Research Guide Developed to Help People Undertaking Research on Missing Children who were Sent to Indian Residential Schools and Never Returned

When the Manitoba Indigenous Tuberculosis History Project (MITHP) created an exhibit at the National Gathering of Elders in September 2019, we knew that a central part of the work that the project had to do was to help Indigenous individuals, families, and communities find the information that they were seeking about relatives who had been taken away and never returned from treatment for tuberculosis or other illnesses. From this collaborative research, we identified and shared insights, hints, and information about researching the complicated and enmeshed colonial systems that took Indigenous people from their homes, their families, and their communities and held them in various institutions, often far away from family and community. The Health and History Project (HHP), which is the successor to the MITHP, began earlier this year and continues this work.

Colonial systems of carceration, including health and education systems, operated as enmeshed structures, all part of a larger colonial system. Indigenous children taken from their homes to Indian Residential Schools (IRS) could be then taken from an IRS to a hospital or sanatorium, moved around from one institution to another, placed in medical foster homes or rehabilitation facilities, and returned to their original IRS or to a different institution. Children taken from their homes to a hospital or sanitarium could be then placed and moved around from and to any of these facilities but could also be taken to an IRS during or following their medical treatment. Adding to this already chaotic range of possibilities, Indigenous patients could be placed, then moved into or out of hospitals and sanatoria operated not only by the federal government, but also by provincial, municipal, private, or religious bodies, each with their own record keeping systems. Complicating things even further, families have told us that they were rarely updated about where a child was, when they were moved, or even if they passed away. Today, individuals who were taken from their homes or from an IRS as a small child are being asked to state when and where they were taken as part of the process of applying for compensation under the Indian Hospitals Settlement. Many have no idea where even to begin. In other cases, loved ones were taken from their homes and simply never returned. Decades, and even generations later, their families are still seeking closure by looking for information about what happened to them and, if they passed away, where they are buried.

Our newest guide, Tracing the Missing Children: An Introduction to Primary Sources, is the first guide we have produced under the HHP’s imprint. This new guide focuses on supporting research related to the Missing Children who were taken to Indian Residential Schools and who never came home. It is a companion to the Missing Patients Research Guide released in 2023, but with a special focus on research relating to children who at some point were taken to an Indian Residential School. Because a child who passed away at a hospital or sanatorium was more likely to be buried in a cemetery connected with that institution, Tracing the Missing Children may also be of interest to researchers searching for Unmarked Burials associated with IRS.

Anne Lindsay notes, “because of the sheer number of places that records may have been created and preserved, and the complexity of the colonial systems that the Missing Children whose disappearances are connected to the IRS system could be taken into, the search for the Missing Children places yet another burden on Indigenous families who should be able to ask for and receive useful information to their very reasonable questions about what happened to their loved ones, about where they were taken, about their experiences there, about what happened to them. While we cannot offer that information outright, we hope that this guide and its companion will help to make the work that families and communities are doing at least a little less frustrating, a little easier.”

Mary Jane Logan McCallum states, “If learning about what happened to Indigenous children were a priority for Canada, it would be a lot easier to do. Given the scope and complexity of this research, we would have funded centres of research and education committed to collecting and investigating documents of value to understanding the truth about our past. There would be a range of our own Indigenous researchers who could share this history and teach others how to undertake the research. However, the reality is that this research is supported only by piece-meal, short-term funding tied to one or two specific research questions. While the funding has suggested federal government is accepting responsibilities in these matters, it does not help to build a deep base of knowledge and people with the skills and to initiate and follow through substantial research projects independently – often the funds are spent on services providers outside of the community. Tracing the Missing Children, like the Missing Patient Research Guide, is of service to the very basic project of building and sharing historical knowledge and research skills in a way that can be sustainable and service individuals, families and communities directly.”