Content Warning: This section contains discussions of anti-Indigenous racism, colonial violence, cultural genocide, child abuse, and suicide.

When European settlers arrived in what is now called North America, they enacted a wide-scale genocide of Indigenous populations. That genocide took many forms, from outright violence to more subtle attempts to eradicate Indigenous cultures and “assimilate” Indigenous people into white people’s culture. One strategy that white settlers used in both what is now the US and Canada was to create residential schools, or boarding schools, for Indigenous children. These children were taken from their families, often by force. They lived at their schools, where they were often forced to cut their hair, wear European-style clothes, and speak English. Most schools were run by the Catholic Church; many students were converted to Christianity to further alienate them from their culture. By the time students returned to their families after this indoctrination, many of them had come to associate their own cultures and languages with a deep sense of shame. In some cases, they passed this shame on to their children, causing a disconnect in cultural heritage.

Children in residential schools often lived in cramped conditions without adequate resources or care. Outbreaks of disease like smallpox, tuberculosis, and measles were common.