Beyond Religion
Please identify at least three ways in which indigenous children were stripped of their cultural identities upon arrival to residential schools.
Strict uniforms/taking away clothing, strict gender separation, separation of siblings, renaming, hair cut to school standard, forbidding of anything but english.
Throughout both Miranda’s and Point’s work, we are introduced to numerous ways that both the missionaries and the Canadian government assumed authority over indigenous peoples. Give us 3 examples of how they assumed this authority. (Hint: They used specific tactics of abuse both by physically harming and psychologically)
Miranda’s → Public humiliation p. 8 Flogging (Whipping) → p. 10 Cat-o-nine tails → p.12 Corma → p.13 Cudgel → p. 14 as well as manual labour.
Points → Psychological, sexual abuse, corpral punishment, humiliation, education, upbringing, care p. 106
Why is Isabel Meadows’ preservation of Vicenta’s story significant in Miranda’s account?
Because it preserves the experience and voice of an Indigenous woman whose story might otherwise have been erased or silenced.
Why does Miranda credit Isabel as the true teller of her story?
It shows Isabel’s agency -> she deliberately built an archive for future generations, so history is made by Indigenous storytellers, not just the colonizers who wrote it down.
In 2008, Canada apologised for its policy of residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recorded the testimony of Survivors. Why does Point say these steps matter but aren’t enough on their own?
They couldn’t repair the bonds and chains that had been broken, and could not give back the years and agency that these institutions had stolen from Indigenous families.
Do you think the Spanish colonial expansion was more motivated by religious expansion or economic?
Both are acceptable, with the spanish expansion having succeeded in diminishing indigenous culture along with profiting off of their labour.
Why does Point argue that the history of residential schools raises a constitutional question as well as a moral one?
Because the Canadian government assumed authority over children belonging to self-governing Indigenous Nations, raising the question of whether it had the legitimate right to make those decisions.
How do Miranda and Point demonstrate that Indigenous peoples continued to exercise agency despite colonial efforts to control their lives?
Through resistance to colonial institutions, preservation of cultural knowledge, storytelling, and efforts to maintain or rebuild relationships and identities.
Why does Point tell the history of residential schools though survivor accounts, like his mothers, instead of through government policy?
To return the narrative to Indigenous survivors -> reclaims the narrative from the government and church records, who created the schools, to the lived experiences of survivors.
Miranda’s “Genealogy of Violence, Part I”, is a family tree which traces present day harms such as alcoholism, PTSD, domestic abuse and poverty to Spain and the Catholic Church. What is she arguing with this and what does Point add about intergenerational trauma?
Miranda argues that these harms have roots in colonialism and aren’t inherently Indigenous failings. Point, however, notes that intergenerational trauma doesn’t mean all families had the same experience or that it can explain every difficulty today. The harm is real.