institute building open as a site to teach people about the history of the residential school and its devastating impact on their community.¹⁶⁹ Former student Douglas George Kanentiio from Awkwesasne explains why he supported saving the school from demolition:

I believe the (Mohawk) Institute should be preserved as a memorial. . . . My wife and I visited Buchenwald when we were in Germany which is, with the exception of the rat-infested inmate barracks, left just as it was when liberated by the Russians in 1945. When anyone connected with the residential school reconciliation process brings this issue up I tell them to go to the institute and stay there for a couple of nights. Sleep in our bunk beds, eat our food, listen to the floors creak and the slow walk of the night watchman as he makes his rounds from the basement to the upper floors. This takes it from being an intellectual exercise to actual appreciating our circumstances.¹⁷⁰

The “Save the Evidence” campaign was launched in 2014. Originally, this started as a simple fundraiser to repair the school’s roof, but it has since turned into a full-scale renovation project. Funding has come from several sources including the Six Nations Elected Council, the City of Brantford, and both the federal and provincial governments.¹⁷¹ By 2022, the Save the Evidence campaign had reached its goal of raising $23.5 million.¹⁷² The renovated museum and school will open in 2025. This is a marked departure from what has happened to most former schools in Canada: “For years as the school system was dismantled, former residential school buildings were disposed of as government assets and sold to private interests, returned to communities to be repurposed as band offices and administration buildings, or left to slowly crumble away with the passage of time.”¹⁷³ In addition to the school renovation, survivors have created the Mohawk Village Memorial Park project to honour the children who attended the Mohawk Institute.¹⁷⁴

Though the Mohawk Institute is Canada’s first and longest-running residential school, only four schools have been named a National Historic Site: the former Shubenacadie Indian Residential School in Nova Scotia, designated in 2020; the former Portage La Prairie Indian Residential School in Manitoba, designated in 2020; the former Muscowequan Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan, which was designated in 2021; and, finally, the former Shingwauk Indian Residential School in Ontario, also designated in 2021. In addition, on 1 September 2020, under the National Program of Historical Commemoration, the Government of Canada designated the residential school system as a whole a National Historic Event.¹⁷⁵ These designations took place as part of the Canadian government’s response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action—in particular, Call to Action 79. Parks Canada notes that “commemoration is not celebration—it is recognition and acknowledgement that history has shaped Canada.” The goal of these commemoration projects has also been the “inclusion of Indigenous peoples’ history, voices and perspectives in the National Program of Historical Commemoration and other public history activities.”¹⁷⁶ In 2014 the Six Nations Elected Council named the Mohawk Institute a “Six Nations Historic Place.”¹⁷⁷

Life Behind the Bricks

With the school preserved, what about the stories of the people behind the bricks? No two students had the same experience at the Mohawk Institute. Even those who attended at the very same time have divergent and unique memories. Conditions varied over time and were affected by situations such as who was principal and what was transpiring in the larger Canadian society. Thanks to the efforts of groups such as the Woodland Cultural Centre, and historians such as Elizabeth Graham, who has interviewed dozens of survivors, these stories are not lost.¹⁷⁸ In them we hear repeated themes such as physical and sexual abuse, hunger, loneliness, and an inadequate education. Many stories describe loss—loss of language, family, safety, personal possessions, home, and, ultimately, loss of identity, as each student was assigned a number rather than a name. Many survivors still refer to the Institute as the “Mush Hole,” in reference to the amount of oatmeal porridge they were served every day (a menu for the school from 1895 showed students had porridge for breakfast every day and for supper five days per week).¹⁷⁹ Some have positive memories to share as well. The “Concluding Voices” chapter in this book allows us to hear directly from the former students who experienced the Institute’s harsh conditions. Likewise, historians such as Thomas Peace are finding creative ways to use documentary sources such as the Mohawk Institute register to tell us about the lived experiences of students.¹⁸⁰ Archaeologists like Sarah Clarke, Paul Racher, and Tara Froman are also discovering what artifacts can tell us about life at the Mohawk Institute.¹⁸¹

Government Inaction and Action Since the 1970s

Though it had closed down the majority of residential schools by the 1970s when the Mohawk Institute closed, the Canadian government did not immediately take any action to atone for its role in the residential school system. This era saw the development of the land claims process (both comprehensive and specific) and the continued push by Indigenous rights groups such as the National Indian Brotherhood for First Nations to be recognized as sovereign nations with the rights to self-determination, among other rights. John Leslie describes the 1980s as more “productive” in terms of government action:

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, proclaimed in the early 1980s, had a section providing constitutional protection for treaty and aboriginal rights. Indeed, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was deemed to be one of Canada’s constitutional documents. In November 1983, the Special Parliamentary Committee on Indian Self-Government presented its findings and urged expanded powers for first nations governments, which in some instances would go beyond the traditional municipal model.¹⁸²

The 1990s heralded an era of more in-depth discussions about the inherent right of First Nations to self-government. This period also saw the residential school system become national news after Phil Fontaine, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, spoke publicly about his experiences while a student at residential school. Fontaine spoke to media about the sexual, physical, and psychological abuse he suffered as a child and called for a public inquiry into the residential school system.¹⁸³ The Anglican Church of Canada named 1992 as “A Year of Reconciliation with Aboriginal Peoples,” and in 1993 it formally apologized for its role in the Mohawk Institute and the residential school system.¹⁸⁴

