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The mush hole: Life at two Indian residential schools
The Mush Hole: Life at Two Indian Residential Schools is the 500-plus page compilation of primary source documents about the residential schools, Mohawk Institute and the Mount Elgin Residential Schools in Ontario. Anthropologist Elizabeth Graham worked for years compiling the documentation about the administration of the schools from the original writings of the ministers and staff of both schools, and the government records relating to individual students attending the schools. In addition to the historical records the author allows 60 voices from individual students to speak their truth about their experiences at residential school.
502 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 1997
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Elizabeth Graham
10 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
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December 16, 2024
“I think they forgot we were human.”
-Lorraine Brigham, survivor of Mount Elgin residential school
This is a harrowing and thorough collection of accounts of the Mohawk Institute (opened in 1834, closed in 1970) and Mount Elgin (opened in 1850, closed in 1946), two residential schools in in Ontario, Canada. Though the book contains some often-heartbreaking interviews with former students of the schools, it is the correspondence and reports primarily from the administration that is especially incriminatory and revealing of the true nature of these institutions.
I personally have heard people attempt to downplay the atrocity of Canadian residential schools, saying that surely people didn’t know better then and we can’t judge these institutions with modern perspectives on morality and justice. From just the administrative reports containing in this book alone, nothing could be further than the truth. Regardless of which school or year that these reports came from, the appalling conditions unfit for anything resembling human habitation are noted by numerous people visiting the school, yet sadly little or nothing was done. The staff and school officials seem more concerned with the reputation of the schools than the welfare of their charges. The matter-of-fact listing and hand-waving of the deplorable “accommodations” and “food”, beatings, neglect, sexual assault, and numerous deaths due to neglect, violence, starvation, disease, and forcing dangerous work and lack of supervision on children hardly older than toddlers is nothing short of chilling. In reading these reports, one gets the sense that this children themselves are blamed for their suffering- especially in their living in squalor or being the victims of physical and sexual abuse- just for being Indigenous.
Though it is clear that both schools were committed to their goals of separating Indigenous children from their families and depriving them of their land and culture, they often fell short of their goal of producing native students who were skilled and educated enough to stand on even ground with non-natives. The children spent much of their 16-hour work-and-school days performing either manual or domestic labour and were released from the schools to work as farmhands or domestic servants for white families. Other students were deemed too valuable for their labour and were forbidden to leave the schools and remained separated from their families and the outside world.
Though a difficult read, this book is an essential and important contribution to the history of Canadian residential schools and I would highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the subject.
-Lorraine Brigham, survivor of Mount Elgin residential school
This is a harrowing and thorough collection of accounts of the Mohawk Institute (opened in 1834, closed in 1970) and Mount Elgin (opened in 1850, closed in 1946), two residential schools in in Ontario, Canada. Though the book contains some often-heartbreaking interviews with former students of the schools, it is the correspondence and reports primarily from the administration that is especially incriminatory and revealing of the true nature of these institutions.
I personally have heard people attempt to downplay the atrocity of Canadian residential schools, saying that surely people didn’t know better then and we can’t judge these institutions with modern perspectives on morality and justice. From just the administrative reports containing in this book alone, nothing could be further than the truth. Regardless of which school or year that these reports came from, the appalling conditions unfit for anything resembling human habitation are noted by numerous people visiting the school, yet sadly little or nothing was done. The staff and school officials seem more concerned with the reputation of the schools than the welfare of their charges. The matter-of-fact listing and hand-waving of the deplorable “accommodations” and “food”, beatings, neglect, sexual assault, and numerous deaths due to neglect, violence, starvation, disease, and forcing dangerous work and lack of supervision on children hardly older than toddlers is nothing short of chilling. In reading these reports, one gets the sense that this children themselves are blamed for their suffering- especially in their living in squalor or being the victims of physical and sexual abuse- just for being Indigenous.
Though it is clear that both schools were committed to their goals of separating Indigenous children from their families and depriving them of their land and culture, they often fell short of their goal of producing native students who were skilled and educated enough to stand on even ground with non-natives. The children spent much of their 16-hour work-and-school days performing either manual or domestic labour and were released from the schools to work as farmhands or domestic servants for white families. Other students were deemed too valuable for their labour and were forbidden to leave the schools and remained separated from their families and the outside world.
Though a difficult read, this book is an essential and important contribution to the history of Canadian residential schools and I would highly recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the subject.
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