1883 - John A. Macdonald Authorizes the Residential School System

John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first prime minister, was a key architect of the residential school system. He believed Indigenous children needed to be separated from their families to be “civilized,” and in 1883 he authorized the creation of the first government-funded, church-run residential schools. Under his leadership, the federal government expanded these institutions, embedding forced assimilation into national policy and causing lasting harm to Indigenous peoples.  

Baptists did not run residential schools in Atlantic Canada. Baptist involvement in residential schools was limited compared to that of other ecclesial traditions (e.g., Catholic, Anglican, United). Nonetheless, some Maritime Baptist figures supported broader Christian assimilationist agendas through day schools, Sunday schools, and mission stations in Indigenous communities. These efforts involved so-called “civilizing” education and religious instruction campaigns that prepared children to enter residential schools or reinforced the effects of those schools. The Baptist church’s complicity in assimilationist goals, therefore, was more indirect and ideological, often emphasizing the promotion of European cultural norms as Christian virtues. 

This indirect involvement in assimilationist work is part of what scholars call the “soft power” of colonial Christianity. Even denominations uninvolved in formal residential school management participated in the ideology of cultural superiority, the push for English-language literacy to “uplift” communities, and the replacement of Indigenous spiritual practices. 

Coates, Kenneth. Best Left as Indians: Native-White Relavations in the Yukon Territory, 1840-1973. McGill-Queen’s Studies in Ethnic History. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014.  

Photo Credit: “Sir John A. Macdonald,” https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/sir-john-alexander-macdonald