Graves at Residential schools

[Fancy]

Again, people are jumping the gun. So many accusations yet nothing has been proven yet and it would make sense that investigations be allowed to gather the facts before jumping to conclusions.

Delorme said at one time the graves were marked but those who operated the school removed the markers.

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/24/10097840 ... -in-canada

[Jx3]

The last residential school in BC was closed in 1996. The school in Saskatchewan where they've found hundreds of additional unmarked grave sites was closed in 1997. This is not ancient history, and as evidenced on these threads racist ignorance is still quite widespread.

The last schools may have been closed in the 1990's but I highly doubt that any children died and were buried at residential schools anywhere near that late. I would suspect that the vast majority of deaths and burials were likely from the late 1800's until the possibly the 1930's or 1940's. I wonder how many of them may have been from the last pandemic in 1918 - 1919 and from other diseases rampant in the early 20th century.

There needs to be investigations into all of these grave sites to examine the remains and find out what the timeframe actually is. If it turns out that some of them are from more recent times and the people responsible may still be alive, then they need to be held accountable.

It is my belief, given the information currently available, that these graves most likely contain remains from many decades ago and the vast majority of those children may have died of completely natural causes given the time period (sickness and disease) over a span of decades. Undoubtedly many children did die at residential schools of malnutrition and mistreatment or worse but unfortunately those responsible are likely long dead themselves by now. Having said that, the only way to know one way or the other is to exhume the remains and investigate but will that ever be allowed to happen or are these remains and grave sites worth more without this knowledge being made available?

[techrtr]

751 graves in Saskatchewan

https://www.castanet.net/news/Canada/33 ... rst-Nation

Until every one of the suspected graves has been excavated to determine if they contain human remains, it's nothing but speculation. Now, excavating 700 plus graves is a pretty huge undertaking so I would expect they'll excavate a random sample of the suspected graves - say 10% or 20% and extrapolate from that sample.

[stuphoto]

A brief overview of how GPR is used and what they are looking for.



Although it doesn't actually appear to show the skeleton, it appears that the experts know what they are looking at from experience over known graves.

[Hurtlander]

In regards to the gravesite in Saskatchewan, The First Nations spokesperson on the news this morning, with his very informative slide show, very clearly said that the entire community knew that there are grave’s in that field, the spokesperson said that many years ago the grave markers had been removed by the church and not replaced, I’m assuming the grave markers were wooden and removed because they rotted away and not replaced.... The First Nations spokesperson also stated that the village elders also claim that there were adults buried in that graveyard.
The band used ground penetrating radar to pinpoint the exact location of the original grave markers, essentially these are “unmarked graves” but technically not an unknown or secret gravesite like the discovery in Kamloops. Unfortunately the media is now trying to claim that all the 600-700 unmarked graves belonged to school children. The media has also conveniently edited most of the original press conference that the First Nations spokesperson held this morning containing all the pertinent facts and details.
Having said that, even one child dying while in the care of the church run residential school is one too many, and the church needs to be held to account, even if that means criminal charges against any of the former staff that are still among the living... but there’s absolutely no reason for the media to exaggerate or blow things out of proportion to fit a certain narrative.
It was mentioned this morning on the early news that the church ran the residential school from 1899 to 1971, then the school was run by the Indian Band from 1971 to 1997 as regular school for children living on the reserve, but not as a residential school.

[rustled]

The last residential school in BC was closed in 1996. The school in Saskatchewan where they've found hundreds of additional unmarked grave sites was closed in 1997. This is not ancient history, and as evidenced on these threads racist ignorance is still quite widespread.

The last schools may have been closed in the 1990's but I highly doubt that any children died and were buried at residential schools anywhere near that late. I would suspect that the vast majority of deaths and burials were likely from the late 1800's until the possibly the 1930's or 1940's. I wonder how many of them may have been from the last pandemic in 1918 - 1919 and from other diseases rampant in the early 20th century.

There needs to be investigations into all of these grave sites to examine the remains and find out what the timeframe actually is. If it turns out that some of them are from more recent times and the people responsible may still be alive, then they need to be held accountable.

It is my belief, given the information currently available, that these graves most likely contain remains from many decades ago and the vast majority of those children may have died of completely natural causes given the time period (sickness and disease) over a span of decades. Undoubtedly many children did die at residential schools of malnutrition and mistreatment or worse but unfortunately those responsible are likely long dead themselves by now. Having said that, the only way to know one way or the other is to exhume the remains and investigate but will that ever be allowed to happen or are these remains and grave sites worth more without this knowledge being made available?

I think you're likely correct about the dates. There seems to me to be quite a bit of bigotry and ignorance in peoples' assumptions about why so many of the children who attended residential schools were interred in these graveyards.

It seems to me that even if the exhumation and examination proves a child suffered from malnutrition or physical trauma, it's unlikely this evidence alone would prove where the child was living when the malnutrition or physical trauma occurred - unless the physical trauma was the immediate cause of death. So people will likely make assumptions about the findings, e.g. that First Nations children were only likely to have suffered from malnutrition or physical trauma while at residential school - and that any physical trauma resulting in death must have been committed by residential school staff.