In 1991 the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples was established to investigate and find solutions to the challenges affecting the relationship between Indigenous peoples (including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis), the Canadian government, and Canada. It would take until 1996 for the commission to submit its final, multi-volume report.¹⁸⁵ In an unprecedented fashion, the Royal Commission began to open up conversations in Canada about the residential school system, and also revealed the abuse and conditions faced in schools such as the Mohawk Institute for over a century and a half—concerns raised by Indigenous peoples from the start, who said the same thing but were ignored or dismissed. Central to this discussion were conversations about the intentions of church and state officials in the creation of the school system—namely, cultural genocide (sanitized by use of the term “assimilation”), land acquisition, and financial savings. Rather than learning places, schools were “sites of unlearning.”¹⁸⁶ Historian John Milloy has called them a “National Crime.”¹⁸⁷ As scholar Wendy Fletcher has indicated, when it comes to the residential school system, financial considerations always trumped concern for people: “The economics of enforcing an assimilationist monologue through a residential school system led to the dehumanization of indigenous children. How money is spent reveals much about what people value, speaking louder than any text about the philosophy of life and values. Such was certainly the case at the MI [Mohawk Institute]. The financial story demonstrates that aboriginal children were not valued as fully human nor their dignity respected.”¹⁸⁸ Fletcher goes on to stress that neither the NEC nor the Canadian government can claim ignorance of conditions at the Institute. Besides several inquiries, court cases, and public stories about the school, described in this and the previous chapter, school inspectors and others regularly reported on the Institute’s happenings. By the time of the school’s closure, in addition to the Department of Indian Affairs, the following entities were regularly monitoring the school: the Children’s Aid Society, a local mental health clinic, the National Health and Welfare Service, a Brant public school inspector, the Superintendent of Schools Regional Office, and the Six Nations Inspectorate of Schools.¹⁸⁹

The Royal Commission report said that schools such as the Mohawk Institute were the cause of what some psychologists have deemed “residential-school syndrome” and linked the schools to alcohol abuse, suicide, and family violence. Residential schools were the leading issue raised by Indigenous participants in their presentations to the commission. Georges Erasmus, co-chair of the Royal Commission emphasized that “there probably has not been a hearing that we have conducted that has not, at one point or another, provided an opportunity for someone that either has themselves experienced residential school or else someone in their family has been involved in a residential school.”¹⁹⁰ Canadians were beginning to realize the enormous negative impact that residential schools such as the Mohawk Institute had on Indigenous peoples and that their legacy was still being felt in Indigenous communities across Canada. No longer were Indigenous peoples going to be quiet about their experiences—they wanted change and justice. The residential school system was not something from the distant past with no relevance to the present. Issues plaguing some Indigenous communities, such as marginalization, financial disparities, poor parenting skills, addictions issues, intergenerational trauma and lateral violence, lack of housing, violence against Indigenous women and girls, over-incarceration in prisons, high rates of child apprehension, and systemic poverty, could be directly traced back to the schools. The TRC later described this as “disparities that condemn many Aboriginal people to shorter, poorer, and more troubled lives.”¹⁹¹ In 1998, the government responded to the Royal Commission with Gathering Strength: Canada’s Aboriginal Action Plan. The plan discusses the need to renew the “partnership” with Canada’s Indigenous peoples, strengthen Indigenous governance, develop a new fiscal relationship, and support people and economies. A $350 million “Healing Fund” was to help address the effects of the residential school system. Most felt this was far too little, far too late.

In the years since, more and more survivors of residential schools have turned to the court system to find recourse for what they had experienced. In 1998, former Mohawk Institute survivors launched a $900 million class action lawsuit on behalf of former students against the federal government and the Anglican Church of Canada. An additional $600 million suit was filed on behalf of the parents, siblings, children, and relatives of the students. At the time, it was estimated that more than one thousand students of the Mohawk Institute were still alive.¹⁹² They would eventually claim $2.3 billion in damages.¹⁹³ It was fitting that a group of students from Canada’s first and longest-running residential school, the Mohawk Institute, would lead the cause for redress. To address this rising tide of complaints—and in particular the court cases related to the Mohawk Institute—the Canadian federal government signed the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement in 2006. The agreement includes five main elements:

• a Common Experience Payment (CEP) for all eligible former students of Indian Residential Schools;
• an Independent Assessment Process (IAP) for claims of sexual or serious physical abuse;
• measures to support healing such as the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program and an endowment to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation;
• commemorative activities;
• the establishment of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).¹⁹⁴

Many survivors have opted to take the payment rather than go through a long and potentially harmful court case. To date, over $3 billion has been paid to school survivors across Canada, with an average payment per person of $111,265. Additional funds have been paid for commemoration, healing, and other activities.¹⁹⁵ Many have criticized this approach for, in the words of Andrew Woolford,

offering one-time payments with one hand while threatening with the might of police, prisons, and economic rollbacks with the other. . . . In such circumstances redress is felt not as a decolonizing impulse pushing toward a new nonsettler society but as another form of . . . “transfer”. . . . In this case, redress transfers the legitimate justice demands of Indigenous peoples into tiny boxes of repair, removing them as a challenge to the legitimacy of the settler colonial nation and potentially hiding the violence of settle colonialism within a language of reconciliation.¹⁹⁶

In 2008, while the TRC’s hearings were underway, the federal government finally issued a formal apology for its role in the residential school system. On 11 June 2008, Prime Minister Harper apologized and stated the following:

Two primary objectives of the Residential Schools system were to remove and isolate children from the influence of their homes, families, traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them into the dominant culture. These objectives were based on the assumption Aboriginal cultures and spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal. Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said, “to kill the Indian in the child.” Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country. . . . The Government of Canada built an educational system in which very young children were often forcibly removed from their homes, often taken far from their communities. Many were inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their parents, grandparents and communities. First Nations, Inuit and Métis languages and cultural practices were prohibited in these schools. Tragically, some of these children died while attending residential schools and others never returned home. The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language. While some former students have spoken positively about their experiences at residential schools, these stories are far overshadowed by tragic accounts of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect of helpless children, and their separation from powerless families and communities. The legacy of Indian Residential Schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today.¹⁹⁷

Now that the apology had been made, Indigenous peoples waited for action and the results of the TRC. Several former Mohawk Institute students testified at TRC hearings when commissioners visited Six Nations in 2012. It was reported that “hundreds of survivors and family members gathered at the Six Nations community hall” to tell their stories.¹⁹⁸ Norman Lickers, for instance, a former Mohawk Institute student, told the commission the following: “When we got up in the morning we did chores, we had breakfast, and after that we went out and did whatever else we were told to do. There was no actual instruction about it. . . . We were given just enough instruction in school to know that we were dissatisfied when we went back to the reserve, and yet we never got enough instruction with which we could go on.”¹⁹⁹

