WEBVTT - Canada's Darkest Secret: Residential Schools 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:05.960 Hmm. Do you know what is a podcast? This is 0:00:05.960 --> 0:00:10.360 a podcast, a podcast called Behind the Bastards about bad people, 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.000 the worst people in all of history and the worst 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:16.640 things in all of history, and generally bad stuff. I'm 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:21.240 Robert Evans in case you didn't know, Boy, I don't know. 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:26.160 Middling introduction. It's no me just shouting the word hitler 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.240 a totally but it's not great. I'm sorry. Look, it's 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:32.800 hard to introduce a podcast every week and we it's not. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:35.440 They're not all gonna be winners. Everyone's not gonna be 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.320 a gonna be a triumph of the human spirit. So 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.800 just deal with it. Just deal with it. I'm sorry. Hi, Hi, 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:46.480 Sophie UM, and hello to our guest today, Anna Hosnia. Anna. 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:51.960 How are you doing? Hello? How should people introduce podcasts? 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.280 How has that done? I mean, I don't do any better. 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.560 I'm just like, hi, this is the name of the show, okay, 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:01.720 and then I get into it. Yeah. I never know 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.560 how and I still don't. Um, because, as as I 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.320 think I've repeated to people, one of the key aspects 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.480 of my job is never learning how to do it properly. An, 0:01:13.040 --> 0:01:17.440 how do you feel about Canada? Um? Canada and I 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.160 have an interesting relationship. I spent the majority of the 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.360 end of last year in the beginning of this year 0:01:23.480 --> 0:01:27.000 making sure I could get into Canada, which was stressful. 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:33.920 Remember this criminal behavior on my record that Canada probably 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.640 wouldn't appreciate. But I got in no big they didn't 0:01:36.680 --> 0:01:39.680 even care, So I don't know. It's like a nice 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:45.160 terrain with nice people. It's a nice terrain nice people 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:50.360 Canada gets. You know, it's nice being next to the 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.320 United States because the US is always fucking up in 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:58.040 like such extreme and invisible ways that as long as like, 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.160 as long as you're you're just kind quiet, uh, you 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.400 can get away with murder, which Canada has for for 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.120 as long as there's been a Canada. Oh yeah, you know, 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:12.040 I like it's it's a it's a messy country, right 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.160 like it it's it's a messier country than you'd expect 0:02:15.280 --> 0:02:18.880 considering the reputation Canada has for like, oh the nice Canadians, 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:24.240 everything works, like the government's so functional. Um, like, we 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:27.600 should all be more like Canada. And I guess if 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.840 you're the United States, we should be more like Canada 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:32.240 because they are a better country than US. But they're 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:35.200 still they're still messy as hell. And today we're gonna 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.160 finally come out swinging against Canada. Anna, We're gonna, we're gonna, 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:41.840 we're gonna knock them down, knock them down. A couple 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:46.320 of pegs with you. I had no idea. I let 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.720 you have no idea what you're referencing? Like, yeah, like 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:52.520 they're mess Oh yeah, they are. They are very Have 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:57.840 you ever heard of residential schools? No? Yeah, that's what 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.560 we're talking about today. And this is um upper particularly 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:04.560 ugly chapter of Canadian history. Um that is now fairly 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:06.520 well known in Canada, but I don't think most people 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.560 outside of the Great White North have ever heard of them. Um, 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.040 So it's yeah, it's it's a pretty terrible thing, and 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:15.320 we're going to talk about it, and um, you know, 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:20.040 eventually whip our listeners up into a frenzy and burned 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:23.200 down the entire nation of Canada. Probably not that second 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:27.120 Party because they're still better than the United States, but like, 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:29.519 you know, pretty messy. Still, do you bring get the 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:34.359 vibe that like every government is bad? Yes, yes, constantly 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:40.240 every day. It was just me, but like man everywhere 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.120 is bad. Yeah, they're all it's all bad. It's all bad. 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.320 Some of them are like competent bad and some of 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:49.840 them are incompetent bad, Like the US is consistently incompetent 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:54.880 bad and Canada is consistently competent bad um. And that 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:57.040 is what I would say is the chief difference between 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.760 the badness of them. Anyway, let's start at the beginning. 