History is filled with all sorts of uncomfortable horrors. Topics like civil wars, genocide, and slavery have plagued humanity since the beginning of time, and it’s important to teach successive generations about the world’s most despicable moments so they might never be forgotten or repeated. But while it’s crucial to impart this knowledge onto others, explaining things like racism and colonialism to young children can be extremely hard. One Canadian publisher isn’t even really trying.
In “Complete Canadian Curriculum 3,” a workbook produced by the Popular Book Company Canada, publishers attempted to explain the fate of the country’s First Nations people to third-graders by whitewashing the hell out of the role European settlers and the Canadian government played in their disenfranchisement.
Genocidal acts included the forced sterilization of indigenous women and little girls.
One section of the supplemental text, which is sold at stores throughout the country, describes the theft of indigenous peoples’ lands by colonizers in extremely gentle terms. “When the European settlers arrived, they needed land to live on,” the book says. “The First Nations peoples agreed to move to different areas to make room for the new settlements.”
In another section, the book states, “The First Nations peoples moved to areas called reserves, where they could live undisturbed by the hustle and bustle of the settlers.”
Of course, the truth is far worse. Like their neighbors to the south, Canada’s treatment of its native population can, at best, be described as heinous. Contrary to the workbook’s assertion that First Nations people relocated to reserves so they could live “undisturbed by the hustle and bustle” of colonizers, the government actually built the reserves to impose “a sedentary lifestyle on previously semi-nomadic peoples” in a bid to assimilate them into colonial European culture that focused on Christianity, farming, and structured education. When that didn’t work, the government passed the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Indian Act of 1876, which instituted penalties for those who did not assimilate into “Canadian culture.”
While forced assimilation is bad enough, Canada didn’t stop there. As Pamela Palmater explained in NowToronto:
Canada’s relationship with its First Nations people remains complicated, so it was no surprise the workbook caused quite a stir. Facebook user Destiny Samaroo posted images from the book and argued that sanitizing history contributes to ignorance. “This is why the MAJORITY of people are so clueless when [it] comes to the reality of the suffering, oppression and INJUSTICE that First Nations (Aboriginal) Peoples have been subjected to for DECADES!” she wrote. Many agreed with Samaroo’s point, sharing her initial post nearly 4,000 times.
Indigo, one of the nation’s biggest booksellers, pulled the text from its shelves and vowed not to sell it “until appropriate edits have been made.” The publisher, Popular Book Company Canada, issued a statement on its Facebook page promising to edit the workbook.
“We know that our Complete Canadian Curriculum Grade 3 does not provide an accurate depiction of the interaction between Canada’s First Nations and European settlers,” the company wrote. “While we cannot undo what has already been published, we are committed to making things better for future editions.”
This isn’t the first time a publisher has come under fire for whitewashing history. Lawmakers in Texas were roundly criticized when they adopted new social studies textbooks that downplayed the role of slavery in the Civil War and cited Moses as a big inspiration for the Constitution.
On Oct. 6, 2017, the Popular Book Company Canada issued a longer statement regarding the workbook controversy. Read it below:
This article was updated on Oct. 6, 2017, to include a full statement from the publisher.
Top and share image via Bahman/Flickr.