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Arnold Sylvester, who, like Dennis Charlie, attended Kuper Island school between 1939 and 1945, corroborates this account. The priests dug up the secret gravesite in a real hurry around 1972 when the school closed. No one was allowed to watch them dig up those remains. I think it's because that was a specially secret graveyard where the bodies of the pregnant girls were buried. Some of the girls who got pregnant from the priests were actually killed because they threatened to talk. They were sometimes shipped out and sometimes just disappeared. We weren't allowed to talk about this. (Testimony of Arnold Sylvester to Kevin Annett, Duncan, BC, August 13, 1998) spirit, which explains their child-like nature and behaviour. At our school we strive to turn them into mature Christians who will learn how to behave in the world and surrender their barbaric way of life and their treaty rights which keep them trapped on their land and in a primitive existence. Only then will the Indian problem in our country be solved. (Rev. A. E. Caldwell to Indian Agent P. D. Ashbridge, Ahousat, BC, Nov 12, 1938) disappeared. We weren't allowed to talk about this. The fact that this same principal is named by eyewitnesses as (Testimony of Arnold Sylvester to Kevin Annett, Duncan, the murderer of at least two children—one of them in the same BC, August 13, 1998) month that he wrote this letter—is no accident, for cultural geno- cide spills effortlessly over into killing, as the Nazis proved so Local hospitals were also used as a dumping ground for chil- visibly to the world. dren's bodies, as in the case of the Edmonds boy and his "process- Nevertheless, Caldwell's letter illuminates two vital points for ing" at St Paul's Hospital after his murder at the Catholic school in the purpose of this discussion of mental and bodily harm inflicted North Vancouver. Certain hospitals, however, seem to have been on native students: (a) the residential schools were a vast project particularly favourite spots for storing corpses. in mind control, and (b) the underlying aim of this "re-program- The Nanaimo Tuberculosis Hospital (called The Indian ming" of native children was to force aboriginals off their ances- Hospital) was one such facility. Under the guise of tuberculosis tral lands in order to allow whites access to them. treatment, generations of native children and adults were subject- To quote Alberni survivor Harriett Nahanee: ed to medical experiments and sexual They were always pitting us sterilisations at the Nanaimo Hospital, . . against each other, getting us to according to women who experienced The residential schools fight and molest one another. It es rues ze Arse) Bure | hecame a safe haven—one ff al dsinad srl usw native corpses. survivor Calls it a "free fire would forget that we were Port Alberni not only stored chiens | _ _ Z0Ne"—for pedophiles, Creator gave our people the job bodies from the local United Church murderers and brutal doctors of protecting the land, the fish, where abortions were performed on | Needing live test subjects for ei ative. bur ine white native girls who were made pregnant at drug testing or genetic and wanted it all, and the residential the school by staff and clergy, and schools were the way they got it. where newborn babies were disposed cancer research. And it worked. of and possibly killed, according to wit- We've forgotten our sacred nesses like Amy Tallio, who attended the task, and now the whites have Alberni school during the early 1950s. most of the land and have taken all the fish and the trees. Irene Starr of the Hesquait Nation, who attended the Alberni Most of us are in poverty, addictions, family violence. And it school between 1952 and 1961, confirms this. all started in the schools, where we were brainwashed to hate Many girls got pregnant at the Alberni school. The fathers our own culture and to hate ourselves so that we would lose were the staff, teachers, the ones who raped them. We never everything. That's why I say that the genocide is still going knew what happened to the babies, but they were always dis- on. (Testimony of Harriett Nahanee to Kevin Annett, North appearing. The pregnant girls were taken to the Alberni hos- Vancouver, BC, December 11, 1995) pital and then came back without their babies. Always. The staff killed those babies to cover their tracks. They were paid It was only after the assumption of guardianship powers by the by the church and government to be rapists and murderers. west coast school principals, between 1933 and 1941, that the first (Testimony of Irene Starr to Kevin Annett, Vancouver, BC, evidence of organised pedophile networks in those residential August 23, 1998) schools emerges. For such a regime was legally and morally free ta tad became a safe haven—one survivor Calls it a "free fire zone'—for pedophiles, murderers and brutal doctors needing live test subjects for drug testing or genetic and cancer research. It was only after the assumption of guardianship powers by the west coast school principals, between 1933 and 1941, that the first evidence of organised pedophile networks in those residential schools emerges. For such a regime was legally and morally free to do whatever it wanted to its captive native students. The residential schools became a safe haven—one survivor calls it a "free fire zone"—for pedophiles, murderers and brutal doctors needing live test subjects for drug testing or genetic and cancer research. Particular schools, such as the Catholic one at Kuper Island and the United Church's Alberni school, became special centres where extermination techniques were practised with impunity on native children from all over the province, alongside the usual routine of beatings, rapes and farming out of children to influential pedophiles. Much of the overt mental and bodily harm done to native stu- dents was designed to break down traditional tribal loyalties along kinship lines by pitting children against each other and cutting Article Il (b): Causing serious bodily or mental harm Early in the residential schools era, the Indian Affairs Superintendent, Duncan Campbell Scott, outlined the purpose of the schools thus: "to kill the Indian within the Indian". Clearly, the genocidal assault on aboriginals was not only phys- ical but spiritual: European culture wished to own the minds and the souls of the native nations, to turn the Indians it hadn't killed into third-class replicas of white people. Expressing the "virtues" of genocide, Alfred Caldwell, principal of the United Church school in Ahousat on Vancouver Island's west coast, wrote in 1938: The problem with the Indians is one of morality and religion. They lack the basic fundamentals of civilised thought and NEXUS ¢ 39 The residential schools FEBRUARY — MARCH 2002 www.nexusmagazine.com