Editing Residential school

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In Canada, residential schools were state-sponsored boarding schools set up for the "education" of Native American and Inuit children, in a similar vein to Indian boarding schools in the USA. They operated for over a century, until they were eventually abolished.

==Historical use of residential schools==
During Canada's colonial period, the white government felt that the Indigenous people would struggle to adapt to Canadian society; the first residential school, Mohawk Institute, opened in 1831 in Brantford, Ontario. The residential schools were set up as a joint venture between the Canadian government and the church to help assimilate the Native Americans into white society; in total, 150,000 Indigenous children attended residential schools, and there were over 130 schools across Canada between 1831 and 1996.

Native children were separated from the families, who were forced to send their children to the residential schools; when they were there, the children were subjected to physical and emotional torture, sexual assaults, and forbidden from speaking their Indigenous languages or practicing their cultures; the endgame was "take the Indian out of the child"; upon arrival, their hair would be cut, their skin would be bleached so they looked more "white" and they were disallowed from wearing Indigenous clothing.

Residential schools had a devastating impact on Indigenous communities; without positive role models, former students of residential schools would subject their own children to the same treatment they had suffered. Many Indigenous people in Canada believe that social problems such as addiction, unemployment and domestic abuse are a direct consequence of the suffering in residential schools.

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