Positive identification of remains corroborated by a written record of that child's childhood could help, but only to a point. There's so much we will never know, and exhumation and examination may leave us with more questions than answers, more accusations that can never be proven nor disproven, more anger and hurt.

Those deciding whether or not to proceed with exhumation and examination have serious consequences to consider, IMO, and I don't envy them the effort involved in coming to a decision.

[rustled]

In regards to the gravesite in Saskatchewan, The First Nations spokesperson on the news this morning, with his very informative slide show, very clearly said that the entire community knew that there are grave’s in that field, the spokesperson said that many years ago the grave markers had been removed by the church and not replaced, I’m assuming the grave markers were wooden and removed because they rotted away and not replaced.... The First Nations spokesperson also stated that the village elders also claim that there were adults buried in that graveyard.
The band used ground penetrating radar to pinpoint the exact location of the original grave markers, essentially these are “unmarked graves” but technically not an unknown or secret gravesite like the discovery in Kamloops. Unfortunately the media is now trying to claim that all the 600-700 unmarked graves belonged to school children. The media has also conveniently edited most of the original press conference that the First Nations spokesperson held this morning containing all the pertinent facts and details.
Having said that, even one child dying while in the care of the church run residential school is one too many, and the church needs to be held to account, even if that means criminal charges against any of the former staff that are still among the living... but there’s absolutely no reason for the media to exaggerate or blow things out of proportion to fit a certain narrative.
It was mentioned this morning on the early news that the church ran the residential school from 1899 to 1971, then the school was run by the Indian Band from 1971 to 1997 as regular school for children living on the reserve, but not as a residential school.

"Journalism" continues to disappoint. I think I've found a video of press conference on YouTube. It doesn't begin until about 25:00.

[stuphoto]

You have gotta consider Journalism as a business and they will tweak any story to increase their profits.
In this case, they really aren't lying, they are just leaving out some facts.

Thankfully the band is filling in some of the blanks.

[Hurtlander]

^^^^^ Thank you for finding that clip.. The gentleman, unlike the media, is not claiming that every single body in the gravesite is dead children from the residential school.

[rustled]

You have gotta consider Journalism as a business and they will tweak any story to increase their profits.
In this case, they really aren't lying, they are just leaving out some facts.

Thankfully the band is filling in some of the blanks.

Good journalism shows no bias, and doesn't rely on someone else to provide us with the rest of the facts. They only profit by doing shoddy work because we allow it.

Ellis Ross pointed out how promoting a narrative rather than sticking to the truth only makes things worse, as we saw here when people set fire to churches - inflicting even more pain on PIB and OIB members, creating even more anger and division and hurt for people who are already angry, divided and hurting. When these "journalists' " businesses are profiting at the direct expense of others, it seems to me the least we can do is say profiting by hurting others is wrong.

It's not much, but people didn't have much to say about what the residential schools were doing wrong, and how they were hurting people. Perhaps if more people who were aware of the serious problems while they were developing had spoken up...

[rustled]

^^^^^ Thank you for finding that clip.. The gentleman, unlike the media, is not claiming that every single body in the gravesite is dead children from the residential school.

Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme. He also gave the margin of error, and other information glossed past by "journalists" rushing to support "the narrative".

[stuphoto]

I do agree with you about the news.

It's not much, but people didn't have much to say about what the residential schools were doing wrong, and how they were hurting people. Perhaps if more people who were aware of the serious problems while they were developing had spoken up...

Most of us realize the residential schools did more harm than good, and probably killed more children than we will ever know.

I know it won't change a thing but one thing I am wondering about is if and how they improved over the years.
Did they learn from their past, and start treating and feeding the children better?
There is a chance they really weren't that bad towards the end.

Besides, it really isn't just the First Nations either.
The orphanages also had a very similar track record.

[The Green Barbarian]

^^^^^ Thank you for finding that clip.. The gentleman, unlike the media, is not claiming that every single body in the gravesite is dead children from the residential school.

Why is truth always the first casualty when a narrative is trying to be sold and people are rushing to judgement?

[common_sense_guy]

I just hate how so many people have such strong opinions with absolutely no first-hand experience themselves. Stop pointing fingers and assuming the worst when you don't really know what you're talkin about. You're not doing anybody any justice and all you're doing pretending to show how woke and compassionate you are. But you don't know even what happened so keep it to yourself unless you have some facts. Facts don't care about feelings. And I'm sure the First Nations don't care about a white person's feelings deep down. Stop pretending you're holier than thou

[Silverstarqueen]

If you listen to the survivors, you hear the truth.
It's only a deflection to claim the media is somehow inventing this story.
We are debating the number in the graves, whether they died of "natural causes" (as if neglect, physical sexual abuse are natural). What happened in those schools and the extent of the horror, the excuses "I went to a boarding school, it wasn't that bad", ignores the truth: that many of these children were abused and neglected, and even those who only witnessed the abuse or hear the screams in the night, were still harmed by the isolation of living that instead of the normal tribal/family life they were entitled to. Or a more normal way of learning about the white/christian society, instead of this horibble human experiment that was foisted on these children.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/t ... d=msedgntp