I'm currently reading this book on what occurred in these government issued schools on the American Indigenous peoples. Truthfully I feel heart broken when I read what our ancestors' have experienced :/ Please Read. It's very important to know who and where we come from to stand our grounds in out identity as an indigenous people!
From what I have read thus far covers the fact that over 50% of the indigenous children in these schools were murdered by the churches, such as being strangled, hung, beaten, medical experimentations, etc., while the schools never admitted their wrong doing. They claim these children, our ancestors were killed by "natural causes" or tuberculosis. Yeah, what a "great" nation for making the first people of this nation second class citizens just because they wanted our land.
Here is a direct quote from the reading:
"The church people were worshipping the devil, not us. They wanted the gold, the coal, the land we occupied. So they terrorized us into giving it to them. How does a man who was raped every day when he was seven make anything out of his life? The residential schools were set up to destroy our lives, and they succeeded. The whites were terrorists, pure and simple." - Bill Seward, Survivor of Kuper Island School
There were many other events occurring in these schools, such as the young girls who were going through puberty were sterilized because they were Indian. The schools also sterilized the young girls because they were raped and impregnated by priests, government officials and men of power. They only way the schools could hide their faults were by killing and putting fear into our people from ever speaking.
Take a stand and be prideful of who and where you come from, natives! We are a GREAT nation, our ancestors and communities went and still are going through struggles for our identity, but we can fight and prove we are worthy! More than any one!
<3 Khwist ha tar'i'm (One, who walks with thunder)