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:02.960 So the beginning of Canada, that is our our our 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:05.200 neighbors to the north, got their start as a semi 0:04:05.240 --> 0:04:08.600 independent political entity in eighteen seventy six, when the British 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:12.520 North America Act united the three remaining British American colonies 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.440 into the first four provinces of the Dominion of Canada, 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:19.719 which is a pretty cool name. After you know that act. 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.359 In eighteen seventy six, Canada got its own government and 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:24.480 a federal structure for like the first time. This is 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.560 the first time. Eighteen seventy six is when Canada, Canada 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.279 starts being like a big thing as opposed to like 0:04:30.320 --> 0:04:32.280 just a bunch of different British colonies. You know, you 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:35.120 get your there's this colony that started out as just 0:04:35.160 --> 0:04:37.480 a bunch of fur trappers, and you know, there's the 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:40.960 place where the people actually live and YadA, YadA, YadA. Um, 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.000 they all get united in eighteen seventy six, and they're 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.440 a they're a polity finally. So uh. This went over 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.159 pretty well with all the white people who inhabited the 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.719 area that we call Canada, because white people everywhere have 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:56.839 always loved Canada, but it was less celebrated among the 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:00.960 indigenous people of the region, um, who were super psyched 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:05.160 about Britain, being like, now you're all Canada, um, because 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.359 they had been other things previously and perhaps preferred that 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:11.640 to be in Canada. So the governments of the colonies 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:15.000 of Canada had started setting up reservations for indigenous people 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:17.840 back in the eighteen thirties, um, and these were kind 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.160 of patterned off of the ones in the United States. 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.159 Canada had kind of a history of looking over to 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:26.000 how the US dealt with indigenous people and being like, 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.960 what if we did that? But quieter, um, so less 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:33.720 of the of the genocidal wars. You know, you do 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.479 get you do get some of that. The Canadian Mounties 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:39.559 are certainly a part of of the history of white 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:42.680 people with funny hats and guns murdering Native Americans, but 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.200 it is it is generally a bit quieter in Canada. Um, 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:48.240 but they you know, they operate on some of the 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:50.400 same premises. And in the eighteen thirties they start setting 0:05:50.440 --> 0:05:53.080 up reservations, and as in the United States, the goal 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:57.039 of these reservations was to give natives unproductive land so 0:05:57.080 --> 0:05:59.000 that they would stay out of white people's way while 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:01.320 we looted the rest of the land mass. So you 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:04.640 would start out as the indigenous people, you know, this 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:07.680 all being your land that your ancestors have been on 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:11.120 since forever. And then Canada says we're gonna guarantee you 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:13.960 that you have land forever. But it's this specific chunk 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.520 of what used to be a much larger piece of land, 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.240 and it's the worst chunk of it. And if you, uh, 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:23.520 if you leave, you you get in trouble. So the 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.200 Dominion of Canada poured it over several old laws that 0:06:26.279 --> 0:06:29.320 governed how they got to treat members of Native tribes. 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:32.280 And these had the kind of startlingly racist names you'd expect, 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:37.200 including the Gradual Civilization Act of eighteen fifty seven, UM, 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:43.120 which was meant to gradually civilize indigenous people. Um. Yeah, 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.960 that's a nice way to put it, Like, we're not 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.440 going to be too fast for you were Canada. You know, 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:50.080 when we when we commit an ethnic cleansing, it's nice 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:56.880 and slow, real, real, real, even tempered uh genocide. So 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:01.320 the Gradual Civilization Act gave Natives who had educated themselves 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:05.520 in white schools the option of being enfranchised as British citizens. 