Shingwauk's vision: a history of native residential schools.

Established by the Canadian government in the early part of this century and operated in large part by Catholic orders, Native residential schools began receiving widespread negative attention in the 1970s. At this time Native groups claimed that the assimilationist policies of the schools were an attempt at "cultural genocide." Several years later allegations of sexual abuse by former students against missionaries intensified the issue. A scrutiny of the residential schools system followed, which has been influenced particularly by three factors: a Native lobby with considerable political clout; legal and business interests about whom the term "Indian Industry" was coined; and widespread reports of sexual abuse within Canadian Catholic institutions by a purposeful media. Political power, legal/corporate stakeholders, and media negativity all contributed heavily to the popular message regarding residential schools.

Prudence is therefore required of an audience reviewing the residential schools history.

When Paul VI wrote in Evangelii nuntiandi, "Between evangelization and human progress there is neither opposition nor separation," he understood that everyone has a message, that the social nature of man is to relate his message, and that progress corresponds with the truth of what is being communicated. He therefore also refuted the self-contradictory preachment that one ought not to preach, which was fabricated primarily to promote secular evangelization at the expense of the religious.

That understanding and refutation provide a useful context within which to review Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools. This lengthy, heavily referenced, sometimes astute scrutiny of the residential school system has a fundamental focus on evangelism. Starting with a boarding school run by the Recollets in 1620, J.R. Miller traces the evolution of a government controlled, missionary-run system that largely involved proclamation of the gospel. Miller identifies a good many problems with the residential and industrial schools which are his focus: children were removed from their homes to attend these schools, incidents of sexual abuse were alleged and admitted, little allowance was made for Native adaptation to a radically different European-based environment, half-day education compromised learning, a per capita funding system instituted by the government generated disastrous measures by underfunded schools, and attempts were made to displace Native culture in favour of European standards. Miller's presentation of his evidence for these and other claims is meticulous and detailed.

Not the whole picture

His presentation is not, however, thorough; the heavily negative emphasis excludes much of the whole picture. Very little attention is given to the fact that the missionaries whose noble intentions led to their involvement in these schools undertook an enormously difficult work for which there was basically no precedent, in the absence of anyone else offering to assist Native people with adaptation to the Euro-Canadian majority. They encountered harsh climatic conditions, isolation, funding challenges, shortage of qualified personnel, cultural and language barriers, and a myriad of other complications, all of which do not mitigate Miller's stern treatment. In fact, he concludes that these considerations led the missionaries to harbour a "quasi-martyr perception of themselves" (319).

Thoroughness is most compromised, though, by the author's failure to give proportionate time to the positive side of this history. A root problem of the residential school system, he argues, was evangelization, that rude, anti-social, we-know-better-than-you tool of intolerant Christianity. Our European predecessors were "bizarre and outlandish people" whose "we-know-what's-best-for-you-attitude" violated the Natives' principle of noninterference and produced a calamitous school system. The missionaries, "so rude and anti-social . . . as to disparage and attempt to change a person's beliefs," carried out "cultural genocide."

Evidence of Miller's slanted approach is best gleaned from his chapter on the most important reason for condemning the role of missionaries in the schools--abuse. Yet the chapter contains the significant declaration that "for a sizeable group of former students, the legacy of residential school was not bitter at all" (341). This comment comes after an avalanche of unpleasant anecdotes: the nun who made the student eat porridge into which he had vomited, the supervisor who slapped the face of an unsuspecting student, Miller's speculation that there was collusion between school staff and school gangs to enforce the dictates and whims of the former, and so on. Despite such damning evidence, there turns out to be a sizeable group who had no such experiences. Yet the comments of this group are not given expression, and so the reliability of Miller's method and conclusions is called into question.

Excluding essential evidence

In his final chapter, "An Assessment", Miller revisits the matter, saying, "Too many ex-pupils have spoken positively of the experience as a whole . . . to justify ignoring or downplaying such memories" (428). He qualifies this statement, though, declaring that "[i]n particular instances, such as orphaned or abandoned children who were taken under the wing of a missionary and who enjoyed the only emotional support they had known . . . the strongly positive recollection can be explained in terms specific to the individual" (428). Some positive reports, then, may be qualified by "individual peculiarities" (428). Significantly, no corresponding qualification is issued in relation to negative reports. Surely some former students who relate adverse experiences are also subject to such peculiarities--personal grudges, for instance, or prejudicial dispositions. To this possibility Miller appears oblivious, citing negative report after negative report as unencumbered truth.

