They were used as free labour: the Kamloops residential school in question used half days, and the other half of the day children were made to work, often in agriculture. From the late 1800s, and only officially ending in 1996 with the last residential school closure, children were taken from their homes and robbed of their family and culture. It is hard to overstate the pain and damage Canada’s long history of residential schools has done - in fact, even the word “history” is misleading, since it is only very recently that this practice has stopped, and generations of survivors are still alive. Every former residential school in Canada needs to be searched, because it was not uncommon to have unmarked graves on the grounds of these schools. There have already been 104 more potential graves located at a Manitoba residential school. As horrific as that number is, this is only one unmarked gravesite. This is a devastating discovery, although the reason this has come to light is because of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc community’s long fight to not have these children forgotten. In May 2021, the remains of 215 children were found at the former residential school in Kamloops. Content warning: this post discusses some of the atrocities of Indian Residential Schools, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
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