When the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation (CNVR) published its registry of students who died in residential schools for indigenous peoples in 2019, the authors recognized that it was far from complete.
Among the 2,800 names that appear in the period register, at least one raised eyebrows because it’s not even a real name: Indian Girl 237.
After reviewing hundreds of annual reports, correspondence and numerous residential school death certificates, as well as documents from the White Bear First Nation in Saskatchewan, we now know that she called Letitia John.
We come from a place that has a lot of history and in order to move forward we need to confront some of that,” said Annette Lonechild, former chief of the White Bear First Nation. It’s completely normal that, thanks to other people’s research, we have the right to allow someone to turn the page.
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Letitia John is likely to be seen somewhere in this class photo taken in 1907 at the Native Residential School in Qu’Appelle, Saskatchewan. Letitia was brought to this school in 1903 and died there of tuberculosis in 1912, documents show.
Photo: National Center for Truth and Reconciliation
Raymond Frogner, NCTR’s head of archives, said the online memorial register and the red cloth banner with the names of children who died in residential schools are real living documents.
We always expected this to happen; “If there are errors, we are clear that we will remove them and make them as accurate as possible,” Frogner said.
As for the banner itself, it needs to be renewed and revised over time, but again these are living documents. As our knowledge grows, as the investigation continues, as we learn who has disappeared, and as we understand the circumstances surrounding these disappearances, we continue to make additions.
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Raymond Frogner, director of archives at the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation, reviews some of the early 20th century photographs sent to the Oblates by priests from various residential schools. (archive photo)
Photo: Raymond Frogner
The official also claimed that Indian Girl and White Bear Volume No. 237 were the only information found in correspondence between school and government officials regarding Letitia’s death, which would explain why this girl was listed as a number in the registry.
He noted that the CNVR continues to analyze documents to revise the list of children who died in boarding schools.
Archivists at the national center used algorithms to find the names of people associated with residential schools in archival records.
The list has been cleaned to remove duplicates and names of people considered employees. However, there is still a long list of names, numbering under a million but still in the six figures, said Mr Frogner, which is the subject of in-depth research.
Letitia John was born in 1897 or 1898 and would have been five or six years old when she was separated from her parents in 1903 and enrolled at the Qu’Appelle Residential School in Lebret, Saskatchewan, about 70 kilometers east of Regina.
Her family had no say in their daughter’s admission to this boarding school as Indian law made attendance at this school compulsory.
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In this obituary, Letitia John is listed as “White Bear Band Student Number 0235.”
Photo: Library and Archives Canada
Nine years later, Letitia, a teenager, died of tuberculosis at the school where she had spent most of her short life, just over 150 miles from her home in White Bear.
In its 2015 report “What We Learned,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called tuberculosis a crisis that accounts for nearly half of the deaths in Canada’s residential schools.
Several federal officials reported poor construction and woefully inadequate ventilation at residential schools for tribal peoples in the early 1900s, among factors contributing to high rates of this deadly infectious disease, according to the report.
The 1912 report from Qu’Appelle Residential School Principal Reverend J. Hugonard to the Department of Indian Affairs (now divided into two departments, Native Services and Crown-Native Relations) also mentions the death of Letitia, as well as other deaths, that may have occurred this year – has been omitted.
The health of the students was good this year. Health precautions are always taken, the premises are kept clean, infectious patients are isolated and ventilation is ensured, we can read in the school’s summary report.
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An undated photo of the Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School in Lebret, Saskatchewan.
Photo: Library and Archives Canada
Letitia’s family
The White Bear First Nation reviewed contract pension records maintained by federal agents to trace families in communities to confirm Letitia’s name. Community records indicate that Contract No. 237 belonged to a man named John, who was enrolled in what was then known as the White Bear Band.
In the early days of agent record keeping, the documents referred to specific men, although they also documented other members of their families.
Correspondence and records kept by agents show that John and a man named Shewak were transferred from the Nakota Nation of Pheasant Rump at the same time and became members of the White Bear community in 1894.
John raised five head of cattle and built a home in White Bear before his transfer was officially announced. When asked about John’s ties to the Pheasant Rump First Nation, about 155 kilometers southeast of Regina, Chief Ira McArthur said his community may not have known about it for a long time.
“I interviewed some of our elders,” he pointed out. Of course, much of this history is lost through generations. It’s really difficult to identify people who are two or three generations ahead of us. Regarding it is possible that it [John] comes from somewhere else.
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This is the letter – part of the correspondence that the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation was able to find – that links Letitia John’s name to Treaty No. 237 of the White Bear First Nation.
Photo: Library and Archives Canada
Chief McArthur explained that before the signing of Treaty No. 4 and until about 1890, his community moved between what is now southeastern Saskatchewan and the U.S. states of Dakota, North and Montana, mixing with other tribes and communities along the way.
According to the rules set out in the Indian Act, John’s children were to be registered under his treaty number until his boys reached adulthood or his daughters married someone from another family. However, in 1898, White Bear community records show that a daughter, Letitia, was born next to John’s contract number 237, becoming the fifth member of the family.
White Bear’s pension payment records show that in 1903, Letitia was enrolled as student 0235 at Qu’Appelle Residential School, where her siblings were already enrolled.
A death certificate indicates that Qu’Appelle School student 0235, who was associated with the payment of White Bear First Nation Pension No. 237, died of tuberculosis on February 17, 1912. In 1912, federal agents’ files listed only two dead daughters of John’s family, the family associated with Treaty No. 237.
Correspondence between the residential school and government officials regarding the death on February 17, 1912 revealed Letitia’s name and demonstrated her connection to White Bear First Nation Treaty No. 237.
The documents do not indicate whether Letitia’s remains were shipped to the indigenous community, whether she was buried on the grounds of the residential school, or whether her family was informed of the cause of death.
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Painted stones stacked just inside the high fences separating the site of the former Qu’Appelle Indian Residential School and a railroad line, Fall 2021. The site of the former school is at the western end of the town site.
Photo: (Bryan Eneas/CBC)
What does a name represent?
Even when Letitia lost her life at this facility, the school administration withdrew Letitia’s birth name in her correspondence. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that schools removed students’ names for administrative reasons.
Lorena Fontaine, an Indigenous academic leader at the University of Manitoba and a member of the Sagkeeng First Nation, confirmed that priests, nuns and teachers in residential schools suppressed children’s names.
That policy, she says, created confusion then and now about the identities of children like Letitia. When children died in boarding schools without their original names, it was difficult to know what happened to them, she said.
Imagine the parents who sent their children to school under the auspices of the government and churches and could not bring them home without knowing their history. It’s terrible.
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Annette Lonechild, former chief of the White Bear First Nation, believes Letitia was never forgotten by her community.
Photo: (Bryan Eneas/CBC)
Never forget
CBC News first reported on Letitia’s identity and ties to the White Bear Indigenous community on the eve of the community’s first-ever Truth and Reconciliation Day gathering of 2021.
Ms. Lonechild said she and the band council’s legal representation were trying to locate descendants of the family but had been unable to locate any living relatives. Political systems or records may say otherwise. But I believe in our people… so I don’t really think anyone has been forgotten.
She said she has no doubt the people of White Bear will remember Letitia. I believe in families and I think they know their families and who they left behind.
Text by CBC’s Bryan Eneas