Some missing residential school students disappeared into arranged marriages, report says

Some children who disappeared from residential schools ended up in arranged marriages organized by school principals and the government, according to the final report from the special interlocutor for missing children and unmarked graves and burial sites associated with Indian Residential Schools.

Leah Redcrow believes her grandparents, who were married at Sacred Heart Indian Residential School (later called Blue Quills) in Alberta in 1928, may have been one of an unknown number of couples whose marriages were arranged by authorities.

Researchers who study the issue say a large scale study is needed to find out how many people were affected and when it ended. Still, there are records showing arranged marriages of residential school students in the 1890s and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) collected testimony from survivors who said they faced arranged marriage as late as the 1950s. 

Redcrow, executive director of Acimowin Opaspiw Society, which represents Blue Quills survivors, says she believes arranged marriages were common at the Sacred Heart/Blue Quills school and said there's enduring impact on the Saddle Lake Cree Nation — affecting everything from land to family connections. 

People who spoke with CBC Indigenous said it shows how the government of Canada used marriage as a tool to further the assimilation of Indigenous youth and illustrates how much control the government and schools exerted over the personal lives of Indigenous people. 

Special interlocutor Kimberly Murray's final report examines the ways that children were moved through various institutions — like homes for unwed mothers, hospitals and treatment centres — and how that made it difficult for families to find out what happened to their kids. 

Murray included the issue of arranged marriages because it illustrates that point, she said, especially if names were changed after marriage. 

Beginning in the 1890s, the government "directed Indian Agents and principals to consult the youth who were soon to be discharged from [residential schools] and encourage marriage between them," according to Murray's report. 

Murray said she first became aware of arranged marriages when she was editing a report by the TRC on the history of residential schools. 

"I had no idea, especially about the [File Hills] colony," she said.

"I thought that was outrageous that they set up these colonies and married people together and moved them."

The File Hills Colony was an experiment by Indian agent William Morris Graham to create an agrarian utopia in Saskatchewan by taking land from the local Cree community, giving it to others and cultivating it for farming, said Karen Brglez, a PhD student in history at the University of Manitoba.

In the early 1900s, File Hills was touted as a model community to show off Canada's efforts assimilating Indigenous people. 

In 2022, the federal government apologized to Peepeekisis Cree Nation for the scheme and the community received $150 million in compensation for loss of land.