Robert P. Wells fulfills oath to Anishinabek elder by sharing survivors’ stories, recounting historic wrongs, calling for accountability

ONTARIO, CANADA, February 15, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- When he was nine years old, Robert P. Wells made a sacred promise to his friend, an Anishinabek elder named Moochum Joe, swearing to recount in paper how horribly his kind treated Native people. With "Wawahte" Wells fulfills this oath and shares the stories of those who survived Canada’s residential schools.

His recollection is an important one that delves into a painful period of the past. Events that remain relevant, with repercussions that can still be felt today. As The Conversation reports : in January 2020, the Canadian government accepted claims from a billion-dollar settlement with survivors of the reservation schools, a settlement that came after long legal battles. It is estimated that over the years, around 200,000 indigenous children were forced to attend these Indian day schools that operated on First Nation reserves in all of Canada's provinces from the mid-1800s to as late as 2000. These were funded by the Canadian government but mostly run by Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches as well as the United Church of Canada later on.

According to Wells, many Canadians now know about the harsh facts of those residential schools as well as Indian hospitals and the "sixties scoop." Moreover, there is growing awareness of continuing cases of missing and murdered indigenous women, and how repressive the Indian Act and Indian reserve system have been to both communities and individuals. But Wells' work takes a step beyond, with an intent to promote genuine reconciliation, which he acknowledges is not an event but in the concentrated effort to find things that can be done to right past wrongs.

This realization came to him early on. He recounts how his white Christian parents and Moochum Joe imparted crucial lessons. According to Wells, most of his kind dismissed the elder as an "illiterate and lazy old Indian," but he was Wells' dear friend and teacher who imparted in him a respect for all life, the great ancestral hunters and forest spirits. This realization of humanity's connection to nature, neither being more or less than it, stood in contrast with what Wells' describes as white people's notion that Canada was challenging the wilderness with an imperialist and divine right to push aside indigenous residents. Wells says that in hindsight, there was no consideration for the human and environmental after effects. Now he aims to share his understanding to readers everywhere in order to avoid the costly follies of the past.

In the words of Dr. Chief Robert Joseph of Reconciliation Canada: " For all the people who read this book may they be forever enlightened. By shining the light on a dark part of our past we have a chance to create a bright new day for aboriginals and all Canadians. We will all know what happened and then come to realize that what happens now and our vision for a future together is what really counts. Together we will stand for what is right and the intention of Indian residential schools and colonization will not happen again! "

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Wawahte: Stories of Residential School Survivors - FULL DOCUMENTARY

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