Mitchell, T. Colonial Trauma: Complex, continuous, collective, cumulative and compounding
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Colonial Trauma: Complex, continuous, collective, cumulative and compounding
Editor’s track changes accepted, June 2010
Revised copy submitted electronically June 23, 2011
Terry Mitchell, Ph.D., C. Psych.
Associate Professor, Community Psychology
Department of Psychology,
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario
N2L 3C5, Canada
(519) 884-0710 x 2052
tmitchell@wlu.ca
Mitchell, T. Colonial Trauma: Complex, continuous, collective, cumulative and compounding
Prologue
You can't kill the spirit
but you can crush the heart of a people
you can
take them from their mothers, fathers
separate them from their brothers, sisters
beat them for speaking the only language that they know
give them food that they can't digest and
tell them that they can't go home....
You can't kill the spirit
but you can crush the heart of a people
no they're not
dysfunctional
no they're not broken
they are strong survivors
they're living in their pain
acting out of pain for
we almost crushed the heart of a people.
(Mitchell, 1993, p.6)
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Introduction
The relationship between the Europeans that came to North America, the Newcomers,
and the people who are indigenous or native to the land, the First Nations, has been marred by
gross cultural misunderstandings, pervasive racism, successive waves of disease, land control
and aggressive assimilation policies focused on dismantling Native families and communities
through the infamous Indian residential and boarding schools in Canada, the USA, and Australia
(Adams, 1989; Berger, 1991; Cardinal, 1969; Miller, 1991; York, 1990). Indigenous peoples
around the world have resisted and struggled to survive the forces of the encroaching White
"civilization" and the systematic political violence of colonial governments.
I write with the desire to honor the strength and dignity of Aboriginal peoples in Canada
and in the memory of Raymond Quock my Tlingit/Talhtan friend whose comment “You don’t
come with guns anymore; you come with briefcases and we kill ourselves” (Mitchell, 1993,
p.257) captures the essence of colonialism and colonial trauma. This chapter is written for all
non-Indigenous peoples like myself, all descendants of the disoriented and dependant
Newcomers to this land, who remain unaware of the intergenerational insults/assaults on
Canada’s Indigenous people and the devastating government policies and institutional practices
which have inflicted multi and intergenerational trauma on Aboriginal peoples (First Nation,
Metis and Inuit).
In this chapter I will attempt to outline, to make visible, in a limited and therefore
insufficient sketch, the historical, colonial, and systemic sources of personal and collective
trauma. I seek to provide a critical and political lens from which to view the phenomenon of the
gross social inequities and intergenerational trauma suffered by Indigenous peoples against a
back drop of centuries of political assault.
The pernicious and enduring traumatic nature of government policies of assimilation and
intended cultural genocide have, in recent apologies to First peoples, been acknowledged
publicly by both the Prime Ministers of Canada and Australia. I will use these apologies to frame
the nature of and the social and political significance of colonial impacts and their relationship to
intergenerational trauma. I will discuss colonial trauma as a both a verb and an adjective to
signify the traumagenic, i.e. trauma inducing, colonial policies and actions that are imposed upon
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Indigenous peoples and the traumatic impact endured by Native Canadians. I will discuss the
complexity of intergenerational impacts of colonial traumagenic acts and will describe the
continuous, cumulative, collective, and compound nature of the trauma suffered by Indigenous
communities generally while describing the specific context for colonially induced
intergenerational trauma in Canada. I will frame the discussion of Native White relations in
terms of various stages of initial dependence and alliance, then the traumagenic phases of
betrayal, interference, assimilation, and apology.
Colonial Trauma
Canadian Aboriginal and Indigenous communities around the world have been subjected
to complex, continuous, cumulative and compounding collective trauma. There are many terms
used to characterize the enduring trauma of Indigenous peoples: Post-traumatic Stress (Manson,
Beals, O'Nell, Piasecki, Bechtold, Keane, et al (Eds.), 1996); Historical Trauma (Brave Heart,
1999); Intergenerational Trauma (Braveheart and Debruyn,1998); Native Holocaust (Stannard, D.
