Nexus - 0902 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

care or treatment—a practice actually referred to by top Anglican Church leaders in the Globe and Mail on May 29, 1953. In March 1998, two native eyewitnesses who attended west coast residential schools, William and Mabel Sport of Nanaimo, BC, confirmed Dr Bryce's allegation. Both of them claim to have been deliberately exposed to tuberculosis by staff at both a Catholic and a United Church residential school during the 1940s. I was forced to sleep in the same bed with kids who were dying of tuberculosis. That was at the Catholic Christie resi- dential school around 1942. They were trying to kill us off, and it nearly worked. They did the same thing at Protestant Indian schools, three kids to a bed, healthy ones with the dying. (Testimony of Mabel Sport to IHRAAM officers, Port Alberni, BC, March 31, 1998) killed, and buried under the floorboards. We asked the local RCMP to exhume that place and search for remains but they've always refused, as recently as 1996. Corporal Sampson even threatened us. That kind of cover-up is the norm. Children were put together with kids sick with TB in the infirmary. That was standard procedure. We've docu- mented thirty-five outright murders in a seven-year period. (Testimony of Diane Harris to the IHRAAM Tribunal, June 13, 1998) yu? and it nearly worked. They did the same thing at Protestant Evidence exists that active collusion from police, hospital Indian schools, three kids to a bed, healthy ones with the officials, coroners, Indian Agents and even native leaders helped to dying. (Testimony of Mabel Sport to IHRAAM officers, conceal such murders. Local hospitals, particularly tuberculosis Port Alberni, BC, March 31, 1998) sanatoriums connected to the United and Roman Catholic churches, served as "dumping grounds" for children's bodies and Reverend Pitts, the Alberni school principal, he forced me routinely provided false death certificates for murdered students. and eight other boys to eat this special food out of a different In the case of the United Church's Alberni residential school, sort of can. It tasted really strange. And then all of us came students who discovered dead bodies of other children faced seri- down with tuberculosis. I was the only one to survive, ‘cause ous retribution. One such witness, Harry Wilson of Bella Bella, my Dad broke into the school one night and got me out of BC, claims that he was expelled from the school, then hospitalised there. All of the rest died from tuberculosis and they were and drugged against his will, after finding the body of a dead girl never treated. Just left there to die. And their families were in May 1967. all told they had died of pneumonia. The plan was to kill us Sadly, the two-tiered system of collaborators and victims creat- off in secret, you know. We all just began dying after eating ed among native students at the schools continues to the present, that food. Two of my best friends as some of the state-funded band coun- were in that group that was poi- cil officials—themselves former col- soned. We were never allowed to laborators—appear to have an interest speak of it or go into the basement, ome ° in helping to suppress evidence and where hes murders happened. It Such killings occurred in at silence witnesses who would incrimi- was a death sentence to be sent to least eight residential schools nate not only the murderers but them- selves as agents of the white adminis- the Alberni school. (Testimony of . ae ° William Sport to IHRAAM of in British Columbia alone, tration. cers, Port Alberni, BC, March 31, run by all three mainline A majority of the witnesses who 1998) . . have shared their story with the denominations. authors and at public tribunals on the © Homicides west coast have described either see- More overt killings of children were ing a murder or discovering a body at a common occurrence in residential the residential school he or she attend- schools, according to eyewitnesses. ed. The body count, even according The latter have described children being beaten and starved to _ to the government's own figures, was enormously high. Where, death, thrown from windows, strangled and being kicked or __ then, are all these bodies? The deaths of thousands of students are thrown down stairs to their deaths. Such killings occurred in at _ not recorded in any of the school records, Indian Affairs files or least eight residential schools in British Columbia alone, run by other documentation submitted thus far in court cases or academic all three mainline denominations. publications on the residential schools. Some 50,000 corpses Bill Seward of Nanaimo, BC, age 78, states: have literally and officially gone missing. My sister Maggie was thrown from a three-storey window by The residential school system had to hide not only the evidence a nun at the Kuper Island school, and she died. Everything of murder but the bodies as well. The presence of secret was swept under the rug. No investigation was ever done. gravesites of children killed at Catholic and Protestant schools in We couldn't hire a lawyer at the time, being Indians. So Sardis, Port Alberni, Kuper Island and Alert Bay has been attested nothing was ever done. (Testimony of Bill Seward, Duncan, to by numerous witnesses. These secret burial yards also con- BC, August 13, 1998) tained the aborted foetuses and even small babies who were the offspring of priests and staff at the schools, according to the same Diane Harris, Community Health Worker for the Chemainus witnesses. One of them, Ethel Wilson of Bella Bella, claims to Band Council on Vancouver Island, confirms accounts of the have seen "rows and rows of tiny skeletons" in the foundations of murders. the former Anglican residential school of St Michael's in Alert We always hear stories of all the kids who were killed at Bay when a new school was built there in the 1960s. Kuper Island. A graveyard for the babies of the priests and There were several rows of them, all lined up neatly like it girls was right south of the school until it was dug up by the was a big cemetery. The skeletons had been found within one priests when the school closed in 1973. The nuns would of the old walls of St Mike's school. None of them could have abort babies and sometimes end up killing the mothers. been very old, from their size. Now why would so many kids There were a lot of disappearances. My mother, who is 83 have been buried like that inside a wall, unless someone was now, saw a priest drag a girl down a flight of stairs by her trying to hide something? (Testimony of Ethel Wilson to hair and the girl died as a result. Girls were raped and Kevin Annett, Vancouver, BC, August 8, 1998) Such killings occurred in at least eight residential schools in British Columbia alone, run by all three mainline denominations. Diane Harris, Community Health Worker for the Chemainus Band Council on Vancouver Island, confirms accounts of the murders. We always hear stories of all the kids who were killed at Kuper Island. A graveyard for the babies of the priests and girls was right south of the school until it was dug up by the priests when the school closed in 1973. The nuns would abort babies and sometimes end up killing the mothers. There were a lot of disappearances. My mother, who is 83 now, saw a priest drag a girl down a flight of stairs by her hair and the girl died as a result. Girls were raped and 38 ¢ NEXUS WWW.NeXU smagazi ne.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2002