The exclusion of essential evidence is complicated by this comment: "What is sometimes disturbing is that at least some former pupils with positive memories tried unsuccessfully to place their positive recollections before the public via the press and electronic media, only to be rebuffed or ignored." (341) This is disturbing--as disturbing as the fact that the author does not appear to recognize he has committed the same injustice by making basically no room for the "positive recollections" of this "sizeable group" in his report, which is biased without them.

Though he will propose that it is difficult to assess just what impact these schools had on students because of "[t]he existence of former students who hold positive memories of residential school and many others who recall it as a living hell" (341), Miller rules in favour of the "living hell" assessment with a thundering gavel strike. Such a judgment is regrettable, as it is based only on the evidence of the prosecution - the defence is all but silent in Miller's court. (1)

The concentration on some missionaries' transgressions artificially bolsters Miller's disapproval of those who were "so rude and anti-social . . . as to disparage and attempt to change a person's beliefs". But it is not evident that the Native people involved with these schools shared the same bias against evangelism. Take Miller's recounting of the Special Joint Committee of 1946-1948. This committee heard 137 submissions from Native bands on Canada's treatment of Native people, 126 of which dealt with residential schools. Of these 126 submissions, 24 called for non-denominational education, while 31 insisted on Christian instruction. Miller refers to this as a "fundamental difference of opinion on the desirability of Christian religion in their schools" (381), which is a dubious assessment. While 25% of the submissions on education defended Christian instruction (6% more than those who opposed), Miller fails to comment on the fact that a whopping 44% did not even raise the issue. How does the oppressive evangelical regime Miller portrays get explicit support by 25% of those presenting submissions, and not even bear mention by another 44%?

If the horrors purportedly bred of evangelization that this history recounts are truly representative of the residential schools system, why was there not a resounding denunciation of Christian instruction in submissions to the Special Joint Committee? Why did more people support than oppose it? Why did the Special Joint Committee of 1959-1960 again reveal nothing significant in terms of anti-evangelical sentiment (396-8)? And why are there so many active Christian churches on reserves throughout Canada today, with so many practising reserve members? These are questions Miller does not even ask, but which must be posed in the interests of a balanced historical overview.

Miller's bias is related to his ideological underpinnings, two components of which require particular attention. The chapters on "Race and Assimilation" and "Gender" (the misnomer for "sex" employed by those in sympathy with the ideology that bred it) anachronistically impose a modern-age application of "racism" and "sexism" on an era unburdened by the strictures of political correctitude, and smack less of historical analysis than of obeisance to the Zeitgeist.

Race and gender

In his chapter on "Race and Assimilation", to take a representative example, Miller calls the greatest example of racism in the schools the echelle de Lacombe (191), an illustration showing a path to Heaven and one to Hell. There are Indian people on the path to Hell, apparently, though the illustration Miller provides is too small to verify this--unlike the application of Miller's ideology to declare this illustration racist, which is readily identifiable. If Father Lacombe had been a racist, the echelle de Lacombe would have condemned Native people to Hell, in a spirit of detestation, by virtue of their being Native; what it did, however, in a spirit of concern for the eternal, was warn that a Native soul, just like any other soul, may be in jeopardy without submitting to God.

The chapter on "Gender" is similarly confused. It is a feminist tract which applies to the past the ideological conventions of today. "Schools that encouraged males to devote time to knitting . . . were unusual," Miller asserts, as though the social engineering of today should have led male students of a hundred years ago to be instructed in an activity predominately undertaken by women. Then Miller denounces the schools for assigning institution-supporting toil to girls, and making males do most of the heavy outdoor labour. So the author's ideological convictions distort his analysis of what went on in the past. In fact, his chapter on "The Traditional Education of the Indigenous Peoples" shows that girls did not consider themselves victimized by the skills they learned--lighting fires, getting meals, doing washing, and picking berries--and that boys did not consider themselves victimized by being taught to be providers by accompanying their fathers on fishing trips or to be protectors by being taught military skills. There was no victimization here, but a natural division of labour based on gender.

