Residential school survivors share their stories

Tyler Clarke

Herald staff

Promised a decent education, the residential school system not only failed to teach Andrew Quewezance anything of worth, but it filled him with hate.

Quewezance was one of a handful of residential school survivors to share his story during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission sharing panel at the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre, Tuesday - the first of three days' worth of story sharing.

"You can't learn anything in fear, shame," Quewezance told the commission and a gymnasium packed with interested members of the public. "You're in fear every day and night when you go to school."

A former student of St. Phillip's Indian Residential School at Kamsack, Sask., Quewezance told those in attendance that he wasn't going to sugar coat anything.

"I've done hard time in residential school," he said, adding that he endured physical, sexual, and emotional abuse while at St. Phillip's.

Although the school was run by the Roman Catholic Church, he said, "It wasn't God. It wasn't my God... It was the people that put this in place for the native people."

Dehumanized, Quewezance was known to school officials not by his name, but by Number 70.

"I was punished for what I was, not what I did," Quewezance said, his eyes welling with tears. No longer able to hold back the tears, he exclaimed, "Tell me please what I done wrong!"

"They called me a savage when I entered that school. I couldn't express myself. I wanted to hurt people. I hated... It took a long time for me to get where I am today. Hate is no good. The end result is bad."

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission sharing panel is part of a national program mandated with learning the truth about what happened at the residential schools.

The statements gathered during these sharing panels will serve to provide the commission with a holistic understanding of the residential school system - information that will go into a public report that will include recommendations to the parties of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

The stories will continue to be collected at the Prince Albert Indian Métis Friendship Centre through to Thursday, with every day starting with an 8:30 a.m. registration, and residential school survivors speaking until about 4:30 p.m. Stories will be collected both publically and privately.

"Tell the world what happened there," Tuesday's emcee Tom Roberts encouraged. "Once you do that, I guarantee you will feel better."

What happened to me, Canada? You killed my spirit. In its place you put hatred. You put bitterness, anger, revenge - that's what you put there. - Residential school survivor Art Fourstar

A few others joined Quewezance, Tuesday, by publicly sharing their stories around the residential school system.

Survivor Art Fourstar spoke to the horrific abuse he endured at the Birtle Indian Residential School in Manitoba.

"What happened to me, Canada?" he asked. "You killed my spirit. In its place you put hatred. You put bitterness, anger, revenge - that's what you put there."

Like many others that went through the residential school system, Fourstar reports the experience's continued negative effect on the rest of his life, and on subsequent generations of his family.

"When I left residential school I didn't know who I was," he said. "I lost my identity."

Getting into trouble with the law over the years, he remembers looking at the provincial jail similarly to the residential school, in that they both have strict regimented schedules and both facilities' inhabitants aren't allowed to leave on their own free will.

Having hit a suicidal rock bottom, he said that God answered his prayers and he kicked an alcohol addiction and got to know his children.

"I think the most beautiful thing a man can hear is that one little word - Dad," he said. "This is my culture. I found me. I found my identity and my culture. I didn't need booze."

The loss of identity is a common theme among those involved in the residential school system, judging from Tuesday's open forum.

"I was strapped, I was sexually abused, and I had to go through a healing process to deal with feelings of inadequacy... shame," residential school survivor Emile Highway shared with the commission. "It was a deliberate attempt to assimilate native people into white society."

"From the first day we walked in we were given names," Residential school survivor Paul Sylvester said. "We were called savages, or dogs, because we knew nothing of that world. We knew peace, love, happiness... We were dragged to something unknown to us."

The Herald will attend subsequent Truth and Reconciliation Commission sharing panels, Wednesday and Thursday. With a great deal more to say about the residential school system, including but not limited to incidents of sexual abuse, loss of culture and self-worth, and its multi-generational effect, the Herald will strive to provide readers with as in-depth a report as possible.