Remains of 215 children found on grounds of residential school

[OLChemist]

The remains of 215 children were discovered on the grounds of the Kamloops Residential Indian School in British Colombia.

CTV News report

BBC World News report

[wardancer]

I saw this and on one hand it's horrifying that this happened , and on the other hand I'm glad they found them. I see that the group doing this has already found over 4100 of the missing. Now the hard part , identifying all the remains and getting them back to their families !

[Broken Arrow]

Heartbreaking.

Inconceivable that it happened. Those who are responisble in the past must have known that is was wrong.

That it has not been uncovered by the government itself is a shame. Those who were at the school int the teme between 1970 and 1978 should have known about it. Normally there are hints even there has been a lot of effort doe to conceal it.

[OLChemist]

Inconceivable? Clearly you don't know about the purpose of the boarding schools. In the US, they were a cheaper form of warfare. The US system's education pilot project was conducted by the commander of a military prison. Until 1934, the stated goal of the Indian educational system was to "kill the Indian and save the man."

History Channel: Carlisle Indian Industrial School

PBS Documentary about the boarding schools

The system has left a mixed legacy of damage and pain, yet created a shared pan-Indian identity. In many cases it broke the transmission of language and culture.


Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission

[Broken Arrow]

On the death in such a system may be comparable to other barbarian methods but might trigger a lot of discussion.

May be much to short, not enough reflected and argued but those death as I read Nuremburg described a US Attorney as crime against humanity.

The US and Canadian citicens missed a trial in front of the grand jury in the manner the US demanded at Nuremburg against their conductors of crime against humanity.

But that what lead to further debate which many people might not want to enter into consideration.

As to Nurmeburg, the secret additional protocol of the Hitler-Stalin Pakt was cancelled out form the Nuremburg trials. If not, it most probably would have required to set Stalin next to Göring on the Prosecutors bench as war criminal and conducting a war of agression with Germany.

Inconceivable insofar as that humans are able to do such things to other humans. We are all creators children and should respect each other and try to understand why convictions are different and find ways to live with the differences.

[OLChemist]

BA, bear with me if I misunderstood your post.

I'm not sure the analogy is accurate. The big difference is intent. The Third Reich intended to isolate, exploit and ultimately exterminate those targeted by the Final Solution and other programs to remove "undesirables" from German society. Those who started the various Indian school programs honestly thought they were helping Indian people. The standard in the European common law that underlays US and Canadian law, requires mens rea, the guilty mind to determine criminal intent.

The foundation of Indian education in the US was initially missionary activity. Yes, the folks who started the Indian schools at Harvard, Hanover (eventually became Dartmouth College), and the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall believed their culture and religion was superior to that of Native peoples. But, it isn't reasonable to argue that they wanted to kill Indians. "Save" them, yes. The various Friends of the Indians groups who advocated for education as an alternative to warfare, who may well have envisioned the eradication of Native cultures as a result of their program, intended for their charges to be be alive at the end of the educational process.

Physically, the children were mostly victims of bureaucratic indifference, institutional neglect, and cultural chauvinism. Schools weren't given enough money for food and supplies, increasing their dependence on student labor. (The schools' curricula were already designed to use student labor, under the guise of teaching marketable skills as a domestic or manual laborer. Indians weren't supposed to be thinkers....) The parents considered at best an impediment to student development, thus disenfranchising them. Further, the powerless always attract the perverted and the cruel to prey upon them. These children were the most powerless and forgotten.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions. There was no questioning the assumption upon which the entire enterprise rested, that Native cultures were possessed of not a single positive attribute and the only way for Native people to survive and join a shared society was by being completely remade in the image of the dominant culture. Even the mission schools never looked at their own scriptures and saw the elements of common grace God gives every culture and most all failed to see their charges as created in the imago dei just as they were.

[LizRunningEagle]

The remains of 215 children were discovered on the grounds of the Kamloops Residential Indian School in British Colombia.

CTV News report

BBC World News report

This is heartbreaking. I am at a loss for words and at the same time angry that this happened. Not surprised, just angry. These were children. How can you sleep at night and live with yourself after torturing and murdering children. These people are the worst kind of evil. My heart grieves for these children and their families.

[Broken Arrow]

Sigh OL, you know I always bear with you and I think there is some way of misunderstanding and a part of on such topice is, I am thinking in my language and have to translate into English and that always ends up with not rightly worded English sentences.

And I am on such topics sad, angry and it is beyond what I can comprehend as a human under the "New Testament".

I am not sure if there was not in part of the society and goverenment the intention to extinguish the natives as a group. The intentions might have wavered during the years. I think of what Sherman said: "The only good Indians I ever saw were dead ones."

When the children started to day, those on their missionary way to kill the native culture should have back stepped and the government too late but should have recognized it already in the last century or better in the century when it happened.

But as the church shows today, they fear the truth and with much effort the truth is surpressed.

BA, bear with me if I misunderstood your post.

I'm not sure the analogy is accurate. The big difference is intent.

Even the mission schools never looked at their own scriptures and saw the elements of common grace God gives every culture and most all failed to see their charges as created in the imago dei just as they were.

That is what I can not understand. Than they are Hypocrites.