Clearinghouse

A short history of the Indian Residential School system in Canada, published by Daneil Paul, and condensed from his book length study, We Were Not the Savages: A Micmac Perspective on the Collision of Aboriginal and European Civilizations. 

Daniel N. Paul, (born 1938) is a Mi'kmaq Elder, author, columnist, and human rights activist. Paul is perhaps best known as the author of the book We Were Not the Savages. Paul asserts that this book is the first such history ever written by a First Nation citizen. The book is seen as an important contribution to the North American Indian Movement.

Paul is critical of colonial historical accounts of the Mi’kmaq people:

"Because of their belief that European civilizations were superior, and therefore all others were inferior or savage, these writers reported the superior human rights practices of Amerindian civilization as if they were abnormal. Later, using these biased records as gospel, many White authors have written works about Mi'kmaq civilization that do not present a true picture. Their efforts were probably taken with sincerity and honesty, but many, if not all, are lacking in two respects: they ignore the Mi'kmaq perspective on civilization and fail to appreciate that the values of the two cultures were in most cases completely opposite... More contemporary authors who have written about Amerindian civilizations have also used European standards to evaluate the relative merits of these cultures. Thus their efforts are flawed."