BY NED DMYTRYSHYN
VANCOUVER - More than 300 people, most of whom were Native, filled the Simon Fraser University Harbour Front campus lecture hall to overflow capacity February 9 to hear testimony from survivors of the residential school system that thousands of Native children were forced into from the 1880s through the 1980s. Residential schools were organized by churches of various denominations, with the collaboration of the federal government of Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Native children were taken from their homes to be "assimilated" by suppressing their culture, language, and identity.

At the meeting here, more than a dozen people who had been subjected to the residential system between 1940 - 70 described how students were punished for speaking their native language. Sexual abuse, murder, and beatings were also common at these schools in Port Alberni and other areas of British Columbia.

"The RCMP and the United Church got away with murder for decades," said Harriet Nahanee from the Nuu-Chah-Nulth nation. Nahini said that in 1946, when she was 11, she witnessed the murder of a six-year-old fellow student, Maisie Shaw, by the school principal, Rev. A.E. Caldwell. "I heard him kick her, and she fell down the stairs. I went to look - her eyes were open, she wasn't moving. They protected `Reverend' Caldwell after he killed two children, Maisie Shaw and Albert Gray. But the truth is coming out." Nahanee also explained that she and others were sexually abused at the school. "The residential school system was about land and resources and terrorizing us to do nothing about the theft of our land," Nahanee said. "The church, with support of the government, put the residential schools on choice land away from the reserves so that they could take it for themselves."

Dennis Tallio from the Kwakiutl nation in Bella Bella, who went to Port Alberni School from 1962 - 67, explained that he had found the dead body of a sexually assaulted seven-year-old girl outside the school in 1965. "I found it strange that the RCMP told us not to say anything," he said. "Why would they keep this quiet?"

Harry Wilson a member of the Kwakiutl nation also described seeing the body of a dead girl at the Port Alberni school in 1967. "The principal, Victor Andrews, threatened to beat me if I told anybody," added Wilson. Wilson, Tallio, and 28 other Native survivors are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the United Church and the Federal government of Canada. The lawsuit demands compensation and an apology for the abuse, brutality, and crimes committed by the United Church authorities, Kevin Annett told the Militant. Annett was a United Church minister in the Port Albnerni area for five years. He was fired in January 1995, two months after writing a letter to church authorities questioning the sale of land given temporarily to the church by Ahousaht elders and subsequently sold to forest company MacMillan Bloedel. Church authorities gave no cause for the dismissal.

"Lot no. 363 consists of 100 hectares of the most valuable stands of ancient rain forest red cedar on the west coast of Vancouver Island," Annett explained. "It is worth millions. Against the wishes of the Ahousaht elders, who had provided the land for the church to build a residential school, the lot was sold in 1953 for $2,000 to the grandson of the church minister. The land was subsequently acquired by MacMillan- Bloedel in 1994 for nearly $1 million. Not a penny has been returned to the Ahousahts."

"We are warriors," Natanis Desjarlais, a Cree and leader of the Native Youth Movement, told the crowd. "This is a powerful meeting that ... opens up the possibility for us reconquer our warrior spirit so that we can continue to fight for our rights, our dignity".

Ned Dmytryshyn is a member of International Association of Machinists Local 764.  
 
 
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