North America, United States, and Canada are considered the most civilized and wealthy countries globally. Christians around the world are also proud of them.
Still, there is a piece of news from the Canadian province of British Columbia that, while standing tall, does so, it also tarnishes humanity and North Ameri- can culture. A mass grave containing 215 children was discovered in a former boarding school set up to assimilate indigenous people in Canada.
The children were students at the Kamloops Indian Boarding School in British Columbia, which closed in 1978. The school operated in the province from the second half of the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century, with the skeletons of 215 students found in the cemetery. Among them were three-year-old children.
These cages have been discovered using new technology. Who were these children, and why were they killed? Why was there a need for a cemetery in the children’s school complex? The children were Aboriginal Canadians.
“To our knowledge, these missing children are un- documented deaths,” Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc Kukpi7 Chief Rosanne Casimir said in the statement. Also, she said that the local museum was working with the Royal British Columbia Museum to find out if there were any records of the deaths.
The school was once the most significant residential school system in Canada. Casimir said in a release that 500 students were registered here, depending on the size of the school. “We understand the impact this will have on First Nations communities in British Columbia and else- where,” she said.
Actually, when white Europeans invaded the American continent, they occupied the lands of the aborigines there and tried to exterminate them. Their children were forcibly enrolled in their schools and forced to live in hostels.
Those schools were often called ‘Indian’ schools. In the United States, the aborigines are still called Red Indians. Their diet, living conditions, language, and dress were very different from those of the Americans. Their children were enrolled in these schools, and English was imposed on them.
They were converted to Christianity, and attempts were made to assassinate them under any pretext. The children were used as slaves. They were beaten. Any tribal who refused to send their children to these clergy schools were severely punished.
There were 350 such ‘Indian schools’ in 30 North America. Evidence of the murder of about 60,000 children living in hostels of such schools has been found so far. This monstrous conspiracy was waged by rebellious thinkers like Colonel Robert Ingersoll in the late 19th century. In 2009, President Barack Obama passed a formal resolution apologizing to the tribal.
Now that the massacre has been reported in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed embarrassment and apologized to aborigines’ peoples, and tweeted, “The news that remains were found at the former Kamloops residential school breaks my heart – it is a painful reminder of that dark and shameful chapter of our country’s history. I am thinking about everyone affected by this distressing news. We are here for you.”
While, Prime Minister Trudeau expressed his condolences in memory of the 215 Indigenous children and announced that national flags would be lowered for 215 hours, or nine days, across the country, including the Parliament building in the capital Ottawa.
Mythical bodies were buried on the school grounds at Camp Lupus; the mayors of Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga and Brampton have also announced plans to lower flags. Canada has a long history of occupying and abusing indigenous children in residential schools apart from their own families by the (white) communities that occupy the land.
Often, the same incidents of old discrimination and abuse Keep appearing. The atrocities committed by whites of previous generations in these countries of the American continent are heart wrenching. Still, the reassuring thing is that these same whites are now digging up the buried corpses themselves and the monstrous deeds of their ancestors.
The lottery is being presented to the world itself, but I would also expect the pope in Rome to at least express their sorrow for the anti-Christian acts committed by Christian missionaries in their schools. If they do, it will shed some light on Europe’s thousand-year dark Christian history.