E., 1992);
Soul Wound (Duran, E. (2006); Collective Trauma (Abadian, 1998, 2008) and Colonial
Trauma (Evans-Campbell, 2008). The terms Historical Trauma and Holocaust are terms that
have been applied primarily to Jewish and Indigenous peoples which may be misinterpreted as
an artifact of the past rather than an ongoing concern, potentially marginalizing and minimizing
the phenomenon of Intergenerational Trauma suffered by Indigenous peoples. I prefer the term
Colonial Trauma as it names the external nature and political source of the trauma and allows for
an awareness of current colonial expressions while framing the historical wounds of elders and
ancestors. Colonial trauma is defined by Evans-Campbell (2008) as an active process of political
aggression defined as “both historical and contemporary events that reflect colonial practices to
colonize, subjugate, and perpetrate ethnocide and genocide” (p.335).
Colonial Trauma can be utilized to frame the accountability of governing nations as it
points to the political source of the trauma while referring to a collective versus individual target.
Colonial Trauma accurately reflects the pervasive nature of the crimes committed against
Indigenous peoples and signifies the systematic and institutionalized violence that is legitimized
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by policy, law, and other institutions of government. Colonial Trauma is situated in the present
with a strong historical context, it reflects the long term nature of the crimes against humanity
that are neither a brief human aberration, or a specific historical event. Colonial trauma is,
therefore, an appropriate term for framing a traumatic era; an era of over five centuries of
political assaults against Indigenous peoples.
In this regard Indigenous peoples have collectively suffered in ways which extend
beyond other populations who have suffered the atrocities of war, racial targeting, massacres,
and political regimes of terror. While many populations and specific cultural groups have been
subjected to unimaginable loss and horror and enduring trauma, the long term cultural impact has
been different. The violence that Indigenous peoples have been subjected to is distinct given the
more than five hundred years of assault upon their dignity and autonomy, the land, the buffalo,
the eco system, spiritual beliefs, languages, forms of governance, gender relations, and on
indigenous child rearing traditions. First peoples worldwide have been subjected to land seizure
without being conquered through war. Furthermore, colonial cultural aggression has, until very
recently, been politically legitimated by state governments and upheld by majority populations.
The colonial trauma endured by Indigenous peoples is a unique form of trauma as it is complex,
continuous, collective, and cumulative with the resulting transmission of compounded trauma
across generations.
Complex
The colonial trauma inflicted upon Indigenous peoples has a complex and profoundly
harmful nature. The trauma has been comprehensive in affecting the individual at the emotional,
spiritual, intellectual, physical, and social
domains and impacting at all levels of
Indigenous communities, not only the
individual but also the family unit, the
community collective, and the Nation. A
comprehensive complex of interacting
trauma has been inflicted for centuries on
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Indigenous peoples on many levels of the individual person and all levels of the collective. There
have been few if any places where an Indigenous person could stand within themselves or within
their communities that is absent of aggression directed at the intellect, belief, soul, skin,
language, lifestyle, and or governance of Indigenous peoples. Even as Canadian Aboriginal
peoples travel to across North America to South America, or Australia and New Zealand they
will see their own trauma reflected in the lives of other Indigenous peoples around the world.
Continuous
As will be outlined in the following section on the Canadian context, colonial assaults
have been inflicted on Indigenous peoples for more than 500 years with the trauma being carried
forward from ancestors and transmitted intergenerationally. In the early 19th and middle 20th
century epidemics of smallpox, influenza, and measles resulted in millions of deaths due to the
lack of immunity to European diseases followed by starvation and war. The decimation of the
First Nation population from 2 million to 150,000 resulted in a tremendous loss of cultural
knowledge that had traditionally been passed on orally. The devastating death toll was followed
by racist government policies, the illegalization of spiritual practices, as well as cultural
suppression and violation through forced re-location, the implementation of assimilation policies
of involuntary enfranchisement, residential schooling, and interference in local governance.
