These schools are our schools

摘要

Officialdom in Canada has a long and sordid history when it comes to the First Nations (Indians), who make up 60% of the country's 1.2m aboriginal inhabitants. The British depended on them in the war of 1812 against the United States but betrayed them in the peace settlement. Colonial and then Canadian governments took away most of their land by treaty or trickery and forced their children into residential schools aimed at assimilation. There they faced grisly punishments-a needle through the tongue or electric shocks-for speaking their mother tongue. Many students were sexually abused.