Content Warning: This section references cultural genocide and child abuse, including sexual assault, and replicates (in reference to legislation) a term for Indigenous peoples that many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people consider outdated and offensive.

In addition, this section explores the contested and probably fraudulent nature of Joseph Boyden’s supposed Indigenous identity.

Residential schools were created to assimilate First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children into Euro-Canadian culture by teaching them the French or English language and forcibly converting them to Christianity.

During the 19th century, Indigenous peoples lived self-sufficiently throughout much of Canada. In fact, colonial governments were often economically and militarily dependent on these groups. Even so, certain Indigenous groups had become increasingly reliant on public aid. This was particularly the case for the Plains Nations, whose Indigenous ways of life were totally disrupted by colonial farming practices. Colonizer governments and churches recognized that Indigenous peoples were living on the fringes of an unfamiliar society, without the requisite knowledge or skills to take part in it. Residential schools were founded in the hopes of integrating Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture by providing them the knowledge and skills needed to gain economic self-sufficiency (as the colonizers defined it). Some First Nations leaders hoped that the residential educational system could help their youth to navigate an alien culture, whose values were both antithetical to and hostile toward their traditional practices.