Collective
The colonial trauma endured by Indigenous peoples is by its very nature collective. It is a
comprehensive and relentless assault on the spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and socioecological nature of Indigenous peoples and their cultures (Duran, 2006). Collective trauma is
defined by Abadian (quoted by Lambert, 2008, p 40-41) as “pervasive consequences
communities suffer when powerful external forces violate their physical and/or sociocultural
integrity.” The external traumas inflicted on Aboriginal communities have been identified as
both historic and current. The focus of colonial interference upon Indigenous people is on the
collective with the intent of destroying the cultural group. The trauma is therefore borne by the
collective and transmitted intergenerationally through cumulative iterations of compounded
trauma.
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(The) most extreme types of collective trauma are sociocultural: it’s not just
an aggregation of individual traumas, but disruption of the fundamental
institutions of society, and of its ‘immune system’ that can restore people
and repair a culture.
Abadian as cited in Lambert, (2008 p 41)
Cumulative and Compounding
When healing from colonial trauma has not taken place the trauma is passed on from
generation to generation without opportunity for adequate grieving, healing, and reconciliation.
This has in turn resulted in what has been termed intergenerational trauma; trauma that is
experienced indirectly across multiple generations and between generations. Intergenerational
trauma is compounded and extended by the direct transmission of further trauma, what has been
termed lateral or horizontal violence, as the impact of cultural dislocation and internalized
oppression is manifested in internal conflict (Duran, Duran, Brave Heart & Yellow Horse, 1998).
Residential schooling and its long terms effects on families and communities is an
example of the cumulative and compounding impact of colonial trauma. Residential schools
were undoubtedly one of the most pernicious and powerful practices of cultural genocide;
through the removal of children from their cultures, their communities and their families. The
impact of this personal, family and community level trauma has proven to be cumulative
“becoming more severe as it is passed onto subsequent generations” Duran (2006, p 16). See also
(Brave Heart 1999; Brave Heart-Yellowhorse, 2000, 2003; Danielli, 1998; Duran & Duran,
1995; Duran, Duran, Braveheart & Yellowhorse, 1998).
No race, or culture has ever endured the long term removal of its children followed by
the cataclysmic impact on a culture of adult parents who have grown up in severe institutional
industrial school settings, designed to “kill the Indian in the child” (Indian and Northern Affairs
Canada (2008). Many people around the world and over time have suffered great tragedy, often
in great numbers, and over many decades. Families have been disconnected by war, by political
conflicts while parents have lost children and children have become orphaned. The systematic
removal of children away from the love, protection, and socialization of their families and
communities appears historically unique, beyond other examples of ethnocide, illustrating the
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contemporary brutality of racism with the deliberate intent to destroy an entire people. The Royal
Commission on Aboriginal Peoples provides important and compelling documentation of the
impact of the compound colonial trauma endured by the First Peoples of Canada (1996). The
assimilative policy of residential schooling was a calculated wave of colonial assault that was
stacked upon the traumatic burden of hundreds of years of disease, land appropriation,
starvation, and the banning of cultural and religious practices imposed upon Indigenous peoples.
Decade after decade, century after century Indigenous peoples have, however, resisted
colonial aggression and colonial interference. While there has been remarkable resistance and
resilience worldwide, five hundred years of colonial trauma legitimized and enforced by the
dominant cultures has left its impact. Colonial trauma has affected multiple generations in
complex, continuous, collective, and cumulative and compounded ways.
Post-Traumatic Stress Response
I move now from discussing the traumagenic nature of imposed aggression and loss by
political forces to discussing the impact of such violations on people and cultures. The impact of
enduring trauma which lies outside of the normal range of human experience has been termed
post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The diagnostic criteria for PTSD include exposure to an
external trauma that results in intense fear, helplessness, or terror that endures for 30 days or
more and results in significant social or occupational distress (APA, 2000). PTSD affects
individuals in a vicious cycle of denial, avoidance, and becoming overwhelmed with memories
and related feelings. Post-traumatic stress is unique as a mental health diagnosis and appropriate
for framing an understanding of the Indigenous collective and Intergenerational trauma discussed
in this book because diagnosis is dependent upon exposure to a traumatic event. The source or
cause of the stress is defined as a traumatic event or series of events that occur outside the
individual rather than resulting from an inherent psychological weakness or pathalogy. PTSD
allows for the naming of externally imposed trauma providing a social-historical context for
what has too often been viewed as behaviours or conditions rooted in individual character flaws
or cultural deficits.