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.000 Doing so meant that they got all of the rights 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.000 of a British you know, a citizen of the crown, 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:12.520 but they had to give up all legal claim to 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.600 the land of their tribe. They couldn't live on the reservations, 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.240 and they weren't seen as as natives anymore as Indians 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:22.440 and the legal parlance of the time. So you got 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:24.800 to vote in all of that stuff if you agreed 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:29.200 to stop being an indigenous person, like yeah, yeah, that 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:32.120 was that was the rule. What then, Yeah, The goal 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.920 was basically to get all of the natives in the 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.360 members of native tribes in Canada to like give up 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:39.840 their rights to their native land and their native hunting 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:42.280 and stuff that they've been guaranteed by previous treaties, Like 0:07:42.320 --> 0:07:44.920 treaties guaranteed you the right of you're the member of 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:47.040 you know, certain tribes, you get to hunt in certain 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:49.400 areas and you know, if you remember, you get to 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:51.760 you get to hold certain land. And some of that 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.560 land had nice mining on it. Some of that land 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:58.440 was good for growing, uh, And settlers wanted it, and 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.160 they figured the best way to make sure that they 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.560 could have it was convinced all of these natives to 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.560 give up their claim to the land and exchange for 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:08.560 the unclear benefits of being a British citizen. So that's 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:11.320 basically the idea is you all become British citizens and 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:15.280 we just kind of exterminate your cultures peacefully. So well, 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:19.040 I mean, is this all because they want control? Like 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:23.600 they yeah, what who cares if you have a native? 0:08:23.680 --> 0:08:26.560 Like why do you have to like forego everything about 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:30.200 your life to become a British citizen. Well, because people 0:08:30.520 --> 0:08:34.280 found it very unsettling that despite all of the what 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.040 seemed to be them the self evident benefits of civilization, UM, 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:41.959 Native Americans pretty consistently in both North you know, the 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.400 United States and in Canada and all the chunks of 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:47.079 North America that were being taken up by white people, UM, 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.040 were consistently unwilling to give up their cultures. And they're 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:54.760 they're like the historical way that their families had lived 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.040 in favor of living in cities like white people because 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.440 it sucked um and among other things, that was kind 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.120 of a direct threat to people's white people's attitudes about 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:10.000 the nature of of the world. Um. But also like 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.400 they wanted their ship right. They kept finding like gold 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.920 mines and silver mines and coal on Native land, and 0:09:16.960 --> 0:09:19.240 they wanted it, and the best way to get it 0:09:19.280 --> 0:09:22.160 was to reduce the number of people who legally counted 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.680 as natives so that eventually there would be none of 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.360 them left. And it was like, again, they weren't out 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.719 their massacre, although that happened to sometimes, they weren't necessarily 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.920 out there massacreing people. The goal was to just gradually 0:09:34.000 --> 0:09:36.640 reduce the number of people who legally counted as native 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:38.720 to zero so that all of that land would be 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:42.440 open for settlement. This is the polite Canadian way of 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:47.240 committing a genocide. Um. Yeah. And so anyone who took 0:09:47.280 --> 0:09:49.720 the state up on the offer of enfranchisement would receive 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:51.959 a grant of land that was not part of the 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:55.040 reservation and a one time cash payment, but they would 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:57.240 lose all of the rights that they had as members 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:00.720 of their tribe. UM. But people didn't like this offer. 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.320 Only one guy actually took it, and so the government 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.400 of Canada had to keep pushing. They they passed a 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.320 Gradual Enfranchisement Act in eighteen sixty nine UM, which had 0:10:10.360 --> 0:10:13.839 the same basic goal and mandated that enfranchise natives had 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:17.719 to adopt English names. UM. The Act also attempted to 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:20.280 lay out how tribes on reservations were supposed to organize 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:22.800 their societies and care for their land. It determined like 0:10:22.840 --> 0:10:25.280 how many people had to could could be underneath the 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.679 chief and all this stuff. It was just like trying 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:30.040 taking these societies that we're seeing as kind of like 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:34.400 inherently disordered and uncivilized and trying to turn them into 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:38.319 something that British legal codes could understand. God hate that. 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:41.760 I hate everything about this. Yeah, it's all pretty gross. Um. 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:43.760 And both of these laws, you know, the ones we've 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:46.560 discussed so far, we're eventually superseded by the Indian Act 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:49.520 of eighteen seventy six, which is still in a modified 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.079 form law in Canada today. UM. And as a result 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:54.920 of all this legislation, it was kind of established to 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:58.599 the late eighteen hundreds that indigenous peoples existed under federal jurisdiction. 