The Terminating Tuberculosis; A Research Topic From "We Were Children"

          Imagine a school where you eat the same blended leftovers for each meal, get physically and sexually abused and are punished for not speaking a language that you do not understand. Now, picture all of that but add deathly diseases on top. Unfortunately what you are picturing right now is the residential schools that did not just traumatize Indigenous children, but they jeopardized their health with massively exterminating diseases as well. Of these diseases, tuberculosis was by far the most popular. “Tuberculosis is an infectious bacterial disease that grows tubercles in any tissue in the body, but most commonly attacks the lungs. It makes for severe coughing, troubles breathing and can ultimately lead to fatality if it is not treated” (Tuberculosis).  As of right now, it has been recorded that “approximately 150, 000 children died in residential schools and of these 150 000 students majority died because of this awful disease” (Walker, New documents may shed light on residential school deaths).

           Tuberculosis was such a major issue because the schools were poorly ventilated and there was extreme malnutrition and overcrowding. As a result of these, germs stayed within the schools, children's immune systems were too weak to fight any diseases, and the schools were so crammed that the students’ beds were basically touching, thus ensuring the spread of the disease. Consequently, “more than 24% of the children had died from tuberculosis in 1907 at residential schools, which was one hundred times the national average death rate” (Daitch, Sarah Daitch: Exposing the dark legacy of residential schools). These mortality rates were so high because even though the school administers knew about the disease, there was treacherous ignorance towards the prevention, spreading and treatment of it. The residential schools knowingly mixed the sick children with the healthy children which only made the disease become more viral throughout the schools. These practices were so obviously seen that in 1907 the “Chief Medical Officer for the Federal Department of Indian Affairs, Dr. Peter Bryce, informed the Deputy Superintendent for Indian Affairs that "the conditions are being deliberately created in our Indian boarding schools to spread infectious diseases. The death rate often exceeds 50 percent. This is a national crime.”” (Neufeld, Thousands of native children died in Canada's residential schools). 

Overcrowding

              Additionally, it is thought that the deaths of these children were pre-planned. When designing the schools, cemeteries were consciously laid out. This arouse suspicions that officials knew they would be killing children who came to live there. Even more, when children died of tuberculosis, school officials did not even have the dignity to send their bodies home to be buried peacefully. To them, this was an unnecessary expense so instead they just quickly and quietly buried the children in their own cemeteries without a care. 

Residential School cemetery

               Tuberculosis was an exceedingly widespread disease among the children at residential schools that did not receive proper treatment and ultimately lead to thousands of preventable deaths. It is through information like this that we learn just how cruel residential schools were.