Joseph

There was a loud knock on the door, and everyone looked at each other, dreading this moment. The government and the church deemed the First Nations and Metis as savages, showing up at their homes to take away their children to be converted by the church and integrated into a civilized Canadian society. The families had no choice but to let them go.

Joseph was the oldest boy, and at five years old, he was already built strong and tall for his age. He had dark, kind eyes and a quick sense of humour and genuinely loved hunting and riding horses.

They opened the door, and the bright light spilled into the room, highlighting the dark shadows their figures made. Fear filled the little boy's heart as he tried so hard to be brave, but he ran to her once he saw the panic in his mother's eyes. They grabbed him from her hold, and he screamed and kicked at them as they took him away. He was forced out of his home, with his mother's cries being the last thing he heard.

When he arrived on the doorsteps of St. John's Wabasca Residential School in 1928, he had nothing but the clothes on his back. A stern and angry-looking woman greeted Joseph. She wore a full-length black dress with a gold cross hanging loosely around her neck. She looked down on him, and he was instantly terrified of her. She grabbed him by the ear and painfully twisted it as she ushered him inside the building. "Go clean yourself," she said, pushing him forward and handing him the harsh lye soap. Scrub your skin, you're dirty, you're a dirty Indian. God doesn't like the colour of your skin, so wash it until you take all that filthy brown off". He had no idea what she said, but somehow, he was ashamed.

Once he was finished, he was given someone else's clothes to put on; they were itchy and smelled funny, and the pants were too short. Joseph was then taken into another room and made to sit on a wooden chair. His whole body was shaking, and even though he tried to stay brave, as his mother would have wanted him to, he couldn't stop the tears that mixed with the hair that fell to the floor.

Joseph was directed into a common area, which was a larger room filled with kids like him of various ages. With his hand touching where his hair used to be, he sheepishly walked in, trying to be as invisible as possible. A creak of a loose floorboard betrayed him, announced his arrival, and prompted the other children to look his way. They looked sad and heartbroken, and he wondered if he looked the same. He started to panic when an older boy walked up to him. He looked around, terrified, but relief flooded him as he was met with a grin. The older boy motioned for him to follow him. He led him to a quiet corner, where he whispered words of advice to him in their own language. He told him they were never allowed to speak in their language because they were there to learn English and the white people's way. After all they were told, God thought they were savages. If they spoke Cree, they would be severely punished, which was just the start. As the older boy continued, Joseph shook his head; he did not understand what was happening to him or why. He needed help understanding the world of the new language or why he was there. All he knew was he wanted to go home.

That first night haunted him for the rest of his life. The cries and the screams that echoed with the wind closed in on him. His little hands covered his ears to drown out the noise. Little did he know that in the months to come, he would later be another child, adding his voice to the screams heard throughout.

The days started early with a routine of repeated hard labour and classes. The rules were strict, and punishment was sharp and fierce.

As the days and months went by, Joseph quickly learned more than just a new language from what they called the civilized world. He knew about trauma and suffering, abuse, shame and even death.

Children of all ages were dying around him. Food was scarce, and there was never enough to go around; being hungry was now a constant way of life. There were multiple outbreaks of tuberculosis as well as Smallpox. Luckily, he wasn't infected, but if you could have asked him, he would have told you the children who died were the lucky ones.

There was a graveyard out back that grew in size over the years. Children lay eternally in the ground marked by crosses, just like the ones the sisters wore around their necks.

One day, he dared to ask one of the older kids why screams could be heard every night from a room in the cellar. The older boy explained to him, one by one, they were taken to what everyone called 'the torture room.' He described that children were beaten, raped, and, when the young girls had babies, they disappeared as soon as they were born.

Three weeks after Joseph arrived, two boys ran away, and as quickly as they fled, they were brought back and made examples of. That night, they were stripped naked before everyone and beaten so severely that no one dared ever leave again.

The church did not want the children and families to come in contact with each other for fear of the children resorting to their ‘savage’ ways. The only time contact was allowed was once a year at Christmas time. The children were allowed two days away. If the parents could come and pick them up, but if they weren't returned within the two days, they would be put in jail. Two days were never enough, so parents didn't come.

On the weekends, there were no classes, and after the Saturday morning chores were done, the kids would race across the schoolyard to peer through the fence that held them captive. Across the road was a general store, and the children stood silent for hours, hoping they would catch a glimpse of their parents going in.

One beautiful and glorious day, Joseph saw his mother out of the corner of his eye coming out of the store. She was walking in haste, her long hair blowing in the wind. He had been waiting months for this day, and she was still as beautiful as she had been the last time he had seen her. He wanted her to notice him, and he saw her looking over, but so many of them were waiting, and they all blended. He knew he couldn't shout out to her, or there would be severe consequences. He walked along the fence line, taking faster steps, trying to get her attention, but she never looked back again and disappeared down the road.

Joseph was allowed to leave the mission and return to his home nine years later. He served the mandatory time the government and church allocated and was given his freedom. Freedom, what did that even mean? He may have been able to leave that place, but he was never free again. How does a young man of 14 years of age begin to integrate his broken heart and spirit into a culture that had been stripped away? How was he supposed to start again? Joseph lost so much of who he was and his family's connection. He had been taught for nine years to hate the colour of his skin, and the shame and humiliation he carried within lasted a lifetime, and he disappeared into himself. He was stuck between two ways of life, never knowing who he was.

Everything he should have been was stripped away, and he never lived one day as he should have. Joseph only existed and walked the remainder of his life as a silenced man…