It would take until 2015 for the TRC to issue its report.²⁰⁰ By that time, over $72 million had been spent by the federal government to support the work being undertaken by the commission. In addition to hosting national events and conducting many studies, TRC commissioners spent six years travelling across Canada and hearing from more than six thousand witnesses. The TRC would assess over five million government records, which are now housed at the University of Manitoba. The commission’s findings were released in a six-volume set. It also issued ninety-four “Calls to Action” for Canada. These calls are far-reaching and pertain to the ongoing impact of residential schools like the Mohawk Institute.²⁰¹ One of the key findings was that the residential school system amounted to “cultural genocide”:

Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And, most significantly to the issue at hand, families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values and identity from one generation to the next. In dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.²⁰²

Though Canadians professed to be shocked by the use of the term “genocide,” this was not the first time the term had been utilized in this context. As early as 1954 a joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons said the situation of Indigenous peoples was akin to the “concentration camps of Nazi Europe,” and in 1993 Elijah Harper, himself a residential school survivor, “told the Winnipeg Free Press that Residential schools are a ‘prime example’ of federal government policies whose purpose was deliberate assimilation and genocide of Canada’s aboriginal people.”²⁰³ The Canadian government announced that September 30 would be National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Many people also now recognize this as “Orange Shirt Day,” started by Phyllis Webstad, a residential school survivor, who had the orange shirt her grandmother had bought her for the first day of school taken away when she attended the St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School.²⁰⁴ In 2022, the Canadian Parliament unanimously called upon the Government of Canada to recognize the residential schools policy as an act of genocide.²⁰⁵

As Canadians were grappling with their growing knowledge about the residential school system, shockwaves were once again sent across the country when the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc community in British Columbia released a statement about 215 potential graves being found via ground-penetrating radar on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in 2021.²⁰⁶ This grew into the Missing Children Project, whose goal is recording the deaths and burial places of children who died while attending residential school.²⁰⁷ The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc community’s statement prompted a national outcry (in the summer of 2021 more than sixty churches in Canada were destroyed, desecrated, or vandalized in a wave of grassroots anger), and The New York Times called the site a “mass grave.” Since that time, dissenters have said the findings do not pertain to the actual bodies of children and that the impact of residential schools has been sensationalized.²⁰⁸ The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc are now referring to the findings as “anomalies,” rather than unmarked graves.²⁰⁹ Despite this, over six thousand known child deaths in residential schools have been documented (records are incomplete, so the exact number will never be known).²¹⁰

Survivors’ Secretariat and the Mohawk Institute

After the news from the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, survivors of the Mohawk Institute began weekly meetings to determine how they would go about searching over six hundred acres of land tied to the school. That same year, Mark Hill, the elected chief of Six Nations, called on the federal government to provide funding for the search; at the same time, survivors of the Mohawk Institute encouraged police to launch criminal investigations into missing children and unmarked burials at the Institute, which ultimately led to the creation of a police task force. The Six Nations of the Grand River provided $1 million in funding to create the Survivors’ Secretariat, and searches of the Mohawk Institute school grounds using ground-penetrating radar equipment began. In 2022, the government provided $10.3 million in funding over three years in support of the work of the Survivors’ Secretariat.²¹¹ In 2024, after a gathering in Thunder Bay, the secretariat released A Time for Truth: Knowledge Is Sacred; Truth Is Healing. This report included a list of demands that must be met to move toward truth and reconciliation. These include the release of “all 23 million documents identified but not released to the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, and all RCMP records related to missing children and unmarked burials associated with Indian Residential Schools.” The secretariat is also seeking long-term funding to search for missing children and unmarked burials and has demanded that the Canadian government commit to “a complete account of the Indian Residential School experience,” create “spaces for sharing, learning and healing,” and “include support for memorialization and public commemoration as a central part of funding.”²¹²

Conclusion

Initially, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Crown sought out Indigenous groups such as the Six Nations as allies, but once the threat of war subsided after the War of 1812, Indigenous peoples were increasingly perceived as a “problem” that would supposedly be solved by the creation of schools like the Mohawk Institute. The schools evolved into a partnership between church and state. When they created the Mohawk Institute in the 1830s, NEC officials claimed to have sought the assimilation of the Six Nations, but by 1910, faced with increased racist sentiments combined with population growth and economic development of the larger non-Indigenous society, the Canadian government adopted a policy of reserve containment for Indigenous peoples. From the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second World War, government officials largely retreated from Indigenous affairs. Beginning in 1945, however, the government took a renewed interest in “managing” Indigenous peoples through a policy of integration. This culminated in the White Paper, the Indigenous response to which eventually brought an end to residential schools, including the Mohawk Institute.

The school has left a lasting scar—not only on students who attended, but on the entire Six Nations community, both past and present. Six Nations responded positively to the Institute in early years because they valued off-reserve labouring jobs and employment related to the agricultural industry; they believed the Institute would provide them with the necessary skills and connections to obtain such positions. Six Nations began responding negatively to the Institute when its benefits to their community decreased and the real intentions of school administrators became clear: access to Indigenous land, cultural genocide, and cost savings. Since non-Indigenous people replaced Indigenous people as labourers by the turn of the century, the school no longer served as a conduit to jobs, and increasingly Indigenous people opposed the abuse and paternalism of administrators. By 1900, the majority of pupils were orphans and indigent children, often from outside communities.

Many writers and historians assume the Institute can be deemed a “success” since the school existed for almost a century and a half, while many other industrial schools stayed open only a few years or decades. Yet, upon closer examination, it becomes obvious that the Mohawk Institute can only be called a success for government and church administrators in the very early years of the school. The school did not quickly “civilize” the Six Nations as its administrators assumed it would. Neither the church nor the government were willing to properly finance the high costs of running the Institute, and both church and government administrators underestimated the strength of Six Nations traditions, values, and culture, which were a formidable force. Despite numerous formal and informal investigations, officials ignored the many forms of harm that went on in the Mohawk Institute. Clearly, the school also failed to meet Indigenous needs or goals—rather than obtaining jobs, children faced abuse, suffering, and, as is increasingly being uncovered, even death.