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The alternate term post-traumatic stress response (PTSR) as posited by Mitchell and
Maracle (2005) is a model for understanding and addressing colonial trauma. The PTSR model
reframes PTSD symptoms as human responses to extreme circumstances clearly identified as a
response to an external trauma that is outside the range of tolerable human experiences.
The Canadian Context
While it is outside the scope of this chapter to provide a comprehensive historical account
of the last 500 years of contact between First Nations and Newcomers in what is now known as
Canada I will nevertheless provide a brief sketch of the initial practices of mutual trade, then
land appropriation and related policies of assimilation, to give the reader a sparse contextual
portrait of colonial relations in Canada. I will attempt to reveal the reality and severity of
colonial trauma and its intergenerational impact as illuminated through a brief introduction to the
Newcomers’ interaction with First Nations on a journey from first contact, initial dependence
and mutuality, to betrayal, interference, assimilation, and the apology.
First Contact: the Beothuks as the Canary in the Coal Mine.
There are indications that there was contact from Northern Europe in North America as
early as 1000AD in what remain as artifacts of Viking settlement in Newfoundland, Canada. It is
believed that there were over 2 million First Nations before the next wave of newcomers such as
Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), an Italian explorer sailing under British flag, in search of the
riches of Asia, landed on the east coast of Canada in 1497. First contact with the Beothuks
forecasted the dire future of Native/White relations. The tragic fate of the Beothuks of
Newfoundland who initially kept to themselves was that they were ultimately eliminated; killed
off entirely by disease, starvation and the Newcomer’s bullet (Miller, 1991). The Beothuks were
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the canary in the coal mine1, they foretold the potential danger of the incoming Newcomers and
their ultimate betrayal.
Dependence of The First Wave of New Comers: 1497- 1814
There is considerable documentation, however, to suggest that the first 300 years of
contact were characterized, in part, by mutual respect and collaboration between Newcomers and
First Nations. Indigenous peoples were seen as essential allies in the fur trade which resulted in
enduring family ties and the Metis (the French word for half) a new group of peoples emerging
from the intermarriage of Scottish and French trappers with First Nations women. The first wave
of Newcomers were not skilled in survival and navigation of the new world’s forests, lakes and
rivers necessary to the fur trade. Lacking essential knowledge about how to prevent scurvy and
survive harsh winter climates in the new land they were required to develop cooperative and
mutually beneficial relationships with the Indigenous people. "A Native partner could be the
difference between failure and economic success, and even between life and death." (Miller, p.
20). Newcomers were reliant upon First Nations’ expert knowledge of fishing and hunting and
backwoods travel. The harsh climate and rugged landscape combined with the fierce rivalry
between the Hudson Bay Company which had been actively trading in furs since1670 and the
NorthWest Trading Company, founded in 1779, ensured that First Nations peoples continued to
be perceived as essential allies to the Newcomers.
Between 1700-1814 both the British and French were intent on making alliances with
First Nations. Except for initially small numbers of Christian missionaries and the introduction of
alcohol to First Nation communities, the first wave of Newcomers did not make overt conscious
attempts to interfere with the governance or cultures of First Nations. Overall the mutually
beneficial alliance of hunting and trading was complementary to the mobile Indigenous lifestyle
1
“Canaries were once regularly used in coal mining as an early warning system. Toxic gases such as
carbon monoxide and methane in the mine would kill the bird before affecting the miners. Because
canaries tend to sing much of the time, they provided both a visual and audible cue in this respect...
Hence, the phrase "canary in a coal mine" is frequently used to refer to a person or thing which serves as
an early warning of a coming crisis.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_Canary
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and preservation of woodlands and wildlife. The trading relationships between First Nations and
Newcomers developed into friendships and family ties which shaped the entire future and
character of the emerging Canada (Saul, 2008). However, the relations of mutual trade benefit
and social ties also exposed First Nations to diseases for which they had no immunity leading to
a massive loss of life during the influenza epidemic of 1717 and from Small Pox in 1782 when
the population was decimated from two million at contact to a low of 150,000 survivors.
