The residential schools were introduced in Canada around 1831 and made it mandatory that all indigenous children as young as 4 attend the schools until they became 18 years old. The boarding schools for the indigenous people were funded by the Canadian government and were under the Christian church’s administration. The Residential schools forcefully took the children from their families and forced the students to assimilate into the Euro-Canadian culture by prohibiting them from using their native language and practicing their culture and religion. The objective of the residential school was to “kill the Indian in the Child” and in doing so, took the aboriginal children from their families, forced them to adopt new education and drop their culture and religion, and abused the students in several ways in order to assimilate their culture and make them more European.
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