Sask. First Nation announces discovery of 751 unmarked graves near former residential school

[Nevilledog]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/cowessess-marieval-indian-residential-school-news-1.6078375

WARNING: This story contains details and imagery some readers may find distressing.

The Cowessess First Nation announced a preliminary finding Thursday of 751 unmarked graves at a cemetery near the former Marieval Indian Residential School.

The Marieval Indian Residential School operated from 1899 to 1997 in the area where Cowessess is now located, about 140 kilometres east of Regina. Children from First Nations in southeast Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba were sent to the school.

The First Nation took over the school's cemetery from the Catholic Church in the 1970s.

Earlier this month Cowessess started using ground-penetrating radar to locate unmarked graves. It was not immediately clear if all the remains are connected to the residential school.

*snip*

[MontanaMama]

1. There is so much evil in the Catholic Church.

The wealth and power in the institution has protected murders and pedophiles.

[Withywindle]

12. Trying to deny Biden communion because he supports reproductive rights

But for more than 100 years, forcibly taking children from their families and letting them die alone far from home. Pro-life my ASS.

[MontanaMama]

13. This.

[malaise]

2. But but but

don't you dare support abortion

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. If your school has bodies buried at it, it's not a school.

[Scrivener7]

5. If your school has children in it who are there against the will of themselves and their parents,

it's not a school.

[Klaralven]

4. Approximately 7.5 deaths per year out of how large a population of students?

Mortality among children was pretty high during the first half of the 20th Century before antibiotics and more vaccines.

[Scrivener7]

6. Nothing to see here? Maybe it was totally normal?

[Klaralven]

7. It's not obvious - you need to compare the death rat at the school with the death rate elsewhere

[hatrack]

8. If you're talking about the first half of the 20th, why are you dividing by 100?

.

[Scrivener7]

9. Yes, I know what you are getting at. But this is a school. This is a school where the children

were forced to go, against the wishes of themselves and their parents.

And then a bunch of them died. Away from their homes, away from their loved ones. Children. So many children that they needed their own graveyard. Probably a lot more than in the general population. And then they were buried away from their homes and away from their loved ones.

But sure. It's probably no big deal.

[niyad]

15. you seem to be dismissing the entire cultural and historical context of this horror.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

16. What the fuck is this shit right here.

[Maru Kitteh]

19. x1000. Unbefuckinglievable.

some days man, some days

[WhiskeyGrinder]

17. Here's some places to start reading. JFC.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/truth-and-reconciliation-commission-by-the-numbers-1.3096185

Odds of a student dying over the life of the program: 1 in 25 (if 6,000)
Odds of a residential school student dying in the early years of the program: 1 in 2
A 1907 medical report for Indian Affairs said that 75 per cent of the children who had been students at the File Hills residential school east of Regina had died because of their time spent there.

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/newly-discovered-b-c-graves-a-grim-reminder-of-the-heartbreaking-death-toll-of-residential-schools

But despite occasional efforts at reform, even as late as the 1940s the death rates within residential schools were up to five times higher than among Canadian children as a whole.

https://reconciliationcanada.ca/about/history-and-background/background/

There was a 40 – 60% mortality rate in Indian residential schools.

[Klaralven]

18. Thanks - the National Post article especially provides the missing context in the OA.

[Scrivener7]

20. Oh. My. God. Thus story guts me.

The suffering this represents for the children and their families is bottomless.

[Sneederbunk]

10. They had names. They deserved to have their graves marked.

[Withywindle]

11. +1

They deserve to go home and be buried with the proper ceremonies of THEIR cultures, not the ones the settlers forced on them. And their families deserve answers. At the very least, that's the bare minimum

[niyad]

14. Exactly.