Shubenacadie Indian Residential School

The Shubenacadie Indian Residential School was part of the Canadian Indian residential school system and was located in Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia. It was the only one in Atlantic Canada and children from across the region were placed in the institution. The schools were funded through Indian Affairs and the Catholic Church. The institution was like an orphanage, which were the forerunners of contemporary child protection and welfare services. The first children arrived on February 5, 1930 and the institution was closed after 37 years on June 22, 1967. Approximately 10% of Mi'kmaq children lived at the institution. (Approximately 30% of native children were placed in residential schools nationally.) Over 1000 children are estimated to have been placed in the institution over 37 years.

Contemporary opinions of the institutions range from National Chief Phil Fontaine comparing it to “genocide” to the aboriginal affairs minister John Duncan describing it as “an education policy gone wrong“. As the institution was moved out of poverty and away from corporal punishment in the 1950s and 60s, predictability, Mi’kmaq people’s memories of the school improved. One Mi’kmaq woman who attended the institution from 1955- 1962 spoke positively about attending the school, preferring it over living in the poverty on her reserve.

At the same time, those who were placed in the institution during the first twenty years have spoken of the traumatic experiences they had in the institution. Most agree that there were serious problems with the institution: poor living conditions, corporal punishment, over-crowding, lack of academic education, forced farm labour, hunger, racist curriculum, and children punished for speaking the Mi’kmaq language.

According to historian John G. Reid, in the 18th century the Mi’kmaq militias and Maliseet militias were not defeated militarily nor did they make formal surrender of their territory. (Historian Stephen Patterson argues that the native militias were defeated, however, this defeat was after Mi’kmaq and Maliseet militias effectively resisted the British for 75 years, over six wars, before participating in the Burying the hatchet ceremony in 1761.) As native military power waned in the region, they were supplanted by the arrival of the Loyalist who more than quadrupled the number of people living in the region. Loyalists built roads and created farms that destroyed native hunting habitats. The natives “access to land was narrowed and native economies hollowed out accordingly.” The resulting dislocation from the land led to poverty and marginalization, subsisting on reserves.

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