The history is clear, First Peoples in what is now known nationalistically as Canada
largely welcomed Newcomers and developed productive, mutually beneficial relationships
through trade and marriage. It is evident that the Newcomers, British and French, were greatly
dependent upon First Nations people when they arrived on the new continent. It is through these
relations of mutual benefit and eventual blood relations through intermarriage that Canadian
scholar John Raulston Saul has claimed that our distinctive Canadian character- our values,
governance, views on consensus, peace keeping, inclusion, and tolerance arise out of a collective
unconsciousness of Canada’s First Peoples and the relationships that Newcomers had with the
first peoples.
Saul (2008) asserts that Canadians own their national beliefs, identity, and sensibilities to
the First Peoples and to over 4 hundred years of association with First Peoples rather than to the
last 200 years of colonial relations with Britain and France. Saul describes Canada as having a
distinct form of governance that is not shared by any other western nation; Canadian politics are
not modeled on the French, the British, or the American models of governance. The Canadian
political system is much more in alignment with the well documented model of the Confederacy
of the Five Nations of Southern Ontario and Upstate New York and the Grand Council of the
Mi’kmaq of the Maritimes. Canada is also known as a world leader in inclusive immigration
policies and lifestyle practices- policies which were not imported from Europe but found in the
First Nation practices which include rather than exclude, where one is defined as a community or
tribal member not by race but rather by relationship (Saul, 2008).
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Betrayal
Canadian First Nations were never a conquered people, they never surrendered their land;
rather treaties, considered as international agreements, were signed between ‘nations’ (Waldram,
Herring, & Young, 2006, p.13). The British crown established a relationship with First Nations
that acknowledged their sovereignty in the Royal Proclamation of 1763, indicating land title
recognizable by British law. The Royal proclamation established the bases by which the Crown
would secure that title, to allow for settlement, by purchase or cessation. The British North
American Act of 1867, however, granted the new British colony of Canada jurisdiction over First
Nations and their land and by the 19th Century the First Nations and Metis were no longer
desirable to Europeans as diplomats and allies. After the war of 1812 there were no more major
wars in Canada and Britain no longer needed the support of the First Nations for military
advantage. With the amalgamation of the two competing fur trading companies(Hudson Bay and
North West Trading companies) in 1821 and as the fur trade declined First Nations were no
longer needed for their navigational and trapping skills. At the same time while the First Nations
population was dwindling due to disease and starvation, the population of British settlers or
second wave of Newcomers was increasing. This group of settlers were distinct from their
predecessors who being active in the fur trade and in military endeavors appreciated the essential
benefits of cooperative relations with the First Nations. The settlers and government rather than
continuing to value First Nations and Metis as important allies and partners saw themselves in
conflict with the beliefs and lifestyles of the First Nations. Rather than respecting Indigenous
knowledge, skills, lifestyle, and habitat as the first wave of newcomers had, they viewed the First
Nations as obstacles to their intention to acquire and clear large tracts of land for their farms and
towns. The second wave of Newcomers ultimately betrayed the long standing relations with First
Nations. When they outnumbered the First Nations and Metis peoples the settlers demanded
prime tracts of land for themselves and sought to dis/relocate Native peoples to less desirable
areas. Settlers then proceeded to cut the woodlands down for agriculture thereby destroying
traditional hunting grounds (Miller, 1991, Miller 2004, Saul, 2008, Taylor, 2007).
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You came as a wind blown across the Great Lake. The wind wafted you
to our shores. We received you- we planted you- we nursed you. We protected
you till you became a mighty tree that spread though our Hunting Land.
With its branches you now lash us.
Ojibway chief (quoted in Taylor, 2007, p133)
Interference
First Nation culture, lifestyle, spirituality, governance, parenting, education, languages,
and homeland have all been compromised by denigration, suppression, and by state law enforced
by Indian agents. With the demise of the buffalo, along with the take over and clearing of
traditional land bases, First Nations faced a collapse of their traditional hunting-gathering way of
life. From the 1830s onward First Nations were increasingly being moved off of traditional lands
through treaty processes and onto relatively small reserves, with increasing pressures from
church and state to adopt the Christian religion, British education, and Western agriculture
practices in alignment with the lifestyle and values of the settlers. From the 1820's onward there
was increased focus on altering First Nation societies through Christian evangelization and active
rejection and suppression of Indian ways (Miller, 2004)
Initially, when there was a reasonable degree of mutual respect cemented in beneficial
relations between the first wave of Newcomers and First Nations, a relationship that was
complementary to the First Nations land based lifestyle and the needs of the trappers and the
British Crown, there was no planned interference of First Nations’ land use, language, child
rearing, spiritual practices or governance. However, as the population of settlers grew
exponentially in numbers there was a growing intention to interfere in all affairs of First Nations.
