New documents related to the former Mohawk Institute residential school in Brantford, Ont., have revealed 43 more dead, according to the survivor-led group overseeing the search for possible unmarked graves at the site.
The total number of student deaths, according to documents obtained so far, is 97. The National Center for Truth and Reconciliation lists only 48 dead, while previous updates from the secretariat have said there were 54 dead
“The impact and the legacy [of residential schools] it feels way beyond the boundaries of the communities,” Laura Arndt, the new executive leader of the Survivors Secretariat, told community members at an invitation-only event Wednesday.
Residential school survivor and secretariat member Sherlene Bomberry said the new documents came about through a collaboration with Know History, a professional historical research firm.
The 97 students include people who died of illness or injury and those who ran away and died elsewhere, according to Know History researcher Beth Sollis.
Mohawk Institute, one of Canada’s oldest and oldest residential schools, opened in 1828 and closed in 1970. The school housed about 15,000 students from 20 First Nations communities, many of whom suffered abuse .
Sollis did not say when the deaths might have occurred.
“We have also identified 16 children [who died and] whose names are not known we are working in the hope of identifying and others where the location of their grave is not known,” he said.
Over 12,000 records found
Bombberry said the clerk’s office is cross-referencing the names to make sure there are no duplicates.
He also said the group is working on a protocol to inform families and communities about newly discovered deaths before posting them online.
Know History and the secretariat have worked together for nine months, which, according to Sollis, has resulted in the identification of 4,581 names of children who attended the high school and 725 names of people who worked at the Institute of some way
Sollis said the team has found more than 12,000 records relevant to the institute at 23 institutions. More than 6,700 of them have been reviewed and registered.
Laura Arndt is the executive head of the Secretariat of Survivors. (Secretariat of survivors/Facebook)
The search on the land where the Woodland Cultural Center now stands began in November after preliminary research by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in Kamloops, BC last May turned up about 200 potential graves.
The secretariat has secured $10.2 million from the federal government over three years and $1.3 million from the provincial government; both amounts are well below what the secretariat requested and represent only about a third of the money the group says it needs to do the research.
The ground search will take years to complete.
So far, about 1.5 percent of the roughly 243 acres has been searched.
Bomberry said the City of Brantford provided lidar scans of the terrain to help, which has allowed the secretariat to work with geophysicists who can help interpret the data.
Support is available for anyone affected by their residential school experience and for those triggered by these reports.
A National Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to support residential school survivors and others affected. People can access crisis and emotional referral services by calling the 24-hour national crisis line: 1-866-925-4419.