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:01.600 So the federal government of Canada uh um was sort 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:07.000 of responsible for dealing with indigenous people. Um. Yeah, it's 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.599 it's it's all kind of a messy history. And I 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:11.360 don't want to get too much into the weeds of 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.360 like Canadian uh law here, but I did find an 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:17.640 interesting booklet called Facing History, which is um published by 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:21.000 an international organization of educators that focus on teaching like 0:11:21.040 --> 0:11:24.200 the ugly parts of history to two people. Um. And 0:11:24.200 --> 0:11:27.360 I'm gonna quote from that, sort of summarizing how Canadian 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.040 law about evolved to treat natives. Um. And they use 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.079 the word Indian a lot. Uh. That's just kind of 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:36.440 what the legal term was at the time in Canada 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:39.160 because racism. Um. So we will be using that here 0:11:39.160 --> 0:11:42.360 when we're referring to the actual laws. Quote. The Indian 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.240 Act of eighteen seventy six created the legal category of 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.880 status Indian, a category that had long lasting implications for 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:51.520 the First Nations of Canada once it entered into law. 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:54.640 The Act imposed a single common legal definition, lumping together 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.560 different nations and languages into the broad category of First Nations. 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:00.640 What does it mean to be a stab at us Indian? 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.640 The original document of eighteen seventy six to find someone 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:07.360 as being legally Indian if that person fit these descriptions. First, 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.080 any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:14.240 a particular band. Secondly any child of such person. Thirdly, 0:12:14.520 --> 0:12:18.439 any woman who is or was lawfully married to such person. Now, 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:20.640 a key element was the law's definition of who was 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:23.840 Indian and what Indian. This was. The term Indian was 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.000 used several centuries before the laws simply formalized its use. 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:29.880 It is worth noting, however, that none of the many clans, bands, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.880 alliances and nations ever called themselves Indian. And it's really 0:12:33.960 --> 0:12:36.360 messy talking about like a lot of people think that 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:38.720 you just used the term First Nations for like the 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.760 Indigenous peoples of Canada, but that's actually only that was 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:44.840 a specific legal term for a specific subset of tribes, 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:46.640 and there were a bunch of other tribes that aren't 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.800 First Nations but are Indigenous peoples in Canada. It's very 0:12:50.240 --> 0:12:52.040 I'm not an expert on it by any means, but 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:55.520 it's like there's a really weird legal history that's basically 0:12:55.800 --> 0:12:59.040 it's focused around the fact that the Canadian government really 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.600 didn't want to recogn as certain tribes as actually being natives, 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:06.560 because those tribes regularly rosen rebellion against the Canadian government, 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:11.040 like thematists um, and so they they they defined them 0:13:11.080 --> 0:13:13.880 out of existence. So they made a definition of Indian 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.960 that didn't include the tribes. They had problems with that. 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:21.880 Those people wouldn't have rights either. Again, it's like the polite, liberal, 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.640 white person way of committing a genocide. Just you erased 0:13:25.640 --> 0:13:28.160 them on paper, so you don't have like, yeah, it's 0:13:28.240 --> 0:13:33.760 it's it's pretty pretty interesting, pretty Canadian. So this process, yeah, 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:35.679 so this is how they attempt to do it at first, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:37.760 like just kind of slowly write these people out of 0:13:37.760 --> 0:13:40.679 existence and give them an option to like become citizens 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:43.000 so that they because clearly nobody who could become a 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:45.400 British citizen would want to still be a member of, 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.760 you know, whatever tribe. But this really didn't work out 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.800 very well, and Indigenous people continued to want to be 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.480 indigenous people, and this was a problem for the new 0:13:54.480 --> 0:13:58.800 government of Canada. Uh Prime Minister John A. McDonald found 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.560 this very frustrating and ticular he was a big believer 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.800 in civilizing the Native and he felt that the government 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.599 had to do whatever it could to sever the connections 0:14:07.600 --> 0:14:10.760 of individuals to their tribes so that they could be Canadians. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:14.520 The best way to do this, he felt, was boarding schools. Quote. 