The refusal of the Six Nations and other Indigenous communities to succumb to the forced assimilation policy of church and state officials contributed greatly to the eventual demise of schools like the Mohawk Institute. It took many years, however, for the government to respond to Indigenous discontent, and even then, it only did so due to the rising fear of the cost of court cases brought forward by school survivors. Thankfully, the “school” that was designed for cultural genocide is now home to a place in which Indigenous culture is preserved and fostered—a far cry from what church and state administrators originally envisioned for the Mohawk Institute. Much work remains to be done and more stories about life “behind the bricks” need to be told, however, before reconciliation can occur and the “truth” of the Mohawk Institute is widely recognized and known. This book is a small step in that direction.

Notes

I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for providing financial support for this research, and George Emery, professor emeritus at Western University, for supervising my 1993 master’s thesis on the Mohawk Institute.

1. 1 Frank Oliver, in Canada, House of Commons Debates, 11th Parl., 1st Sess., Vol. 1 (12 February 1909), 977. There are several secondary and primary sources quoted throughout this chapter that utilize the term “Indian.” Otherwise, the terms “First Nations,” “Indigenous peoples,” or references to specific nations (e.g., Six Nations) will be utilized.

2. 2 Frank Oliver, in Canada, House of Commons Debates, 11th Parl., 1st Sess., Vol. 1 (12 February 2009), 977.

3. 3 Residential schools have been described in various ways over time, though most today use the term “residential.” It would not be until the 1920s that the term “residential schools” was utilized. This chapter uses the terms “mechanics’ institute,” “manual labour,” “industrial” and “residential” interchangeably, though, as this chapter will demonstrate, historically there were some differences between these types of schools. Boarding schools were seen as separate from industrial schools until 1923.

4. 4 Jean Barman, Yvonne Hebert, and Don McCaskill, eds., Indian Education in Canada, vol. 1, The Legacy (University of British Columbia Press, 1986), 8.

5. 5 Treaties and Historical Research Centre, “The Historical Development of the Indian Act” (PRE Group, Indian and Northern Affairs, 1978), 105.

6. 6 David Laird, Indian Commissioner, to Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 30 June 1904 (S. E. Dawson, 1905), 204.

7. 7 For example, Frank Pedley wrote that “it is clear that the present system with its large expenditure has not operated as was expected towards the civilization of the aborigines.” See Frank Pedley to Joint Church Commission, 21 March 1908, File 1-1-1, pt. 2, Vol. 6001, Record Group 10 [hereafter RG 10], Library and Archives Canada [hereafter LAC].

8. 8 Frank Pedley, Report of the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 30 June 1906 (S. E. Dawson, 1907), xxxii.

9. 9 See chapters 1 and 11 in this volume.

10. 10 Frank Pedley, Report of the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 30 June 1905 (S. E. Dawson, 1906), xxxiii.

11. 11 Frank Oliver, in Canada, House of Commons Debates, 11th Parl., 1st Sess., Vol. 1 (12 February 1909), 977.

12. 12 Frank Pedley, Report of the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1907 (S. E. Dawson, 1907), xxxiii.

13. 13 Duncan C. Scott, Report of the Superintendent of Indian Education, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1910 (C. H. Parmelee, 1910), 273.

14. 14 David Hoffman, A Summary of Findings from Departmental Files and Selected Secondary Sources Related to Indian Residential School Policy (DIAND, 1993), 15.

15. 15 Report of the Superintendent of Indian Education, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1910, 273.

16. 16 Clifford Sifton in extract from Hansard of 18 July 1904, File 1-1-1, pt. 1, Vol. 6001, RG 10, LAC.

17. 17 Duncan C. Scott, Superintendent of Indian Education Report, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1913 (C. H. Parmelee, 1913), 305, and Duncan C. Scott, Superintendent of Indian Education Report, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1915 (J. de L. Tache, 1915), 123.

18. 18 Alison Norman, “The History of Education at Six Nations of the Grand River, 1828–1939,” in Ontario Since Confederation: A Reader, 2nd ed. (University of Toronto Press, 2024), 97.

19. 19 R. Ashton, Principal’s Report on the Mohawk Institute, 10 August 1905, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 30 June 1905 (S. E. Dawson, 1906), 282.

20. 20 There were a large number of well-established farms on the reserve. Sally Weaver claims the 1890s was the heyday of farming at Six Nations. See Sally Weaver, “The Iroquois: The Consolidation of the Grand River Reserve in the Mid-Nineteenth Century, 1847–1875,” in Aboriginal Ontario: Historical Perspectives on the First Nations, ed. Edward S. Rogers and Donald B. Smith (Dundurn Press, 1994), 223.

21. 21 W. F. Webster, Report of Mr. W. F. Webster Upon His Visit to the Mohawk Institute, Brantford, and the Grand River Reserve, Canada (Spottiswoode & Co., 1908), 11.

22. 22 Committee to Investigate Schools to Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, 11 March 1904, Box 5, #5, records pertaining to missions to the Aboriginal People in Western Canada, Presbyterian Church in Canada Foreign Mission Fonds, United Church Archives.

23. 23 P. H. Bryce, Report of the Indian Schools of Manitoba and the NorthWest Territories (Government Printing Bureau, 1907). In 1922 Bryce would go on to publish his findings in a book entitled The Story of a National Crime, Being an Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada.

24. 24 Kathleen McKenzie and Sean Carleton, “Hiding in Plain Sight: Newspaper Coverage of Dr. Peter Bryce’s 1907 Report on Residential Schools,” Active History, 29 September 2021, https://activehistory.ca/blog/2021/09/29/hiding-in-plain-sight-newspaper-coverage-of-dr-peter-bryces-1907-report-on-residential-schools/.

25. 25 See Regulations Relating to the Education of Indian Children (Government Printing Bureau, 1908).

26. 26 New England Company Committee, 10 April 1905, B3, File 7928-5, Manuscript Group [hereafter MG] 17, New England Company [hereafter NEC], LAC; Indian Department Memorandum, 22 August 1903, File 7825-1B, Vol. 2007, RG 10, LAC.

