ABSTRACT

This article reveals that, contrary to common knowledge, schooling for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children in British Columbia – Canada’s westernmost province – was not strictly segregated in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Officially, government policy stipulated that Indigenous children should attend separate day and residential schools funded by the federal government and run by Christian missionaries. In practice, however, many Indigenous children attended public schools well into the twentieth century. To document Indigenous children attending public schools between 1872 and 1925, a range of archival sources are used, including public school records and correspondence, Department of Indian Affairs records and school photographs. In demonstrating that Indigenous children attended public schools in British Columbia, and in greater numbers than has previously been understood, the article also shows how government policy concerning schooling was negotiated, contested and even subverted in everyday educational life, though always in the context of settler colonialism’s asymmetrical power relations.

摘要

本文揭示，与常识相反，在 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初，不列颠哥伦比亚省（加拿大最西部的省份）对土著和非土著儿童的教育并未严格隔离。官方政策规定，原住民儿童应就读由联邦政府资助并由基督教传教士开办的独立走读学校和寄宿学校。然而，实际上，直到 20 世纪，许多土著儿童都在公立学校上学。为了记录 1872 年至 1925 年间就读公立学校的土著儿童，使用了一系列档案来源，包括公立学校记录和信件、印第安事务部记录和学校照片。在证明土著儿童在不列颠哥伦比亚省的公立学校就读时，