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Historical Background: The Indian Act and the Indian Residential Schools
Go deeper into the history of the Indian Act and the founding of the Residential Schools system.
The Holocaust - Bearing Witness
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Use these slides to introduce students to the enormity of the crimes committed during the Holocaust and look closely at stories of a few individuals who were targeted by Nazi brutality.
The Holocaust - The Range of Responses
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Use these slides to help students deepen their examination of human behaviour during the Holocaust by analysing and discussing the range of choices available to individuals, groups, and nations.
Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and The Indian Residential Schools
Designed for Canadian educators, this resource examines the Indian Residential Schools and their long-lasting effects on Canada’s Indigenous Peoples.
Dispossession, Destruction, and the Reserves
Reserves existed in Africa, in the British American colonies, and in Canada, where the colonizers had to address the people they dispossessed— people who seemingly stood in the way of the political and economic plans of European settlers.
Defining the Indian
Two main pieces of legislation laid the foundation for what was to be the new Dominion’s policy regarding relations with First Nations: the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869.
Banning Indigenous Culture
The ultimate goal of the Indian Act has always been the assimilation of the Indigenous Peoples as separate nations into mainstream Canada.
Traditional Education
The idea that Western culture was superior and that the Indigenous Peoples needed to be Christianized and civilized came from the biases of Europeans and their unwillingness to appreciate the complex, largely unwritten teaching processes inside indigenous communities.
Aggressive Assimilation
The key to this policy was a system of industrial schools where religious instruction and skills training would help the Native Americans catch up with the demands of Western society.
Legislation for the Residential Schools
Prime Minister Macdonald authorized the creation of new residential schools and granted government funds for those that were already in place.
The Role of the Churches
Learn about the Catholic and Anglican churches' role in propagating residential schools throughout Canada.
Building the Indian Residential Schools System
One of the most important historians of the residential schools, James R. Miller, estimates that a great number of indigenous students were, in fact, educated in day schools, although the residential schools left the most painful, long-lasting marks on indigenous communities.