Reconciling Written and Oral Histories Into Understanding Canada's Residential School Policies

• In Event: 45.031 - Community Preservation and Historical Memory: Education and Resistance Unveiled

Abstract

This paper will highlight the life of Raymond Mason, a three time Residential School student and later activist who organized a group of over 5,000 other survivors to put pressure on the Canadian government to create the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement. The multi-billion dollar settlement provided 86,000 survivors with compensation and an apology from the Prime Minister. In 2009, started another class-action lawsuit for Day School survivors who were left out of the original agreement. However, Mason's story was not adequately demonstrated in the written historical record and his traditional oral history about his life is not yet recorded. Thus this project will attempt to blend two opposing views on the past to expose Mason’s truth about what occurred.

Authors

• Jackson Pind, Queen's University - Kingston

• Theodore Michael Christou, Queen's University - Kingston