27. 27 Report of Rev. R. Ashton, Principal of the Mohawk Institute, Brantford, Ont., for the Year Ended 31 March 1910, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1910, 420.

28. 28 S. H. Blake, Memorandum on Indian Work (Bryant Press, 1909).

29. 29 Indian Board, 12 October 1905, File 7825-1B, Vol. 2007, RG 10, LAC.

30. 30 “Indians Have a Grievance,” Globe, 5 June 1906, 10.

31. 31 Donald Purich, Our Land: Native Rights in Canada (James Lorimer & Company, 1986), 134.

32. 32 Globe, “Indians Have a Grievance.”

33. 33 Letter from Six Nations Indians, Haldimand Banner, 22 March 1906.

34. 34 New England Company Committee, 9 August 1905, B3, File 7928-5, MG 17, NEC, LAC.

35. 35 Globe, “Indians Have a Grievance.”

36. 36 Duncan C. Scott, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, 18 December 1930, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1930, 18.

37. 37 The Report of A. Nelles Ashton, Principal of the Mohawk Institute Brantford, Ont., for the Year Ended 31 March 1911, in Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1911 (C. H. Parmelee, 1911), 521–2.

38. 38 Report of A. Nelles Ashton, Principal of the Mohawk Institute Brantford, Ont. in Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1912 (C. H. Parmelee, 1912), 510–11.

39. 39 See various letters to the Department of Indian Affairs in Elizabeth Graham, The Mush Hole: Life at Two Indian Residential Schools (Heffle Publishing, 1997), 107.

40. 40 Memo from D. C. Scott, 28 November 1912, File 160-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6039, RG 10, LAC.

41. 41 Memo from the Deputy Superintendent General, File 150-9, Pt. 1, Vol. 6031, RG 10, LAC.

42. 42 Duncan Campbell Scott to Hon. Dr. Roche, File 154,845, Pt. 1, 28 October 1913, Vol. 2771, RG 10, LAC.

43. 43 See chapter 8 for a detailed analysis of the court case and settlement.

44. 44 Sir John Winnifrith, The New England Company, 1890–1992 (New England Company, 1993), 103.

45. 45 Memo from D. C. Scott, 25 June 1917, File 160-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6039, RG 10, LAC.

46. 46 Deputy Superintendent General to F. W. Jacobs, the Secretary of the Grand Indian Council of Ontario, 29 March 1917, File 493106, Vol. 3195, RG 10, LAC.

47. 47 Statement of Indian Industrial Schools, Tabular Statements, Year Ended 31 March 1918, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1918 (J. de L. Tache, 1918), 95 of tabular statements section.

48. 48 Duncan C. Scott, Report of the Deputy Superintendent General, 31 October 1918, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1918, 11.

49. 49 “A History of the Mohawk Institute,” Wadrihawa, Quarterly Newsletter of the Woodland Cultural Centre 17–18, nos. 4 and 1 (June 2003): 7.

50. 50 “A History of the Mohawk Institute.”

51. 51 Graham, The Mush Hole, 10.

52. 52 See File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC. These descriptions were taken from various years during the period 1919–21.

53. 53 Duncan C. Scott, Report of the Deputy Superintendent General, The Visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, 1 December 1919, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1919 (J. de L. Tache, 1920), 7.

54. 54 Scott, 33.

55. 55 Scott, 33.

56. 56 Scott, Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1930, 19.

57. 57 See report by Boyce, September–October 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC, and Boyce to Department of Indian Affairs [hereafter DIA], 4 November 1922, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC. See also chapter 4 of this volume.

58. 58 Gordon J. Smith, Superintendent to DIA, 23 December 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

59. 59 A. Boyce, 20 June 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1A, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC; Boyce, May–June Report, 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

60. 60 A. Boyce, July–August Report, 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

61. 61 Emily Pheasant to Boyce, 9 August 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

62. 62 Gordon J. Smith, Superintendent, 30 January 1922, File 466-2, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

63. 63 “A History of the Mohawk Institute.”

64. 64 See File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC for correspondence that describes these issues.

65. 65 Ann Boyce, September–October Report, 1921, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

66. 66 Report of Reverend T. Ferrier, 24–25 April 1906, File 468-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6205, RG 10, LAC. See also Inspector Gordon J. Smith to Secretary, DIA, 16 July 1908, File 468-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6205, RG 10, LAC. Finally, see Mary Jane Logan McCallum’s book Nii Ndahlohke: Boys’ and Girls’ Work at Mount Elgin Industrial School, 1890–1915 (Friesen Press, 2022).

67. 67 The principal of Wikwemikong reported in 1904 that only 126 children were in attendance at the school even though it could hold 160. See Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 30 June 1904, 311. Likewise, by 1904 only 57 were in attendance at the Shingwauk school; of these, 19 were motherless, 9 were fatherless, and 17 were orphans. By 1910 only 37 remained. See Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 30 June 1904, 308, and Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1910, 423.

68. 68 See Annual Reports of the Department of Indian Affairs for the early years of the twentieth century. By 1918 the Mohawk Institute had 140 children in attendance. See Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for the Year Ended 31 March 1918, 95.

69. 69 Indian Department Memorandum, 13 December 1922, File 466-9, Pt. 1, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC.

70. 70 See correspondence in File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

71. 71 Schultz Brothers Company, 12 October 1922, File 466-5, Pt. 1, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC.

72. 72 Duncan C. Scott, 8 January 1923, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

73. 73 Rogers, Sydney, Marriage, 13 December 1922, BX, P. 16, Col. 1, Boyce, Alice Mary (wife), Brantford Expositor.

74. 74 Russell Ferrier to F. R. Bush, Charter Clerk, New England Company, 21 October 1924, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

75. 75 Duncan Campbell Scott, 13 September 1924, File 166-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

76. 76 Russell T. Ferrier claimed in 1924 that “we have discontinued the use of the words ‘Boarding’ and ‘Industrial’ in connection with out [sic] residential institutions. Indian schools are now divided into day and residential.” See Russell T. Ferrier to M. C. MacLean, Assistant Chief of Education Statistics, 18 November 1924, File 1-1-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6001, RG 10, LAC.

