This Benevolent Experiment: Indigenous Boarding Schools, Genocide, and Redress in Canada and the United States

by Andrew Woolford

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2017
 
At the end of the nineteenth century, Indigenous boarding schools were touted as the means for solving the “Indian problem” in both the United States and Canada. With the goal of permanently transforming Indigenous young people into Europeanized colonial subjects, the schools were ultimately a means for eliminating Indigenous communities as obstacles to land acquisition, resource extraction, and nation-building. Andrew Woolford analyzes the formulation of the “Indian problem” as a policy concern in the United States and Canada and examines how the “solution” of Indigenous boarding schools was implemented in Manitoba and New Mexico through complex chains that included multiple government offices with a variety of staffs, Indigenous peoples, and even nonhuman actors such as poverty, disease, and space. The genocidal project inherent in these boarding schools, however, did not unfold in either nation without diversion, resistance, and unintended consequences.

Inspired by the signing of the 2007 Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement in Canada, which provided a truth and reconciliation commission and compensation for survivors of residential schools, This Benevolent Experiment offers a multilayered, comparative analysis of Indigenous boarding schools in the United States and Canada. Because of differing historical, political, and structural influences, the two countries have arrived at two very different responses to the harm caused by assimilative education.

 

Genres: History, Education, American History

448 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2015

Reviews

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been doing research on Native American boarding schools in the US and residential schools in Canada. I decided to read five of them for my latest pleasure reading pile, but I don't think I will do that again. This book compares indigenous boarding schools in both countries and looks at what was done in them could be considered a form of genocide. Four schools (2 in New Mexico and 2 in Manitoba) are used as case studies. While the writing is strong, I didn't find I learned enough about the case study schools and the theoretical framework wasn't clearly settled in the end. A strong academic book on the subject and it is good to see the comparison between the policies in both countries.

[Dasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woolford puts forth his analysis using the framework of the “settler colonial mesh” (p. 2). This mesh relates to the complex interrelated macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of interaction. The macro-societal level emphasizes the collective which formed their understanding of Indigenous peoples in both Canada and the United States “under the auspices of the Indian Problem” (p. 96). The meso-societal level involves government and non-government institutions such as boarding and residential schools. The micro-societal levels includes everyday activities and actors including teachers, students, parents, communities, and non-human actors such as blood, disease, food, and space. Through this analysis, Woolford argues that the practices of both Canadian and American schools were, despite the controversy over the term and resistance to it put forth by some academics, genocidal. Using the term “cultural genocide,” he argues, is redundant and, while not always intentional, serves to differentiate cultural genocide as a lesser form of the act. As Woolford points out in his second chapter, genocide involves the destruction, in whole or in part, of a culture because if a culture is destroyed then the collective group is destroyed the same if they were physically eliminated. Thus, even though Indigenous communities were not completely destroyed, because genocide is a process that does not always include whole destruction, both Canada and the United States engaged in the genocide of Indigenous peoples.
This work is important for pushing forward the concept of genocide, which has been controversial.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good analysis and theoretical lens. The comparison between boarding schools in the US and Canada was interesting. While I have learned a decent amount about the Indigenous residential school experience in Canada (though still not enough), I knew very little about it in the US. That said, the author does stress that no two schools were quite the same, and experiences in different schools and locations differed, as did the experiences by the Indigenous students themselves.

This author refers to the residential schooling system as a form of genocide, not just in the physical harm and death that it did cause, but through the goal of eliminating Indigenous identities and cultural connections. The residential schooling system targeted group relations, language and traditions. I also appreciated the discussion that this genocide and goal of eliminating Indigenous identity grew out of the imperialist need for land and resources, which colonizers couldn't easily get to without removing or "reforming" Indigenous people. Very informative, and a good place to start on this topic.

[Allison6876 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for AMIN 3201W paper