Residential Schools, Genocide and Imperialism
Connor P.S. OReilly
35245109
University of British Columbia
Residential Schools, Genocide and Imperialism
The history of the fifteenth and sixteenth century was in large part defined by European exploration and their eventual expansion into the New World. This tragically also marked the beginning of what would become “the most extensive and destructive genocide” in human history (Jones, 2006, p. 15). One can only hope it remains so. Reaching the shores of this seemingly un-tapped source of wealth and resources was the main catalyst for what would become modern day capitalism; driven by the engine of imperialism and colonialism. This paper examines the relationship between the objectives of imperialism and how they gave rise to the inception of racism and eventually the Residential School system in North America. It will explore the economic and social motives behind the colonist’s racial policies and analyze how they became little more than disguised policies of assimilation and genocide. By exposing the the true nature of genocide and imperialism, this paper will show the way in which Residential Schools became the summation of a genocide in which Indigenous populations in North America were reduced over five centuries from as many as eighteen million to just 237,000 by 1900 (Jones, 2006, p. 114).
To understand the correlation between imperialism and genocide against Indigenous peoples, it is first necessary to explore the two vastly different paradigms Natives and colonialists belong too. The imperialist/colonialist dichotomy originated within nation states that were increasingly “bureaucratically complex and administratively capacious entities” which imposed a more “’legible’ order upon social formations that were often patchwork and fragmented, from the state’s Olympian perspective” (Fredrickson, 2002, p. 65). As found by Dudley (2001), this bureaucratization...