Featured photo: An Indian Day School in Kahnawà:ke (date & name unknown). From the Kanien’kehá:ka Onkwawén:na Raotitóhkwa Language & Cultural Center archives. Published with permission.
I completed my Master’s thesis at Concordia University on Indian Day Schools in Kahnawà:ke and I’m continuing this research in my Ph.D program at McGill University.
Intro & Rationale
I was raised in a multigenerational family in Kahnawà:ke, Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) territory. Our family stories and oral history included recounting Indian Day School experiences. In university, I discovered that there was little mention of Indian Day Schools in the published literature. Pulling together undergraduate papers meant scrounging for sources or digging in archives. This is how I ended up on this path, the research and the stories chose me. I have been doing this work ever since.
In March 2019, I completed my Master’s thesis on Indian Day Schools (more info below). I am currently entering my third year as a PhD student in Educational Studies in DISE (McGill), continuing this community research. At present, I am writing my dissertation plan, which will include a full cataloguing of the various Indian Day Schools in Kahnawà:ke and a large number of interviews with community members. I am also a claimant in the Federal Indian Day School Lawsuit, having attended two elementary schools in Kahnawà:ke that were considered Indian Day Schools (until formally shifting into community operated and funded schools on federal register in the late 1980s).
I spent many years seeking out cultural teachings, learning our longhouse ways, and reclaiming our language. What I have discovered is that there is both joy and grief in these experiences. It is not possible to move forward and be whole without also understanding and addressing the cause of language loss, cultural erasure, and harmful cycles in families that impede our well-being. There are ways to examine these histories and share our stories without re-traumatizing, victimizing, or analyzing through a damage-centered lens. Many truths are suppressed out of pain or shame. Our voices are largely absent in our own histories. The records, photographs, and correspondence documenting Indian Residential Schools and Indian Day Schools are often out of reach of community members, “owned” and controlled by churches, governments, and archives. As a community scholar, I am doing this work in an Onkwehón:we way, to change the metanarrative of Indigenous suffering and disempowerment. This storywork is for us and by us, out of love for our current and future generations.
~Wahéhshon (updated June 2021)
Terms & Clarifications
These points are taken from guest lectures and conference presentations based on common questions I receive when presenting on this topic.
What is an Indian Day School?
Indian Day Schools were built within or near Indigenous communities or federal Indian reserves/reservations for the purpose of acculturating or assimilating Indigenous children. Indian Day Schools were created with the same objective and approach as Indian Residential Schools, the primary difference being that children went home each day. Both day/residential schools were usually funded and administered by the federal government and operated in partnership with religious orders. Note that there were provincial and territorial schools as well.
Mission School: Early day or seasonal schools operated by religious orders prior to the creation or shift to formal Indian Day Schools (funded and officially administered by the federal government).
Indian Day School Student/Survivor: Attended an Indian Day School within their community or nearby, returned home each day.
Day Scholar: A student who attended an Indian Residential School for the day and returned home each day.
Indian Residential School Survivor: Attended an Indian Residential School (also referred to as a boarding or industrial school) for long periods of time, residing at the institution for months or years at a time.
Child-Targeted Assimilation: Like many Onkwehón:we (Indigenous) families, we were subject to multiple forms of oppressive colonial policies, practices and institutions such as Indian Residential Schools, Indian Day Schools, the 60s Scoop, and ongoing entanglements with the Canadian child-welfare system. I was trying to find a way to identify this pattern and name it, to express how this is an ongoing struggle that’s part of the overarching objective to assimilate, acculturate, and ultimately erase our identities, language, and ways of being as Onkwehón:we. It has been an important tool for me to re-contextualize cycles of violence and harm in my community and my own family, which were colonial-imposed primarily through these institutions.
Master’s Thesis: “Child-Targeted Assimilation: An Oral History of Indian Day School Education in Kahnawà:ke”
Indian Day Schools in Kahnawà:ke
Official copies of the thesis may be read/downloaded at Concordia University’s spectrum repository, click here.
The information in this section is largely based on graduate research conducted in the Special Individualized Program (MA) at Concordia University (Master’s Thesis completed in March 2019). I am continuing research on this topic as a PhD student in the Integrated Studies in Education Department at McGill University (my program began Fall 2019).
© Wahéhshon Shiann Whitebean, 2019
CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY
Sample quotes from the thesis
“All forms of schooling for Indigenous children in Canada were notoriously underfunded and poorly staffed and did not provide an adequate education by any standard (Raptis, 2016, p. 136). Day Schools became the primary educational institution for Indigenous children in both Canada and the United States because they were “cheaper educational programs” (Reyhner & Eder, 2017, p. 249). According to Raptis (2011), “The main argument in favor of such establishments was that in addition to educating individual learners, they could positively influence entire communities to adopt ‘western ways’” (p. 521; Lomawaima & McCarty, 2010). In Canada, Day Schools existed over a longer period of time and in greater numbers than Residential Schools (since the early 1600s) and operated with the same colonial intent of erasure of identity and assimilation into Western society as the Residential Schools (Axelrod 1997; Miller, 1996; Raptis 2016).” (Whitebean, 2019, p. 36)
“Recent studies on Indigenous Education in Canada and the United States have largely focused on the effects of Residential Schooling. It should be noted, however, that Indigenous children attended Day Schools in greater numbers than Residential Schools and we still know little about their experiences (Raptis, 2016). For many First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children, the language, culture, and identity losses caused by Day Schooling were traumatic experiences that spanned several generations (White, 2015; Stacey, 2016).” (Whitebean, 2019, p. 3)
“Indigenous children in what is currently known as Quebec were subjects of attempted assimilation through education, schooling, and apprehension for a long period of time. Some of the earliest recorded Catholic missionary efforts in New France were conducted by the Récollets, Jesuits, and Ursulines in the early 1600s (Miller, 1996; Peace, 2017). The community of Kahnawà:ke (previously known as Kentá:ke or Caughnawaga) was established in 1667 (Divine, 1922; Blanchard, 1982). This research provides a background on the policies and practices of education and schooling in Kahnawà:ke starting from the first attempt to operate a formal school in 1826 (Osgood, 1829; Divine, 1922).” (Whitebean, 2019, p. 3)