Western movies, a prominent genre in the 50s and 60s, botched North America’s history as it glorified the colonial conquest. It rendered the white cowboys heroes and the dark-skinned Indians brutal and wild, having them, almost always, caving in to the colonialists. In stereotypical slant, the cowboys represented the better arm of humanity and the Indians the lower category of the human species, so the “injuns,” were pictured as savages and rarely perceived as humans with rights to their lands, history, and culture. These Hollywood movies propagated the world with unfair and unjust revelations: this is a minuscule example of the many intolerant and abusive acts that indigenous peoples in North America endured.
When North America was discovered, 15 million indigenous people lived there; by the late 19th century, only 238,000 had survived the colonialists’ attack. The motto then was “kill the Indian save the man,” as the the indigenous peoples did not qualify as humans.
For decades, Indigenous peoples were not considered citizens, their culture undeserving of saving. In fact, the residential school system in both the US and Canada was one of many torturous methods utilized to have indigenous people become extinct by assimilating them into the white culture. By assimilation they were expected to cease to exist as nations.
These boarding schools were mandatory and run by the government and Catholic authorities where children were forcibly taken from their parents under a shameful colonial policy. In Canada, between 1863 and 1998 more than 150,000 children were taken from their parents' arms and placed in schools that served as concentration colonies. Since the children were not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture, and many of them were mistreated, abused and killed, it was a policy that amounted to cultural genocide. The impacts of such schools reverberate until today.
True, today’s climate has made a crucial bend; still, indigenous peoples cannot simply shake off and get over what happened to them because the pain remains alive and the impact of the suffering and the colonization exists in the elders of communities and their offspring today. The past persists as a daunting legacy.
However, the Indigenous peoples of America are indeed redeeming some of their rights. It began by apologies. In 2008, Stephen Harper, then Canada’s prime minister, apologized publicly to Canada’s indigenous peoples for the consequences of residential schools. This while the Truth and Reconciliation Act fundamentally acknowledged the gut-wrenching history that indigenous peoples suffered and vowed to support the sufferers.
Also, the US apology says, “The United States …apologizes…to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted…by citizens of the United States."
Many occurrences exhibit how the current culture has changed especially in Canada. The most pivotal recognition came in 2021, as Mary Simon, an indigenous Inuit from Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik, Quebec, became the first indigenous Governor General as she acclaimed the position of the 30th Governor General of Canada.
Columbus Day is observed on the second Monday of October each year, commemorating his arrival to the new world. Today, many believe that Columbus’s arrival to the Americas led to the genocide of the indigenous people. This is why many states in the US have replaced that national holiday with “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” It has become a holiday that celebrates the resilience and cultures of Indigenous peoples across the Americas.
Statues of renowned Canadians who also played roles in the torturous past that Indigenous Canadians suffered are being knocked down. The statue of Edward Cornwallis, the founder of the Halifax Port, also accused of practicing genocide against Indigenous population, was removed; the statue of John A. McDonald, the first Prime Minister of Canada, also the initiator of the most damaging policies against Canadian Indigenous peoples was also removed. At Ryerson University in Toronto, the statue of Egerton Ryerson, deemed the principle initiator of Canada’s residential school system, was toppled. Whether these monuments were toppled, removed, or knocked down is besides the point, for they will never be erected again.
Furthermore, most indigenous communities were oral societies, with no written words associated to their languages. They passed down their ways and knowledge through stories and songs. Some societies did not have a written language till the 70’s of the last century. Now the written words are often utilized in writings and syllabic signs across many highways and roads in Canada as one travels through unceded territories of indigenous peoples. All the signs along the Sea to Sky Corridor, in British Columbia, are written in both English and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh or Squamish language.
It’s worth noting that many territories in Canada including 95 percent of the Province of British Columbia, all the Maritimes, and much of eastern part of the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario are on unceded territory, meaning they were never yielded or handed over to Canada. This is why acknowledgement of ownership of territories is becoming a regular acceptable way of prefacing a speech, document, or presentation. Almost all events begin by acknowledging the host nation by saying a phrase along the lines of, “I would like to acknowledge that we are meeting today on the unceded traditional territories of the _____ people.”
As we speak, over 50 indigenous candidates are running in the 2021 Canadian federal election. This is a fundamental change in how indigenous people view their role in the bigger picture across Canada.
These are all exceptional attributes in the healing and are an aid in the reconciliation process. Still, it will take time to overcome the years of pain and hurt.