0:14:14.720 --> 0:14:16.960 When the school is on the reserve, the child lives 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.760 with his parents, who are savages. He is surrounded by savages, 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:21.960 and though he may learn to write, read and write, 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:24.640 his habits and training and motive thought are Indian. He 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.920 is simply a savage who can read and write. Prime 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.880 Minister McDonald decided to commission a study into how Canada 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:34.200 might most rapidly civilize her indigenous people. He commissioned a 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.120 journalist named Nicholas Davon to travel to the United States, 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:39.280 since the Good Old USA was clearly the best at 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.240 getting rid of North America's native peoples. Davon traveled to Washington, 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.640 d c. And he met with veterans of US Grant's administration, 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:51.760 which had enshrined a policy of What's Grant called aggressive civilization, 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.440 which is a polite way of talking about forcing people 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.160 to live like white folks, forcing Indigenous people to live 0:14:58.200 --> 0:15:00.600 like white folks, taking them off their land, taking their 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.720 children from them, throwing their children into these what they 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:11.440 called industrial boarding schools. Civilization aggressive civilization. Yeah, that was 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.360 Grant's term for don't. I don't know, don't a lot 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:21.040 of these terms like savage and civilization. Uh, and like 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.960 what you just said, is there such I mean to 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.360 refer to anyone as a savage because they come like 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.320 from a Native background. To just be like you're a 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.000 savage because you are a Native American. It's like, fuck 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.200 you culture. You don't know their culture. You don't know shit. 0:15:39.760 --> 0:15:42.480 Because the words savage, I think would be a great 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.280 term to use, like bodacious, Like some kid does like 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:48.360 a sweet skateboard trick and you're like, bro, that was savage, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.920 Like that's that would be That's that's so much better. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:56.200 But it's been poisoned because of racism. Just just another 0:15:56.320 --> 0:16:00.200 crime of of of colonialism is that we can't the 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:04.480 word savage to talk about sweet skateboarding tricks. I hate 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:10.560 it so devastating. Yeah, it's heartbreaking and also heartbreaking is 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.440 um the story of Ulyssie Simpson Grant's kind of relationship 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.880 to the genocide of Native People's. Grant is one of 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.480 those guys who you really want to like because you 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.800 know the Confederacy and stuff, um, and you know the 0:16:23.040 --> 0:16:25.320 destruction of the KKK like he did. He has some 0:16:25.440 --> 0:16:27.960 he has some good moments as a president, as both 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:30.640 as a president and as a general um. And he'd 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:33.520 spent most of his career with like a pretty vocally 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:39.760 uh positive attitude towards Native Americans and against US imperialism. Um. 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.640 As a veteran, he had condemned the US Mexican War 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.760 as quote one of the most unjust ever waged by 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.240 a stronger against a weaker nation. In eighteen sixty nine, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.200 after taking office, he'd promised peace in the American West 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.720 and admitted our dealings with the Indians properly lay us 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.880 open to charges of cruelty and swindling. Um. So Grant 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:02.040 was guy like when he came to when he came 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:04.000 into the presidency, you might have felt like, oh, he 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.199 might actually be pretty good president in terms of like 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.720 US Native relations, Like he clearly understands, like, yeah, we've 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:13.280 been sucking these people over for a while. But shortly 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:16.320 after he came into power, gold was discovered in the 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.120 Black Hills, which was land guaranteed to the Lakota by 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.320 a very clear treaty. So there's gold in them hills. 0:17:22.320 --> 0:17:24.560 And then Hills is owned by the Lakota um and 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.800 so the only thing to do was to orchestrate a 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.040 war for resources, uh, and lie about the fact that 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:34.000 the Lakota had started it, even though Grant actually like 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:36.600 sent in troops and yeah, it was like the Iraq 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.040 War of the day. Actually, if you read, um, there's 0:17:39.080 --> 0:17:41.199 a good Scientific American article will quote, but if you 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.240 read about like what Grant did to the Lakota and 0:17:44.280 --> 0:17:47.120 the Black Hills, it sounds a lot like the the 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.800 Iraq War. So the whole thing snowballed. And I was 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.440 gonna say, like us going for oil, right yeah, yeah, 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.760 just like you've got the like the basically using a 0:17:57.880 --> 0:18:01.840 mix of lies in provac cation in order to justify 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.480 a war for resource extraction. Now I have a question, 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.080 was there any oil in Canada also on like India 0:18:09.280 --> 0:18:13.960 Native American land that we also tried to do. I 0:18:13.960 --> 0:18:15.800 haven't heard anything about. But people didn't give a shit 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.080 about oil at this point, right, like yeah, baby, we 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.160 were all about golden coal back in them days. Yeah. 