We Are Sorry

Oh, really? For what exactly? There are a lot of children’s graves that are unmarked and forgotten. There are a lot of children whose lives remain unmarked and forgotten. Others are irremediably broken.

I once foolishly but innocently asked a Native man about his experiences in residential school. He said nothing. He just wept. He was in his eighties.

What are we sorry for, when we don’t even know what we did? How do three words make restitution for the haunting confusion and homesickness of a little child, or the fear and terror of having one’s tongue squeezed with pliers, or roughly yanked for the crime of speaking the only language one knew?

How many children were sexually abused?

How many were subjected to random acts of brutal sadism?

How many were murdered?

No one knows.

When death occurred due to illness, abuse, or both, bodies were usually not returned to families, burial locations were not disclosed, nor were causes of death. As a parent, one was not even given bare bones. ‘Your child died. Good day.’

These were Christians, in a Christian nation. In 1874, a law was passed, declaring that Native people were ‘inferior’. In 1884 another law was passed, making it mandatory that Native children attend residential schools. Even if they lived within walking distance, there was no going home. For parents, failure to yield their children was a crime, and was dealt with harshly. It was a crime, after all. Inferior criminals. The children were viewed as not having souls. Had to get them souls. By beating them up. By starving them. By raping them. By killing them. It’s Christianity.

The last residential school closed in 1984.

One of the last children to be abused was a young girl at St.