2.1 ‘Save the man; kill the Indian’

In the residential schools, children were not allowed to speak their mother tongues and were forced to adopt Christianity. Christianity was taught as the only true knowledge system, while Indigenous ways of knowing and living were suppressed, stigmatised, and often prohibited. Children’s names were replaced by European Christian names, and sometime even numbers (which in many cases were used more than the names). They were also required to wear uniforms and have their hair cut.

In other words, the schools were explicitly designed to erase everything ‘Indian’, driven by the slogan ‘Save the Man, Kill the Indian’.

Figure 3 Photograph of Tom Torlino by John N. Choate, circa 1882. Before and after entering Carlisle Indian Industrial School.