This needs to be
sent far and wide………..
Testimonial Letter
- Residential Schools
..........a very
good perspective from one who actually experienced the situation firsthand!!
Here is a letter by
a person named Jim Bissell, which he wrote in reply to a Sun columnist related
to the “Residential Schools” that is leading to church terrorism (by non-native
people):
The time has come
for 70 year old people like me to speak the truth. A little background. I grew
up surrounded by 4 reserves and a large community of indigenous peoples (95%).
It was a community of wonderful, kind, very generous, very humorous people that
remained that way even when very poor. Also I have a wonderful successful
indigenous daughter with grandkids and great granddaughters. I am not a
Catholic and I do not belong to any church. I belong to me and my family but I
like christian values.
It should be noted
that the missionaries were very essential to our success in the northern
communities at that time. I had my first TB test administered by a missionary
trying to stop a TB outbreak. (I hated her at the time for the TB scratches on
my back. LOL). I got my first stitches from a wonderful nun. I got my first
tooth pulled by a missionary. My first X-ray by the nuns. My first teacher was an
angel called Sister Rita. I will never forget her and her deep love of all the
children she met and taught over the years, my best teacher ever and she was
not qualified by Government standards. So although I have never been a
Catholic, their church has been very good for me and although I now do know of
one very bad priest, most of the people were wonderful. I can still see brother
Fillion, who later became a priest, working all by himself outside the school
window making a wonderful merry-go-round for the school yard.
There also were two
residential schools in the community. When I arrived in the community, there
were no phones, very poor roads, mostly winter access, and not a lot of
services other than the churches. The mission school was there long before my
time. It has been told to me by elders that many small children, some way
younger than school age, were dropped off at the missions sick, hoping the nuns
could heal them. Sad to say many died from measles, diphtheria, TB, smallpox,
flu and many other conditions of the poor. Just the reality of the north. Years
ago most of the dead were placed in the trees so the birds and other animals
could take them back to nature.
It was the churches
that convinced them that that part of their culture should be changed to stop
the spread of disease. So, they started to bury the dead. If the dead were
Christians, their graves were marked by a painted rock and a small wooden cross
which rotted away in 25 years or so. No one could afford a headstone and if
they could there was no one that made them at the time. Times were hard and in
fact desperate in the 30’s. Many people owed their lives to the missionaries
and we tend to forget that. They were
not always right, no of course not, but they actually wanted to educate, feed
and make the lives of all people better regardless of where they came from.
The churches do not
need to apologize for trying to educate the poor in the only system that would
work for nomadic peoples. They need to
say sorry though for protecting and moving about the few bad apples (priests). The
Government saying sorry is meaningless. They didn't have a clue of the impact
of their decisions at the time and they don't now. Most of the older generation
that did suffer are long dead and gone or have forgiven. It seems to me that
many of the new generation just want to be victims and feel money would solve
their pain.
We need to
understand that very few people wanted to live in the north under the isolated
conditions at the time just to help out with a few indigenous peoples. After
the federal government took over the school system, most of my junior high
school teachers were immigrants from the British Commonwealth (India, England,
Ireland and other countries) as no Alberta teachers wanted to live up there
when they could live in or near a city with a doctor, bank, good grocery store,
ambulance and my goodness, even policeman.
The quality of my
education suffered because all of a sudden the nuns were not qualified to teach
us in 1967. Thus, I had to try and take lessons from teachers with very heavy
accents and hard to understand, who wanting to move close to the cities as soon
as they could. Thank goodness the missionaries were there for the past 300
years. Were they all good? No, but many were wonderful and now that seems to be
forgotten. How many of today's critics
have relatives that went up to those communities in those times to try and
help? Not many, I bet. The media today is only telling half the story, so I
feel we as witnesses have to speak up and speak to the truth. If you want, I
will take you to a sacred ground where hundreds of people were left in the
ramps and trees or layed on the ground when they died. No one but historical
memory marked their graves.
Please believe me
when I say that the missionaries were not a bunch of evil persons out to kill
little children like the media claim. That is not what I witnessed. The
missionaries knew that the ancient peoples of our land could not continue to
exist in a nomadic and isolated society, so they tried to educate them and of
course change their culture to be more compatible with the conditions of the
times. Were they right? Maybe, I don't know, but at least they were willing to
try and help.
Like I tell my
children, I cannot become indigenous like them but they can become Canadians
like me and they are. There are more success stories out there than even you
realize. The missionaries did not just throw bodies into the ground. Most were marked by a small wooden cross made
by the brothers of the mission or parents of the child. Those crosses are long
gone. Sad but true. I can also take you to the unmarked graves of many people
that were not indigenous as well if you want. That was the way of the north.
Sorry to ramble on
for so long but many things need to be said and if the elders of our society
lack the moral courage to say them, we are doomed anyway. Please encourage
people to stand up and be heard for the good not just the bad. Thanks and keep
writing.
Jim Bissell
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