Warning: This article contains details of abuse
The former Mohawk Institute Residential School in Brantford, Ontario, opened to the public as a “museum of conscience” on September 30. Operating from 1828 to 1970, it was not only the oldest and longest-running residential school but also the largest in the country, attended by an estimated 15,000 children.
Hundreds came to the renovated building’s grand opening on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, learning the stories of survivors through photos, recordings and descriptive signage. The Woodland Cultural Centre managed the restoration.
“I think this building holds tangible evidence of what occurred at residential schools and what our families experienced,” said Heather George, the centre’s executive director and chief curator. “I hope this becomes a catalyst for people who come, that they want to learn more.”
The decade-long $26 million restoration was funded by the centre’s “Save the Evidence” campaign. Opening day featured speeches from survivors, self-guided tours, screenings of its film Silent No More and an Indigenous art show.
“All I wanted to do was go home,” survivor Roberta Hill told attendees. “This place made you grow up mean and ugly. Take away something from this school so this never happens again.”
Survivors shared the systemic physical, sexual and mental abuse they endured at the Mush Hole, the school’s nickname because of its regular servings of bland porridge. Geronimo Henry said his mother dropped him off in 1942 at age six. He didn’t see her again until leaving 11 years later.
“After a while, I ran out of tears and I started to turn to hate,” said Henry, now 89. He said boys spent half their day working on a large farm on the school grounds, segregated from the girls, who were forced to scrub floors, do laundry and prepare food.
Among the school’s survivors are many Cree from Eeyou Istchee. Nemaska director general George Wapachee said an overflow of students at the Moose Factory residential school meant that 15 Cree students were sent to Brantford in 1961.
“It looked like a mansion, something you’d see in a Hitchcock movie,” Wapachee recalled. “We stuck together, the 15 of us. We had to stand our ground and fight back. We spoke Cree out in the fields, making sure the supervisors weren’t around.”
Clashing with bullies from other First Nations, future Cree leaders including Ted Moses and Lawrence Jimiken formed bonds that would embolden their battles against hydroelectric development in the 1970s. A group arriving from Waswanipi had it particularly tough.
“They were much younger and got the brunt of what was happening,” Wapachee said. “They really picked on these small kids and did a lot of things to them. Sometimes they’d tell the kids, ‘I want your dessert for the next five days or I will pound you.’”
In 1963, a white mob of Indian agents, priests and armed police descended on Waswanipi to round up their children, coercing them to learn “the white man’s way” and threatening parents with jail if they resisted. Villages went silent after the children were abducted, as toys lay eerily scattered around and lonely dogs waited by empty swings.
“Our grandparents and parents were the first victims,” asserted Wapachee. “My mother said the only option was to pack up and head for our hunting ground where we knew we would get healing. Imagine – our parents not only lost their children, but they lost their identity through the hydroelectric project.”
Upon arrival, boys and girls were separated for the year as they surrendered personal possessions and their identities. Hair was shaved or cut into a bob while children were given uniforms and a number that in effect became their new name. Although most knew little to no English, one Cree word could have them whipped and forced to eat soap.
“You would hear children crying at bedtime, but we had to weep silently,” recounted Paul Dixon, who was abducted at age six. “If one child was caught crying, everybody was in trouble. They would hit you between your legs or pull you out of bed by the hair. I can still hear muffled cries of kids at night.”
Taught that they were savages, Dixon said they had to accept harsh discipline and abuse just to survive. Hungry kids would get cold, sour food, although older guys sometimes stole from the garden or kitchen to give to the younger ones. He witnessed one boy force another to eat his vomit to avoid getting in trouble.
“To save my brown skin, I buried pieces of my young heart until it was almost all gone,” Dixon said. “I saw things a child should never see or encounter – criminal acts and genocidal abuses. Kids just vanished. I’m stuck in that moment, still running through the dark hallways trying to escape.”
Sexual abuse was rampant even if the children didn’t yet know right from wrong. Dixon said they were forced to fight and hate each other.
Dixon’s four younger siblings jumped off a train in a mid-winter escape attempt but were caught and sent back to La Tuque, which he also attended from age 12 after the Mohawk Institute had closed. At age 14, he hid in the bush when the bus came around and began to learn how to be Cree again. His father’s last words in Cree were “You must forgive the white man.”
Long after residential schools finally closed, Dixon believes their darkness still reverberates in Cree villages. He overcame his own descent into alcohol, embarking on a healing journey with his wife Caroline, another survivor, who joined him in pursuing education in the 1990s through the Cree School Board.
Wapachee said that survivors were adamant that their own children would never be sent away, which formed the direction of the CSB. He approved the residential school’s transformation into an educational historic site, comparing it to tours of Holocaust concentration camps.
After three years in Brantford, Waswanipi tallyman Johnny Cooper told his grandfather in a trembling voice about life in residential school. His grandfather stood up slowly, poured some tea and said, “You’re never going back there.” When the Indian agent came around, they would go deep in the woods for 10 months.
“The biggest and greatest school of wildlife saved me from further abuses,” Cooper shared. “If you want to be spared from all the trauma, go back to the quiet and beauty of the land.”