Resource Library
Find compelling classroom resources, learn new teaching methods, meet standards, and make a difference in the lives of your students.
We are grateful to The Hammer Family Foundation for supporting the development of our on-demand learning and teaching resources.
Introducing Our US History Curriculum Collection
Draw from this flexible curriculum collection as you plan any middle or high school US history course. Featuring units, C3-style inquiries, and case studies, the collection will help you explore themes of democracy and freedom with your students throughout the year.
Who Are The Indigenous Peoples of Canada?
Introduce yourself to the important historical events and issues that are explored throughout the rest of the book Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools.
First Nations
The term First Nations, as of 2013, refers to some 617 different communities, traditionally composed of groups of 400 or so who lived in America long before European contact.
The Inuit
The term Inuit refers broadly to the Arctic indigenous population of Alaska, Canada, and Greenland. Today, the Inuit communities of Canada live in the Inuit Nunangat—loosely defined as “Inuit homeland”—which is divided into four regions.
Dispossession, Destruction, and the Reserves
Reserves existed in Africa, in the British American colonies, and in Canada, where the colonizers had to address the people they dispossessed— people who seemingly stood in the way of the political and economic plans of European settlers.
Defining the Indian
Two main pieces of legislation laid the foundation for what was to be the new Dominion’s policy regarding relations with First Nations: the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869.
Banning Indigenous Culture
The ultimate goal of the Indian Act has always been the assimilation of the Indigenous Peoples as separate nations into mainstream Canada.
Traditional Education
The idea that Western culture was superior and that the Indigenous Peoples needed to be Christianized and civilized came from the biases of Europeans and their unwillingness to appreciate the complex, largely unwritten teaching processes inside indigenous communities.
Aggressive Assimilation
The key to this policy was a system of industrial schools where religious instruction and skills training would help the Native Americans catch up with the demands of Western society.
Legislation for the Residential Schools
Prime Minister Macdonald authorized the creation of new residential schools and granted government funds for those that were already in place.
The Role of the Churches
Learn about the Catholic and Anglican churches' role in propagating residential schools throughout Canada.
Building the Indian Residential Schools System
One of the most important historians of the residential schools, James R. Miller, estimates that a great number of indigenous students were, in fact, educated in day schools, although the residential schools left the most painful, long-lasting marks on indigenous communities.