They received the remains as if Joseph Roy had been a much decorated warrior. There was the offering of tobacco and prayer. There was a smudging of what had been the body of a small boy whose end they did not even want to contemplate. There had been a ceremony on the White Earth Reservation in advance of the two men traveling to the Twin Cities to Hamline University where Dr. Shelly Schaefer and her team had identified Joseph’s remains so that he could “go home.” One of those men, both grandfathers themselves, was my son, Clarence Roy. With tears he described how right and powerful it felt to bring his great uncle, his grandfather Roy’s younger brother to be laid in a newly consecrated cemetery where these children, stolen from their families could help their relatives finally feel that they had done what they set out to do-bringing those lost children home. The White Earth Nation wanted to do this right, and setting aside the land was a start.
Much has been said in the past decade about the horrific discoveries of the graves of hundreds of indigenous children who were taken, often against the will of their families to largely church run boarding schools. Many, like Joseph did not speak English and were punished for speaking the only language they knew…their own. Friends of mine spoke of hiding in the woods to avoid the “child catchers” but most failed. The children were taken and an unconscionable number never came home. As you have heard Father Brad Hauf, an indigenous person himself tell you, it was cruel, the children were often not treated well, made to do hard and dirty work, even be farmed out to farms to do field work the income from which never went to them or their families.
If ever there were reparations needed to any others than the obvious, enslaved Black people, it would be the families of these missing children. Arguably the worst of the “boarding schools” were in Canada. Having done seminary in Winnipeg at an Anglican Church of Canada seminary, St. John’s, I have watched with admiration at the courage of the Anglican Church of Canada facing into the wrongs done. Here is what true reparations look like. Canada as a nation created a Truth and Reconciliation Centre to deal with these crimes against humanity.
In 1993, Michael Peers, Archbishop and Primate the Anglican Church of Canada faced into the sins of the past in a way that said to me, we are truly, humbly sorry for its part in this great institutional sin. He was at the Convocation of First Nations People called the Sacred Circle. He knelt before the principal Chief of the First Nations Convocation, who happened to be a graduate of my seminary, St. John’s in Winnipeg. Here is what he said “I accept and I confess before God and you, our failures in the residential schools. We failed you. We failed ourselves. We failed God.”
Later, this same indigenous priest, now an Anglican Bishop, stood before the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada, and Archbishop Peers knelt before him. He repeated the apology. And this indigenous Bishop and Principal Chief of the First Nations pronounced absolution on the Anglican Church of Canada. But it was not only because of the heartfelt apology, given in many of the native languages of Canada, but because that Church took action.
Here is what happened. In the year running up to this particular synod, after researching the role of the Church in this horror, two Canadian dioceses where boarding schools had been hosted, turned over their endowments and resources were dissolved. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation to manage the use of the funds. The Archbishop of Canterbury, also issued an apology for “the terrible crime, sin, evil of deliberately…building hell and putting children into it.
Joseph Roy has finally come home. The apologies are heartfelt. The amount of money given in reparations is significant. But so much more needs to be done.
Howie Anderson
