First Post - Indian School Days – By Basil H. Johnston

The book Indian School Days depicts the actual boarding school experiences of the author Basil Johnston who attended St. Peter Claver’s Indian Residential School in Spanish, Ontario.  The school housed children between the ages of four to seventeen who came from broken homes, were orphaned, few were enrolled by their family, and some were there as they were considered community problems.  In the author’s case he was placed at the school due to his parent’s separation and the guiding hands of the local Indian agent and priest.  Basil, at the age of ten, entered the Jesuit boarding school in 1936.

SENTENCED TO SPANISH - The students, referred to as inmates, were treated harshly from the moment they were picked up from their homes by the Indian agents.  Treated like criminals and looked upon as animals the author and his younger sister were left in utter confusion as they were taken out of their home.  There was no fair warning from their mother and grandmother about where their journey would be taking them.  They, the author and his sister, were initially separated to boarding schools based on their gender.

Greeted by the vision of boys dressed in beige shirts and pants and shorn heads Basil was quickly escorted by a Jesuit priest to be cleansed. Directed to strip he was pointed to a shower, given soap and a turpentine-gasoline substance was poured upon his head.  This ritual consisted of persistent bellowing of, “Wash good, scrub and scrub hard!”

Presented with his uniform and inmate number “43” was led to the recreation hall where his head was shaved by another inmate.  To put an end to his first day Basil instigated a fight with another boy during a pea shelling task that became competitive.  Being taken from his home then separated from his sister this incident left him feeling even more ostracized.  


 Jesuit Priests from http://www.nrsss.ca/Resource_Centre/Resource_Centre_Index.htm#OntarioIRS

As I reflect upon the author’s induction to St. Peter Claver’s Indian Residential School I found myself going back in time.  I am trying to envision what is would have been like to hear a knock on the door and realizing that I would be leaving my family but not necessarily understanding clearly why I needed to go.   Initially I became angry as I though it inhumane to disconnect a child from their family based on the premise that this child no longer had a nuclear family.  Although as I read through the following pages it became apparent that, for some families, this may have been the only option they had as they believed that these schools would provide their child(ren) will life’s most basic needs as well as an education. 

Like Chilocco, and so many Native American boarding/residential schools of the past, this residential school was able to completely take care of their needs.  The students, in this case – inmates, tended to the livestock, gardens, mills, blacksmith shops, crops and any other care required of its facilities.  Along with being the workforce, the students were there to learn a vocation (animal husbandry, plumbing, carpentry, etc) and were encouraged to eventually lead students to a religious vocation.   The author notes this was not the outcome.  Due to heavy resistance not one person made a life in the trades nor followed the priesthood.

Unlike Chilocco I found the first chapters of this book unsettling.  Initially, the author depicts a beautiful scenic landscape full of open spaces, greenery and all the opportunities of a young child enjoying their childhood until one fateful day when he was "sentenced" to go to a residential school. What gave me some ease to my anger is the video I found on YouTube capturing the apology given to First Nations people offered on June 10, 2008 by the Canadian government.