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:27.000 Um yeah. So this is like the whole thing, you know, 0:18:27.119 --> 0:18:30.080 the ship in the Black Hills turns into a cluster fuck. 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.560 It includes the massacre of George Custer, and the Seventh Cavalry. Um. 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:36.840 But despite the fact that it was a huge disaster, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:41.480 the policy of aggressive civilization that Grant had initially announced 0:18:41.480 --> 0:18:44.080 in eighteen sixty nine was seen by a great idea 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.880 by Nicholas Gavin and eventually by the Canadian government. Um So, 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.960 they they basically decided, like, look over at the United 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:54.159 States waging a genocidal war in the Black Hills, and 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.800 they're like, it's too loud. But like the fundamental idea 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:00.720 of forcing these people off of their land and into 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.120 cities and into schools where we teach their kids, that's 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:08.719 a good idea. Um So, in eighteen seventy nine, Nicholas 0:19:08.800 --> 0:19:11.040 Davin traveled back to Canada after his time in d 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.560 C and he wrote a report called Report on the 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:19.200 on Industrial Schools for Indians and half Breeds. Now, Yeah, 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.640 interestingly enough, half breed isn't a general term. Uh, that's 0:19:22.640 --> 0:19:25.560 a specific term. That was the official Yeah, that's the 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:30.080 official Canadian government term for the Metiste people. Um was 0:19:30.160 --> 0:19:32.800 half half breed um. And the short version of the 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:35.840 stories that the Matists had rebelled against the government a 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.000 number of times and the white people in charge didn't 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.360 want to recognize them as real Indians because that would 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:42.920 entitle them to land and hunting rights and all that stuff. 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:45.840 Um So, while the Matists weren't considered to be an 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.399 Indigenous people under the Indian Act, they were considered to 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:51.919 be an Indigenous people when it came to um the 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.440 Canadian government's policy of abducting Indigenous children and forcing them 0:19:56.440 --> 0:19:59.880 into these uh what what we're called industrial boarding schools. 0:20:00.640 --> 0:20:03.720 Um So, like they both were and weren't Native people 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.080 under the government side. But yeah, that the Canadian government 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.239 just called the Mattie's half breeds. What the funk? This? 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.040 Almo feels like a j K Rolling book, just like 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.280 so filled with weird terms that you're like, this is 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:19.280 the kind of like racism in a way. It's very racy, 0:20:19.800 --> 0:20:22.399 super straight up racism in our I mean, I'm just 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:24.920 referring to like j K Rolling books, but like this 0:20:25.040 --> 0:20:29.080 is just fucked half breeds. Fuck how to hear? That's 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:32.720 I can never wrap my mind around like caring about 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.680 a person's culture this much. It's like who cares? Who 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.440 cares so much? To be like you are labeled this 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:43.320 because this happens to be your background, Like leave it 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:45.840 the fun you know what, I'm just I I hate it, 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:49.080 you know, I just hate it. It's it's not great, 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:51.680 and it's a there's a complicated history there that we're 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:54.560 not gonna get into in tremendous detail. But what's important 0:20:54.640 --> 0:20:58.280 is that, like the the overall policy, while you have 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:03.840 the Canadian government considers like UM only recognizes some Indigenous 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:07.800 groups as as actual tribes. Any person who is like 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:11.520 an Aboriginal person UM in the area that becomes known 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.840 as Canada is kind of covered by the rules that 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:17.399 the Canadian government puts in place about residential schools. And 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:21.680 basically what they start to mandate is that Indigenous children 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:25.200 cannot stay in their homes. They have to be taken 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:29.480 away and educated at schools that are located away from 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:33.679 the reservation because like native schools are they teach you 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:38.520 to be a savage? Like yeah, yeah, yeah, Davin Wright 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:41.080 wrote wrote in his report quote the day school does 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:43.760 not work because the influence of the wigwam was stronger 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.919 than the influence of the school. UM. So basically, like 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:49.760 people like natives, even if you teach them to read 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.600 and write, you know, in English and whatnot, they're going 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:55.399 to like at their own culture there's something and this 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.720 is this is like a long standing like thing with 0:21:58.760 --> 0:22:03.040 white people in North America in particular. Is this like 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:06.240