Kill The Indian, Save The Man

Residential schools were government funded religious schools that were established to assimilate Indigenous children into the American culture. Christian churches in conjunction with the governments of both Canada and the Unites States created these schools to convert the Indigenous away from their culture into what they deemed an appropriate, more civilized way of life. The programs implemented were a complete and total systematic eradication of the Indigenous civilization. These schools were a key tool in the genocide of the American native population. Although an actual number may never be known, it is currently estimated 1 in 20 children died, with 80 percent of the school-aged children attending. Trigger warning: the information we are going to discuss today contains graphic and disturbing content regarding death along with sexual physical and mental abuse of children.