Analyzing Mary Jane Logan McCallum’s article, “Domestic Labor and the Age of Discharge at Canadian Indian Residential Schools.”

Mary Jane Logan McCallum’s article, “Domestic Labor and the Age of Discharge at Canadian Indian Residential Schools” looks at the controversy arising from Canadian Indian residential schools discharging young adults from school beyond the age of sixteen.  Jane focuses on the struggle over the age of discharge from these residential schools with regard to statements from parents, the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) as well as school staff regarding the returning of female students. Parents of the affected first nation students started the exchange with a request to have pupils who are nearing or past sixteen years of age to return home where their help is much needed. In response, school staff with the aim of retaining students until they turned eighteen and beyond insisted the young girls require subsequent domestic training, moral support and safety provided by the schools which will, in turn, convert them to fit individuals to undertake employment as domestic workers upon completion.

According to Jane, gendered labour was a core colonization tool within Canadian Indian Residential Schools. Between the 1880s and periods beyond 1951, academic study and manual labour ran hand in hand in the programme of residential schools.  Labour was also divided according to gender, which shows Canada’s general idea of how an individual’s work and workplace were supposedly assigned on the basis of their gender (McCallum, 2015). Hence, at the residential institutions, female education involved food preparation, housework, washing, ironing as well as sewing and mending. The aim of undertaking these manual labour was to prepare the girls to develop a ‘civilizing’ influence on their homes as well as communities once they become mothers and wives.

Extensive training sometimes against parents and students’ will have adverse effects on Indigenous communities. Jane mentions letters written by First Nations to the DIA that are descriptive, personal and private, requesting the matter to be addressed. They wanted the authorities in charge to change the policy that was negatively affecting their lives. The letters mentioned unique challenges and struggles framed as arguments for the necessity of the young adults’ assistance back home[1]. These letters show the significance of Indigenous women to their communities socially, economically and culturally (McCallum, 2015). In addition, it portrays a unique historical context whereby destitute and dislocated households were sharing a common ground whereby the presence of young women in the home contributed substantially to their families.

The Indian Act, however, restrains granting the Indigenous parents’ request. With regard to education, it contains clauses about compulsory school attendance and the penalties for failing to comply. Over the years, various amendments have been made adjusting the age limit for compulsory school attendance. In 1930, the law was adjusted placing the discharge age at sixteen, but the clause regarding detaining students until they turn eighteen was reestablished. The Act allows the Superintendent General to detain students at schools for further periods after attaining sixteen years if they deem it fit that their discharge would be detrimental to their progress. In such a case, the clause with respect to truancy applies to the child and its parents.

Jane’s article shows how the struggle for these young adults portrays their importance to both their native communities and economies of colonization.

References

McCallum, M. J. (2015). Domestic Labor and the Age of Discharge at Canadian Indian Residential Schools. In V. H. Lowrie, Colonization and Domestic Service (pp. 191-210). New York: Routledge.

[1] Mrs D suffering from pneumonia wrote a letter in the spring of 1937 requesting her sister Eva to be discharged from school to assist her in caring for her children and house-chores as she rests. Eva was seventeen at the time.