Posts tagged canada

The Canadian Indian residential school system, founded in the 19th century, were created for the sole purpose of forcing the assimilation of the Aboriginal (First Nations) peoples into western, "civilized" Canadian society. Basically, this system of schools, which was jointly-controlled by the churches and the federal government, believed that indigenous children needed to be "civilized" in order to assimilate into modern, western, Canadian society. They aimed to achieve this goal by forcibly taking young children (as early as 6 years old) from their homes and placing them in residential schools.