Christopher Nardi
POST MEDIA
© Provided by National Post Undated photo of a religious procession at Marieval Indian Residential School.
As Canada reels at the discovery of 751 unmarked graves near Marieval Indian Residential School, survivors and historical documents recount the abuse inflicted on Indigenous students who were ripped from their communities to attend the institution.
“We went to boarding school, they brought us there and we stayed there. We learned because they pounded it into us. Really, they were very mean. When I say pounding, I really mean pounding. Those nuns were very mean to us,” eighty-year-old Florence Sparvier recalled during a press conference Thursday.
Sparvier, who spoke to media right after Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme revealed details of the macabre discovery in a cemetery adjacent to where Marieval once stood, was the third in her family to attend the residential school after her mother and her grandmother.
She said Indigenous students were sent there to learn how to be Roman Catholic and were forced to set aside all aspects of their culture, language, beliefs and Indigenous upbringing.
“We were taught at home that we had to look after ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But that got all stripped away when we went to boarding school. They told us what to say,” Sparvier said. “We learned to not like who we were.”
As Canada reels at the discovery of 751 unmarked graves near Marieval Indian Residential School, survivors and historical documents recount the abuse inflicted on Indigenous students who were ripped from their communities to attend the institution.
“We went to boarding school, they brought us there and we stayed there. We learned because they pounded it into us. Really, they were very mean. When I say pounding, I really mean pounding. Those nuns were very mean to us,” eighty-year-old Florence Sparvier recalled during a press conference Thursday.
Sparvier, who spoke to media right after Cowessess First Nation Chief Cadmus Delorme revealed details of the macabre discovery in a cemetery adjacent to where Marieval once stood, was the third in her family to attend the residential school after her mother and her grandmother.
She said Indigenous students were sent there to learn how to be Roman Catholic and were forced to set aside all aspects of their culture, language, beliefs and Indigenous upbringing.
“We were taught at home that we had to look after ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But that got all stripped away when we went to boarding school. They told us what to say,” Sparvier said. “We learned to not like who we were.”
“They were very condemning about our people. They told us our people, our parents and grandparents didn’t have a way to be spiritual because we were all heathens.”
Why so many children died at Indian Residential Schools
As it was in many residential schools across the country, Sparvier said parents had little choice but to send their children to the residential school, lest one of them be sent to jail.
Records and interviews collected by Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), researchers at the University of Regina (U of R) and newspapers all paint a similar picture of Marieval residential school.
One Cowessess First Nation resident, Carol Lavallee, told the Regina Leader-Post in 2007 that she was herded up like cattle when taken to Marieval at only six years old.
“When they came and took me to residential school at six years old they came and got us in a cattle truck,” Lavallee said, as quoted in a U of R document. “I remember I was so small that I couldn’t see over the box. My sister was standing right tight against me to hold me still so I wouldn’t be bounced around in the back of this cattle truck.”
• Email: cnardi@postmedia.com | Twitter: ChrisGNardi
© Provided by National Post Some of the graves at the Marieval residential school now marked with red flags.
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