No human remains found 2 years after claims of ‘mass graves’ in Canada

[Bootstrap]

The atrocities happened. And atrocities are a problem. Atrocities are still a problem when you can't find the bodies.

What are you using for the definition of "mass graves"? The Wikipedia links, if I remember correctly, make few allegations of "pits dug in the ground to receive a large number of corpses" which is the actual definition of "mass graves."

By definition a cemetery filled with many individual graves is not a mass grave.

Sure. There are a lot of schools that may have a lot of individual graves. Here's the table I was looking at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ ... gravesites

I think I picked up the phrase "mass graves" from this thread and had that in mind when I saw this table. But the table does not say that they were mass graves, as you correctly point out.

[ohio jones]

The children were taken away. Nobody knows what happened to them. Very likely, they died due to some illness and were buried without telling their parents or their communities.

Assuming that most of them died at the residential schools is quite a leap of logic, though. Is there any evidence at all to support this?

Yes, there are at least a handful of reports documenting these things. There are a lot of records from the time, documenting the waves of disease and how the bodies were handled. Here's one:

Where are the Children buried?
Dr. Scott Hamilton
Dept. of Anthropology, Lakehead University
Thunder Bay, Ontario

Thanks, that provides helpful context.

[ken_sylvania]

The atrocities happened. And atrocities are a problem. Atrocities are still a problem when you can't find the bodies.

What are you using for the definition of "mass graves"? The Wikipedia links, if I remember correctly, make few allegations of "pits dug in the ground to receive a large number of corpses" which is the actual definition of "mass graves."

By definition a cemetery filled with many individual graves is not a mass grave.

Sure. There are a lot of schools that may have a lot of individual graves. Here's the table I was looking at:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_ ... gravesites

I think I picked up the phrase "mass graves" from this thread and had that in mind when I saw this table. But the table does not say that they were mass graves, as you correctly point out.

So are you willing to admit that you know of no credible evidence that there actually are any "mass graves"?

[Sudsy]

Yes Boot, repent, repent. Why is there so much 'gotcha' going on in this forum ?

[ken_sylvania]

Yes Boot, repent, repent. Why is there so much 'gotcha' going on in this forum ?

So now it's 'gotcha' to ask people to admit when they are wrong?

[Falco Knotwise]

According to Bootstrap’s report, Where are the Children Buried, in 1918, 73 people in a school died from the flu epidemic. Since not enough individual graves had been prepared, some of the bodies were buried together in large common graves.

Also, that is the first one referenced on the Wikipedia chart, the Battleford, SK school, where 74 bodies were found in 1974. This is one of the few cases where they have documentation of the deaths.

The report also indicates mortality rates for indigenous schoolchildren was much higher than in the general population because tuberculosis, which was more common on reservations, spread more rapidly when it was brought to the schools.

As far as parents not being notified of deaths, the report states bluntly that’s something they assume happened sometimes but have no records regarding.

There were few regulations back then and what records they do have are sparse. There is also the question of who to hold responsible for not providing and maintaining relevant information. The government who failed to provide regulations or the churches?

The main problem being considered in this study is just locating the grave sites and identifying who is buried there. There were no government regulations for maintaining cemeteries back then. Communities often abandoned areas for various reasons. Wooden grave markers deteriorated. Now nobody knows who’s buried where.

There are probably such unmarked graves all over the world if you look.

Families today would naturally like to know where distant relatives might be buried, but nobody is making claims of criminal intent here, in this report.

This report makes no mention of ‘atrocities’ committed by anyone. I can’t imagine why it is being used to justify such language.

And yes, I have read it all. (Some areas I admittedly skimmed.)

Can anybody here quote anything from this document to the contrary?

Boot, your table lists 27 sites suspected of being cemeteries, only 7 of which have been confirmed, 2 of which in were found only a single grave. The one we have already mentioned (Battleford, SK), and none of which mention anything about “atrocities” committed.

Even if there are cemeteries found near all of them, that fact alone would prove nothing about “atrocities.” This report says mortality rates were very high among the indigenous students due to sicknesses.

What is the worst “atrocity” you are suggesting was committed here? That parents weren’t notified of their children’s death? Not saying that wouldn’t be awful, but I’m trying to get something specific from you.

[Falco Knotwise]

My apologies — 78 deaths occurred because of the Spanish Flu in Fort St. James, British Columbia, not Battleford, SK.

That’s on page 11 of the report. (I had a funny feeling I may have gotten got something confused here.)

The Battleford School is mentioned in the report, on page 22, where we are also told that most of these school cemeteries also served as cemeteries for the local church or parish. Teachers, missionaries, pastors and other workers were also buried there as well. They do have documentation about the burials in Battleford, SK.

That they assume parents were sometimes not notified even with no documentation to confirm, is found on page 2.

[Ken]

What is the worst “atrocity” you are suggesting was committed here? That parents weren’t notified of their children’s death? Not saying that wouldn’t be awful, but I’m trying to get something specific from you.

I suspect if you were to have an honest conversation with native leaders about this subject they would tell you something like the following:

The "atrocity" is that for centuries native groups have been subject to a relentless and deliberate campaign of extinction that has included:

• Tens of thousands of children forcibly removed from their families and communities and sent do distant boarding schools where their language, culture, and beliefs were systematically eradicated
• Hundreds upon hundreds of native children gone missing which could include: children dying of disease without parents being notified, children dying of abuse without parents being notified, children running away from abusive situations without parents being notified, children being adopted into white families and "disappearing" into white society with new names without parents being notified, etc. etc.
• Native lands being stolen through a wide variety of mechanisms, some under the color of law, some through violence
• Native tribes being "disenrolled" in order to expunge their reservations and make the land available to white settlement
• A two-tiered system of justice, education, public health, economic development that made native groups second-class citizens on their own lands
• etc. etc.

So it isn't one event in one location at one point in time. It is the cumulative impact of decades of hostile acts across the country that has been going on for generations.

[Bootstrap]

Yes Boot, repent, repent. Why is there so much 'gotcha' going on in this forum ?

So now it's 'gotcha' to ask people to admit when they are wrong?

After I caught the error and told everyone about that, you quoted places where I had been mistaken, repeatedly, as though I was not willing to admit the very thing I had already told everyone. To me, that did feel a little "gotcha". I mean, you didn't start doing that until I had already corrected the error.

And the original post made exactly the same error. The NY Post article made the same error. The people researching the graves did not call them mass graves. So if they aren't mass graves, that proves these researchers right on that point. It does not discredit them.

[Bootstrap]

According to Bootstrap’s report, Where are the Children Buried, in 1918, 73 people in a school died from the flu epidemic. Since not enough individual graves had been prepared, some of the bodies were buried together in large common graves.

You obviously took the time to read this and take facts into consideration, and this is a well reasoned post. Thanks for that.

Families today would naturally like to know where distant relatives might be buried, but nobody is making claims of criminal intent here, in this report.

As far as I can tell, nobody made any claims about these children being murdered or anything in any of the reports the article in the OP was talking about. There are lots of claims about taking children away involuntarily and reeducating them.

This report makes no mention of ‘atrocities’ committed by anyone. I can’t imagine why it is being used to justify such language.

What is the worst “atrocity” you are suggesting was committed here? That parents weren’t notified of their children’s death? Not saying that wouldn’t be awful, but I’m trying to get something specific from you.

According to a lot of sources, kids were kidnapped and put into cultural reeducation programs. They were not allowed to speak their language or live according to their culture or communicate with their families. When they died, the parents weren't notified and did not know where their children's graves were. That's what I was talking about.

When China does this to ethnic groups like the Uighurs, we call that an atrocity.