There was interference in local governance through the formation of the Department of Indian
Affairs (DIA) which required that chiefs be elected by male band members for a 3 year term,
rather than appointed by clan mothers or the hereditary principle, thereby forever altering
established cultural traditions, redefining gender relations, and disrupting local patterns of
governance.
The powers of the federal government through the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA)
were far reaching. By 1880 the DIA had drafted policies of assimilation.
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Assimilation is a wide-ranging ideology and policy that seeks to eradicate a people’s
identity and cultural practices in favor of another group’s way of doing things.
Sometimes referred to as cultural replacement, assimilation contains two major thrusts or
emphases. First the assimilation aims to stamp out those aspects of the target group’s
attitudes and practices that are viewed as objectionable, and second, the proponent of
change seeks to implant its outlooks and customs. (Miller, 2004, p.225)
Assimilation was dramatically expressed in an act to Enfranchise First Nations and to take away
their status and identity as First Peoples through involuntary enfranchisement. The act gave DIA
the ability to enfranchise any Indian male over 21 that they viewed as 'fit for enfranchisement’.
(Miller, 2004, p 36). By 1869 the DIA had an act which enabled them to remove chiefs. By 1883
residential schools were instituted with involuntary attendance. In the years following important
spiritual and cultural ceremonies were banned, such as the Potlatches in 1884 and the Sun Dance
in 1886. The First Nations were "legally infantalized and politically patronized" (Miller, 2001, p.
102) their cultures, communities, families, and selves battered by an unrelenting "vicious
assimilative assault" (p. 251).
Titley (1992) quotes the deputy Minister or Indian Affairs, Duncan Campbell Scott’s,
rationale for assimilation in his address to a parliamentary committee in 1920:
I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as matter of fact, that this country
ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone. This is my
whole point. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that
has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian
Department, that is the whole object of this Bill. (p. 50).
The residential schools were the most devastating assimilative policy with estimations that as
many as 24% of all of the children died while at the schools (Waldram, Herring & Young, 2006).
Those children that survived were subject to various forms of physical, emotional, spiritual and
sexual abuse.
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…many children in effect became ‘deculturalized’ losing both their ability to be
culturally ‘Indian’, and the ability to provide good parental role models to their own
children as they reached adulthood. Some students also experienced severe emotional,
physical, and sexual abuse, a fact that the Canadian government and many churches have
now recognized. Litigation, mediation, and compensation processes to provide restitution
to Aboriginal survivors of the residential schools are now in place (Waldram, Herring &
Young, 2006, p.15)
It wasn’t until 1985 that the Canadian government abandoned its assimilation policies and
closed its last residential school and began the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Affairs finally
confirming many of the horrors of the schools.
The Apology
On the occasion of Canada’s celebration of the first one hundred years of confederation
Chief Dan George (1967) spoke of his experience of Native-White relations in Canada.
How long have I known you, Oh Canada? A hundred years? Yes, a hundred years. And
today, when you celebrate your hundred years, Oh Canada, I am sad for all the Indian
people throughout the land.... In the long hundred years since the white man came, I
have seen my freedom disappear like the salmon going mysteriously out to sea. The
white man's strange customs, which I could not understand, pressed down upon me until I
could no longer breathe.
Forty-one years later, in June 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper spoke
of Native-White relations and the role of Canadian administration in harming Aboriginal cultures
and peoples in his apology for the federal government’s residential school policy. I provide
excerpts from the text of the apology below as it is a significant indictment of the Canadian
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government and sheds light on the political nature of the intergenerational trauma endured by
Aboriginal Canadians.