77. 77 Brantford Junior Expositor, 20 December 1924.

78. 78 Extract from Inspection Report, 7 November 1923, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

79. 79 In his report for January of 1923, classroom work appears, but in the following reports it is seldom mentioned. See Rogers’s reports in File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

80. 80 “Sister of Pauline Johnson Explains Trouble at the Reserve, Sends Open Letter, Declares Mohawks Want Chance for Higher Education,” Toronto Sunday World, 18 November 1923.

81. 81 Cecil E. Moran, Superintendent of Six Nations, 19 November 1923, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

82. 82 Col. Andrew T. Thompson, Report by Col. Andrew T. Thompson, B. A., LL. B. Commissioner to Investigate and Enquire into the Affairs of the Six Nations Indians (Printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, 1924), 5.

83. 83 Thompson, 6.

84. 84 Thompson, 7.

85. 85 See Thompson, Report, Supplementary Report, 20–5.

86. 86 See student interviews from this era in Graham, The Mush Hole.

87. 87 Sydney Rogers, 7 April 1924, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

88. 88 S. Tapscott and Co. order form, 29 December 1929, File 466-1-13, Pt. 1, Vol. 6202, RG 10, LAC; Ingram Bell statement, 9 January 1925, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

89. 89 Sydney Rogers, 8 October 1925, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

90. 90 Sydney Rogers, 5 January 1926, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

91. 91 Sydney Rogers, 30 June 1929, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

92. 92 Sydney Rogers, 10 April 1923, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

93. 93 Sydney Rogers, 19 May 1925, File 466-1, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

94. 94 A. Rogers in Thompson, Report, Supplementary Report, 22.

95. 95 A. Rogers in Thompson, 22.

96. 96 Alison Norman, “‘True to My Own Noble Race’: Six Nations Women Teachers at Grand River in the Early Twentieth Century,” Ontario History 107, no. 1 (2018): 18, https://doi.org/10.7202/1050677ar.

97. 97 Norman, 19.

98. 98 New England Company Governor, 27 July 1928, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

99. 99 New England Company Governor, 27 July 1928, 14 January 1929, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

100. 100 Russell T. Ferrier, 9 April 1926, File 466-5, Pt. 2, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC.

101. 101 See Wendy Fletcher, “A Canadian Experiment with Social Engineering, a Historical Case: The Mohawk Institute,” Historical Papers 2004: Canadian Society of Church History (2004): 136, https://doi.org/10.25071/0848-1563.39276; and Report to D. C. Scott, 23 May 1929, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

102. 102 John L. Tobias, “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation: An Outline History of Canada’s Indian Policy,” in As Long as the Sun Shines and Water Flows: A Reader in Canadian Native Studies, ed. Ian A. Getty and Antoine S. Lussier (University of British Columbia Press, 1988), 51; Rev. H. W. Snell, “The Mohawk Institute,” The Eagle, July 1930, in File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

103. 103 Hoffman, A Summary of Findings from Departmental Files and Selected Secondary Sources Related to Indian Residential School Policy, 50.

104. 104 See File 466-5, Pt. 4, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC, and File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

105. 105 See File 466-5, Pt. 4, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC.

106. 106 Russell Ferrier, 14 March 1930, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

107. 107 Brantford Expositor, 16 May 1936.

108. 108 Rev. H. W. Snell, “The Mohawk Institute,” The Eagle, July 1930, in File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

109. 109 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, vol. 1, Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 1, Origins to 1939 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 343.

110. 110 Philip Phelan, Chief of Training Division, 20 October 1944, File 466-1, Pt. 3, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

111. 111 James E. Deley, Indian agent for Walpole Island to DIA, October 1941, File 466-5, Pt. 3, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC.

112. 112 Mohawk Institute Report, 13 October 1934, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

113. 113 Mohawk Institute Investigation Report, 12 November 1934, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC

114. 114 Rev. H. W. Snell, “The Mohawk Institute,” The Eagle, July 1930, File 466-1, Pt. 2, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC2.

115. 115 Horace Snell, 26 October 1936, File 466-1, Pt. 3, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

116. 116 H. H. Craig, lawyer of Ross Chrysler, 29 July 1937, File 466-1, Pt. 3, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

117. 117 Horace Snell, 11 August 1937, File 466-1, Pt. 3, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

118. 118 R. A. Hoey to Reverend S. R. McVitty, 7 November 1941, File 1-1-1, Pt. 4, Vol. 6001, RG 10, LAC.

119. 119 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, vol. 1, Canada’s Residential Schools: The History, Part 2, 1939 to 2000 (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 49.

120. 120 New England Company to the Department, 16 June 1943, File 466-1, Pt. 3, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

121. 121 See Fletcher, “A Canadian Experiment with Social Engineering,” 137.

122. 122 R. A. Hoey, Superintendent of Welfare and Training, 9 November 1942, File 466-1, Pt. 3, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

123. 123 See File 466-1, Pt. 4, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC for correspondence regarding the potential appointment of Hill as principal.

124. 124 Canada, House of Commons Debates, 20th Parl., 2nd Sess., Vol. 5 (27 August 1946), 5489.

125. 125 J. R. Miller, “The Irony of Residential Schooling,” Canadian Journal of Native Education 14, no. 2 (1987): 9.

126. 126 See Canada, Parliament, House of Commons, Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on the Indian Act, Minutes of Proceedings of Evidence, 1946–8, 20th Parl., 2nd Sess., Meeting No. 1, 1946.

127. 127 Tobias, “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation,” 52.

128. 128 See Philip Phelan, 13 September 1950, File 466-1, Pt. 6, Vol. 6202, RG 10, LAC.

129. 129 Report of Bernard F. Neary, Superintendent of Welfare and Training, 29 October 1946, File 466-5, Pt. 5, Vol. 6201, RG 10, LAC.

130. 130 Harold Palmer to C. P. Randle, 20 July 1946, File 466-3, Pt. 1, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

131. 131 W. L. Falconer, 2 June 1948, File 466-1, Pt. 5, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

132. 132 Infections were so common that part of the admission process required that a child be tested for disease. See File 466-13, Pt. 2, Vol. 6202, RG 10, LAC.

