Residential Schools: The Intergenerational Impacts on Aboriginal Peoples

Abstract

Many authors, historians and researchers concur with the idea that residential schools have impacted generation after generation of Aboriginal Peoples in this country. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the federal government wanted Aboriginal peoples to abandon their traditional beliefs and adopt western-based values and religions. The investigation of the role and impacts of residential schools on Aboriginal traditional knowledge and mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being must be studied within the context of colonization and genocide. Residential schools were funded by the federal government, but were operated by various religious institutions. The goal of residential schools was institutionalized assimilation by stripping Aboriginal peoples of their language, culture and connection with family. Although the assaults on the first peoples of this land have been devastating and intergenerational, as discussed within this article, it is with pride that we celebrate the resilience and tenacity of the holistic well-being of Aboriginal peoples. We are still here.