Aim of 'residential schools' was to get the land ... "One day the north will be strong and free..." Date: November 02, 2008 05:13PM

http://www.nunatsiaq.com/discussion/read.php?1,4287,4288#msg-4288

The true aim of the Indian residential schools was not to destroy the Indian in every child, as the governments continue to keep on claiming. It was just a ploy. The true aim of the Indian residential school system was to get the land of the native peoples, that was all they were intended to do, and it had worked remarably well. The Inuit of the eastern arctic had not really been included in the residential school fiasco until the end of the 1950's. The Inuit at that time had been sent to hostels in a few communities, this was for the Inuit of Quebec. The government had to work extremely fast in the beginning of the 1960's to ship young Inuit children to the one main residential school located at Churchill, anarq, because talk about residential schools were beginning to surface in southern Canada at that time. So the federal government worked on the scheme of Ralph Ritcey, who was just another englishman pedophile, to make the former army base in Churchill into a residential school. The government worked fast, extremely fast so that they could destroy our strong cultural and family ties just before they were done away with. The government had just this one chance to divide us up and seperate us from our families for long periods of time. The Churchill Vocational Center opened it's doors in 1964 and closed in 1973. And negotiations for the land started in 1973, makes sense? And negotiations for the land started in Nunavut shortly thereafter. The governments have almost gotten away with the crime of the century, which was to obtain my land by whatever means available. But just wait here one minute everyone, I am not finished yet. I have not surrendered or signed away of my rights or title to my land, nor some of my people, so in fact I still retain my rights to the land that my grandfathers and father had seen and walked on, I still do. And the unauthorized developments that have been taking place on my land have been going without my consent. And if the people who have not signed away their rights to their land on which their fathers walked and lived on decide to do so, we can kick out the developers of my land by force. It is still my land, and if I decide to do so, I can still make a claim for the whole territory north of the 55th parallel in northern Quebec, now known as the Kativik region. I am not finished yet, the Indian in me is not yet destroyed, in fact it has just gotten more stronger, and my resolve to right this horrible wrong has just gotten stronger as well. One day the north will be strong and free but for now someone else is taking care of it for my people and the job is being very poorly done. One day I will get my land back, one way or another, either through peace or force.

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Egerton Ryerson described his mandate for the 1847 report commissioned by Ontario, wherein he recommended that the government run the 'Indian' Residential Schools:

"There is a need to raise the Indian to the level of the whiteman, and take the land out of Indians hands."