INSERT IMAGE Excerpts of apologies- Artist: Cathy Busby, Laneway Commission, Melbourne Australia, 2009
The text of the Canadian apology describes the assimilative objectives of the residential school
system based on the racist assumptions of inferiority. The text goes on to confirm that the
children were:
inadequately fed, clothed and housed. All were deprived of the care and nurturing of their
parents, grandparents and communities and that some children died there and others
never returned home.
Prime Minister Harper continued to talk about the devastating collective impact on culture and
the link of residential schooling to the origin of contemporary social problems
The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian residential schools
policy were profoundly negative and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging
impact on aboriginal culture, heritage and language…The legacy of Indian residential
schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities
today… We now recognize that it was wrong to separate children from rich and vibrant
cultures and traditions, that it created a void in many lives and communities, and we
apologize for having done this…
He then goes on to acknowledge the intergenerational trauma suffered by Aboriginal
communities.
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We now recognize that, in separating children from their families, we undermined the
ability of many to adequately parent their own children and sowed the seeds for
generations to follow, and we apologize for having done this…
Indian and Northern Affairs Canada (June, 2008)
Resistance/Sovereignty
Canadian Aboriginal Peoples have resisted colonization for more than 500 years. They
have resisted and survived unrelenting assaults on their cultures and their sovereignty while
demonstrating remarkable cultural resilience. While there have been terrible and unacceptable
personal and cultural losses leading to enduring and devastating personal, social and cultural
impacts, Canadian Aboriginal Peoples have nevertheless been able to refuse successive political
attempts to remove Aboriginal identity and status as First Nations. The history of First Peoples
and Newcomer relations documents the generosity and inclusiveness of the First Nations and
their willingness to assist, collaborate, and cohabitate with the Newcomers. Indeed the values of
Aboriginal Peoples are viewed as central to the Canadian national and political character (Saul,
2008). However, it is undeniable that Aboriginal peoples have endured complex, continuous,
collective, cumulative, and compounding colonial trauma with intergenerational effects
throughout the successive phases of Native/White relations. It is suggested that when the first
peoples were viewed with respect and brought into relations of interdependence and mutual
benefit, cemented concretely through family ties, there were positive relations of perhaps three
hundred years. The terrible reign of racist settler mentality, with its complete disregard for the
dignity, personhood, and cultural strengths of First Nations ended the initial co-existence.
The federal apology is a powerful public text declaring the existence of colonial violence
and the long term and intergenerational impact of colonial trauma. The political apology
acknowledges the wrong doing of assimilative policies founded on racist assumptions of
inferiority, documenting and confirming a shared Canadian history. The apology confirms the
political and institutionalized nature of the collective assault against children, families,
communities, and Nations found in the external and profoundly traumagenic nature of
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government policies in the form of Indian Residential Schooling. While the apology does not
address the comprehensive, continuous, and cumulative nature of the other aspects of colonial
relations, or current conflicts and striving for sovereignty, it is one tool to assist in the healing of
intergenerational trauma in conjunction with the related reparation to Survivors of residential
schooling and the Truth and Reconciliation Process. The public record of wrong doing,
ceremonial address of apology and related compensation for victims are all seen as key elements
of a genuine apology for injustices to Aboriginal communities (Thompson, 2008). A political
apology is not enough though. It does not, cannot, adequately address the nature and scope of
the centuries of harm to Aboriginal Peoples, or to the spirits of Indigenous peoples worldwide. It
is however, a political and moral awakening to the devastating long term impacts of cultural
interference. With increased global understanding of the external colonial trauma imposed on
Indigenous peoples, through meaningful and explicit political apologies that validate and
externalize the pain of Indigenous peoples, we may realize pathways to mutually address the
roots of intergenerational trauma. It is time to re-honor the essential cultural wisdom that
Indigenous peoples bring to the stricken planet that we cohabitate and to support sovereignty for
their cultures, belief systems, and the lifestyles we violated through our cultures of ignorance and
aggression. There is much to learn through apology and cultural humility if the apology is
grounded in personal and political understanding of the historical record and the origin,
complexity, and impact of colonial trauma.
Mitchell, T. Colonial Trauma: Complex, continuous, collective, cumulative and
compounding
19
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