Ideology rather than objectivity

Miller speaks rather gravely of a Methodist who writes of the "gaudy" colours of Native garb (199), apparently oblivious to his own earlier reference to the "gaudy new rituals such as the Passion" (91). He speaks of the religious groups trying to "leapfrog their brothers in Christ", and he adopts the native epithet "Wikew" (meaning "Fatty") in referring to Sister Mary Leonard (361). In his chapter on "Resistance", he relates students' perversion of Latin hymns (360) and their mockery of priests, nuns, and the Mass (362), as though these bear mention as forms of resistance against the schools. The fact that they are actually juvenile forms of disrespect to which students in general are prone calls Miller's intent into question--recourse to trivialities that have no place in a legitimate discussion may be a vicarious outlet for the author's animus. Finally, while Miller scolds missionaries for trying to lead souls to Heaven, he is emphatic in condemning some to Hell. "A special place should be reserved in Hades" (326) for a couple of Catholic "monsters" (327), he says, and underscores the point in his final chapter, condemning certain missionaries to "[a] special place in perdition" (423).

Shingwauk's Vision, then, is less a history than it is a unifocus screed, which frustrates objectivity in the cause of ideology. The wrongs perpetrated could have been more fully considered had Miller lifted his eye-patch and provided proportionate examination of the good intentions and deeds of those involved with these schools. Justice is not served by absent evidence. But ideological prejudice excludes or manipulates material that does not comport with its directives, and this is the unhappy course Miller has followed. Unhappy, because his extensive research and capacity for insight could have contributed greatly to a fair review of residential schools. As it is, Shingwauk's Vision is the work of a secular evangelist advancing the self-contradictory and untenable position that between evangelization and human progress there is incompatibility.

Condemning evangelism but imposing an ideology

Evangelism is inescapable--virtually anyone who speaks communicates a message and encourages conversion. Augustine Shingwauk, whose 1832 pilgrimage in pursuit of a "teaching wigwam" for the Garden River reserve inspired this book's title, revealed himself as an evangelical. Though Miller is insistent about the Native "principle of non-interference", he notes that Shingwauk at one meeting mentioned "that he `belonged to the Queen's Church' and suggest[ed] that if his audience `were wise they would be members of that Church also' "(6).

As mentioned, Miller condemns the missionaries, who, he claims were "so rude and anti-social . . . as to disparage and attempt to change a person's beliefs." Whether they really consciously "disparaged" their students' culture is rather doubtful. But Miller himself clearly and deliberately does disparage the culture and beliefs of our "bizarre and outlandish" Euro-Canadian predecessors. (2) He tries to change the beliefs of Canadians who "in the past could be accused of the sin of interference" against Native people, and who are now "guilty of the sin of indifference" (435). "[H]elp or hinder, facilitate or oppress, support or tyranize" (438), he instructs, insisting his conclusions are correct and warning they must be observed by the errant Canadian majority. A soapbox preacher could not be more rude or anti-social, and Miller himself is a perfect example of the "we-know-what's-best-for-you" attitude.

The principle of non-interference may work on Star Trek, but it has never been operative in reality. It is the nature of mankind to pursue truth, which inspires a dialectic, which provokes evangelization. Such is the process behind human progress, and it is by the inexorable operation of this process that Miller can direct missionaries to silence but cannot silence himself. Better that he had accepted the fundamentality of evangelization, which would have positioned him to justly identify where the mis-sionaries' evangeliz-ation did and did not succeed, not to say, was or was not true. But Miller's ideology pre-empts this course, replacing it with bias and a blackout of the defence. Shingwauk's Vision is thus impaired, unable to achieve a discernment that is essential in objectively addressing the subject of Native residential schools.

(1) Note also that in the 105 endnotes to the chapter on abuse, comprised of anecdotal evidence and accounts provided by a purposeful media, there is not one mention of an interview with representatives from any of the missionary groups who ran these schools. Consultation with relevant religious authorities is lacking in the work generally.

(2) See also these examples of Miller's disdain for the ways and beliefs of Euro-Canadian culture: a description of institutional education as a "divorce of education and daily living" (57); his implication that white children did not learn by "looking, listening, and learning" as Native children did (29-30); his tacit acceptance of the Native assessment of white mothers as "porcupines" (57); his representation of Duran and Durieu as spiritual Mengeles (119); his theory that Catholic residential schools were generally more successful than others because of exploitation of female religious orders (138-9); his suggestion that vows of poverty and celibacy were instruments of control for missionaries (176); his reference to the "prudish attitudes" of white people against all racial groups (234); his description of the intellects of school staff and clergy described as being prone to "fuzzy images" (282); these are but a few instances.