133. 133 “A History of the Mohawk Institute,” 6.

134. 134 Brantford Expositor, 22 February 1946.

135. 135 “Probe Ordered into Affairs of Indian School,” Globe and Mail, 23 February 1946, 5.

136. 136 “Denies Anglicans Are Responsible,” Globe and Mail, 25 February 1946.

137. 137 See unidentified newspaper article “Church Not Responsible for Upkeep of Institute,” hand-dated 23 February 1946, in File 466-1, Pt. 4, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

138. 138 See unidentified newspaper article, “Say Criticism of Institute Unfounded,” 20 March 1946, 7, in File 466-1, Pt. 4, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

139. 139 Brantford Expositor, 15 March 1950.

140. 140 See unidentified newspaper article, “L. C. W Reply Re Findings of Grand Jury,” n.d., File 466-1, Pt. 4, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

141. 141 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, vol. 1, pt. 2:338.

142. 142 E. Randle, Indian Superintendent, 25 March 1949, File 466-10, Pt. 6, Vol. 6202, RG 10, LAC; Bernard F. Neary, Superintendent of Education, 9 April 1949, File 466-10, Pt. 6, Vol. 6202, RG 10, LAC.

143. 143 Punishment Regulations by Superintendent of Welfare and Training, 15 December 1947, File 466-1, Pt. 5, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC; W. J. Zimmerman to DIA, 6 December 1947, File 466-1, Pt. 5, Vol. 6200, RG 10, LAC.

144. 144 See the experience recounted by one student, known to us only as Gary, in Brantford Expositor, 6 July 1991.

145. 145 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, vol. 1, pt. 2:368.

146. 146 Hoffman, A Summary of Findings from Departmental Files and Selected Secondary Sources Related to Indian Residential School Policy, 47.

147. 147 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, vol. 1, pt. 2:19.

148. 148 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 111.

149. 149 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 137.

150. 150 Hoffman, A Summary of Findings from Departmental Files and Selected Secondary Sources Related to Indian Residential School Policy, 47.

151. 151 Hoffman, 39.

152. 152 H. B. Hawthorn, ed., A Survey of the Contemporary Indians of Canada: A Report on Economic, Political, Educational Needs and Policies in Two Volumes (Indian Affairs Branch, 1967), 2:30.

153. 153 Hawthorn, 2:12.

154. 154 Deirdre F. Jordan, “Education and the Reclaiming of Identity: Rights and Claims of Canadian Indians, Norwegian Sami, and Australian Aborigines,” in Arduous Journey: Canadian Indians and Decolonization, ed. J. Rick Ponting (McClelland and Stewart, 1988), 267.

155. 155 Graham, The Mush Hole, 22.

156. 156 Barman et al., Indian Education in Canada, 13.

157. 157 See Hoffman A Summary of Findings from Departmental Files and Selected Secondary Sources Related to Indian Residential School Policy, 11.

158. 158 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, vol. 1, pt. 2:93.

159. 159 Brantford Expositor, 10 June 1970.

160. 160 Brantford Expositor, 3 November 1971.

161. 161 Education Division letter in Hoffman, A Summary of Findings from Departmental Files and Selected Secondary Sources Related to Indian Residential School Policy, 48.

162. 162 Donna Duric, Lynda Powless, and Chase Jarrett, “‘Mush-Hole Kids’ Finally Get to Tell Their Story to History,” Turtle Island News, 29 August 2012, https://vitacollections.ca/sixnationsarchive/3247590/data; Michelle Ruby, “Save the Evidence Campaign Reaches $23.5-Million Goal,” Brantford Expositor, 26 April 2002.

163. 163 “Mohawk Institute,” Engracia De Jesus Matias Archives and Special Collections, Algoma University, accessed 1 March 2024, http://archives.algomau.ca/main/?q=taxonomy/term/1022.

164. 164 See “Institute Now History” article reproduced in “50th Anniversary of the Closure of the Mohawk Institute Residential School,” Woodland Cultural Centre, 29 June 2020, https://woodlandculturalcentre.ca/50th-anniversary-of-the-closure-of-the-mohawk-institute-residential-school/.

165. 165 “Mohawk Institute,” Engracia De Jesus Matias Archives and Special Collections, Algoma University.

166. 166 Letter from Six Nations Council, Office of the Secretary, signed by Council Clerk M. Bloomfield to the Department of Public Records and Archives, ℅ C. Thorpe, 10 March 1972, File—Mohawk Institute, 1831, Ontario Heritage Trust Archives. See Cody Groat’s chapter in this volume for further information about the plaque and how the schools has been commemorated.

167. 167 Naohiro Nakamura, “Indigenous Cultural Self-Representation and Its Internal Critiques: A Case Study of the Woodland Cultural Centre, Canada,” Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education 8 no. 3 (2014): 148.

168. 168 See “About Us,” Woodland Culture Centre, accessed 31 October 2024, https://woodlandculturalcentre.ca/about/.

169. 169 Numerous schools had been demolished, including the Lower Post Residential School, the Coqualeetza Institute, St. Michael’s Residential School, and Isle La Crosse School, among others.

170. 170 Douglas George Kanentioo in Mike Peeling, “Brant News’ Community Hero Award: Save the Evidence Campaign,” Indian Time (reprinted from Brant News), 5 January 2017, https://www.indiantime.net/story/2017/01/05/news/brant-news-community-hero-award-save-the-evidence-campaign/23414.html.

171. 171 Peeling, “Brant News’ Community Hero Award.”

172. 172 Ruby, “Save the Evidence Campaign Reaches $23.5-Million Goal.”

173. 173 See Ry Moran, “Tear Down Residential Schools, or Keep Them as Memorials? Communities Should Decide,” Tyee, 12 January 2021, https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/01/12/Community-Choice-Tear-Down-Or-Keep-Residential-Schools/; Carling Beninger, “Implementing TRC Call to Action #79: Commemoration of Indian Residential School Sites,” Active History, 30 September 2017, https://activehistory.ca/blog/2017/09/30/implementing-trc-call-to-action-79-commemoration-of-indian-residential-school-sites/.

174. 174 See chapter 7 for a more detailed analysis of preservation and commemoration at the Mohawk Institute.

175. 175 Parks Canada, “Residential Schools in Canada,” Government of Canada, last modified 23 July 2024, https://parks.canada.ca/culture/designation/pensionnat-residential.

176. 176 Parks Canada, “Residential Schools in Canada.”

177. 177 “Mohawk Institute a Historic Site,” Turtle Island News, 16 April 2014, 4, https://vitacollections.ca/sixnationsarchive/3247331/data .

178. 178 See Graham, The Mush Hole.

179. 179 Graham, 25.

180. 180 See chapter 13 of this volume.

181. 181 See chapter 14 of this volume.

182. 182 Canada, 37th Parl., 1st Sess., Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs, Northern Development and Natural Resources, meeting 43, presentation by John Leslie, research consultant, 12 March 2002.

183. 183 See, for instance, Fontaine’s interview with CBC’s The Journal, which aired 30 October 1990.

184. 184 See Peter G. Bush, “The Canadian Churches’ Apologies for Colonialism and Residential Schools, 1986–1998,” Canadian Journal of Peace and Conflict Studies 47, no. 102 (2015): 47–70.

185. 185 See Canada, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996). The report comprises five volumes.

186. 186 Facing History and Ourselves, Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools (Facing History and Ourselves, 2015), 11.

187. 187 John Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986 (University of Manitoba Press, 1999). Milloy’s title comes from Peter Bryce’s 1922 work of the same name, which focused on the deplorable conditions in residential schools.

188. 188 See Fletcher, “A Canadian Experiment with Social Engineering,” 138.

189. 189 See Fletcher, 145.

190. 190 See Canada, Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Round Table on Residential Schools (CD-ROM record), George Erasmus, 18 March 1993.

191. 191 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, vol. 5, Canada’s Residential Schools: The Legacy (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 3.

192. 192 See Lynda Powless, “‘Mush-Hole’ $900 Million Survivor Suit Sparks Memories,” Turtle Island News, 14 October 1998.

193. 193 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, vol. 1, pt. 2:568.

194. 194 Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, “Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement,” Government of Canada, last modified 9 June 2021, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100015576/1571581687074 .

195. 195 Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, “Statistics on the Implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement,” Government of Canada, last modified 19 February 2019, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1315320539682/1571590489978 .

196. 196 Andrew Woolford, This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States (University of Manitoba Press, 2015), 287.

197. 197 Stephen Harper, on behalf of the Government of Canada, “Statement of Apology to Former Students of Indian Residential Schools,” Government of Canada, last modified 15 September 2010, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1100100015644/1571589171655 .

198. 198 Duric et al., “‘Mush-Hole Kids’ Finally Get to Tell Their Story to History.”

199. 199 Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Final Report, vol. 1, pt. 2:29.

200. 200 See Brieg Capitaine and Karine Vanthuyne, eds., Power Through Testimony: Reframing Residential Schools in the Age of Reconciliation (UBC Press, 2017), for a discussion of whether the TRC will be able to change colonial thinking about residential schools and alter the relationship between Indigenous peoples and Canadian society.

201. 201 See Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,” Government of Canada, last modified 28 May 2024, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060525, and Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015). See also Arthur Manuel and Ronald Derrickson, Unsettling Canada: A National Wake-Up Call (Between the Lines, 2015), for a discussion of how Canada is grappling with the place of Indigenous peoples in Canadian society.

202. 202 National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, A Knock on the Door: The Essential History of Residential Schools from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, edited and Abridged version (University of Manitoba Press, 2016), 4. Residential schools were only part of the policy of cultural genocide—other aspects include the pass system, treaties, and the ban on ceremonies such as the Sun Dance and potlatch, etc.

203. 203 Agnes Grant, No End of Grief: Indian Residential Schools in Canada (Pemmican Publications Inc., 1996), 269.

204. 204 See Marie Battiste, Decolonizing Education, Nourishing the Learning Spirit (Purich, 2013), for a discussion of the potential of new models of education.

205. 205 Richard Raycraft, “MPs Back Motion Calling on Government to Recognize Residential Schools Program as Genocide,” CBC News, last updated 28 October 2022, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/house-motion-recognize-genocide-1.6632450 .

206. 206 Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc (Kamloops Indian Band), Office of the Chief, press release, 27 May 2021, https://tkemlups.ca/wp-content/uploads/05-May-27-2021-TteS-MEDIA-RELEASE.pdf.

207. 207 See Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada, “Missing Children and Burial Information,” Government of Canada, last modified 24 May 2024, https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1524504992259/1557512149981.

208. 208 See, for example, Crystal Gail Fraser, “Residential School Denialism Is an Attack on the truth,” Conversation, 3 July 2024, https://theconversation.com/residential-school-denialism-is-an-attack-on-the-truth-233318, and Sean Carleton, “We Fact-Checked Residential School Denialists and Debunked Their ‘Mass Grave Hoax’ Theory,” Conversation, 17 October 2023, https://theconversation.com/we-fact-checked-residential-school-denialists-and-debunked-their-mass-grave-hoax-theory-213435.

209. 209 Tristin Hopper, “B. C. First Nation Now Referring to 215 Suspected Graves as ‘Anomalies’ Instead of ‘Children,’” National Post, 28 May 2024, https://nationalpost.com/opinion/tkemlups-te-secwepemc-first-nation-graves-kamloops.

210. 210 Daniel Schwartz, “Truth and Reconciliation Commission: By the Numbers,” CBC News, 2 June 2015, https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-by-the-numbers-1.3096185.

211. 211 “Our Story,” Survivors’ Secretariat, accessed 30 October 2024, https://survivorssecretariat.ca/our-story/.

212. 212 “New Report Urges Federal Government to Stay True to Its Commitment to the Missing Children of Indian Residential Schools,” Survivors’ Secretariat, press release, 30 September 2024, https://survivorssecretariat.ca/pressreleases/new-report-urges-federal-government-to-stay-true-to-its-commitment-to-themissing-children-of-indian-residential-schools/.