‘It’s my duty to talk for these kids’: Searching Brantford’s Mohawk Institute residential school

For more than a decade, residential school survivor Geronimo Henry waited to be released from the Mohawk Institute.

This window right here is where I cried every summer because my mom wouldn't come up to get me to go home for the summer," the 84-year-old said, motioning to the large pane that reveals a basement playroom. It's kind of a sad month ... the third week in June is when you can go home if somebody comes to get you. But nobody ever come and got me, so I just kind of stayed here year-round for 11 years."

Henry is wearing a blue button-up and slacks. He's tall and slim, with kind eyes and an easy laugh. It's hard to picture him on these grounds more than six decades ago.

But from 1942 to 1953, Henry was confined to the Mohawk Institute residential school near Brantford, which he called a prison for kids who did no crime."

Tattooed on his right hand between his thumb and index finger is the number - 48 - used to identify him while at the institute. Staff rarely used their names, he said. He remembers being called from a lineup of dozens of boys, Number 48, step forward!" he barked military-style, imitating the institute's staff.

After 11 years there, Henry said he would sometimes wonder, What the hell is my name, anyway?"

I would kind of have to remind myself," he continued. It all seems kind of ironic because we were only kids."

Eventually, at 17, Henry was old enough to leave. But not all children made it out.

In its final report in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) estimated that at least 3,200 children died in the residential school system nationwide. But advocates say that number is conservative.

In its 140-year history, at least 15,000 children attended the former Mohawk Institute, one of the country's oldest and longest-running residential schools.

The Brantford facility was one of 139 residential schools across the country that sought to systemically - and, often, violently - strip Indigenous children of their culture, language and identity. The residential school system would later be described by the TRC as a project of cultural genocide."

The residential school system was established by Christian churches and the Canadian government to educate and convert Indigenous youth, and to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian society. The federal government's role in the system wasn't entrenched until the 1880s, but church-run schools for Indigenous children existed decades before that - including in Brantford.

The last residential school in Canada closed in 1996. The Mohawk Institute was operated until 1970, when it was turned over to Six Nations control.

Now, in the wake of the discovery of unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia, where the remains of 215 children were found, Six Nations of the Grand River wants to know whether any of its own are buried on the grounds of the former Mohawk Institute. With the discovery Wednesday of at least 600 more unmarked graves on the grounds of another former residential school in Saskatchewan, calls for searches nationwide continue to grow.

In an open letter June 1, the Six Nations Elected Council asked the federal government to support a comprehensive search for missing children on and around the grounds of the former Mohawk Institute." Less than two weeks later it followed up with a more pointed request - an initial" $10 million in funding from Canada and provincial support, including from the provincial police, in conducting a full investigation."

We see the emotions, the high emotions, we see the frustration, we see all of those pieces that connect to the current day of the intergenerational trauma that exists from these school systems," Chief Mark Hill told The Spectator. We really need to do further work, and that's ultimately what the letter was about. It's to really start to address this issue head on."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has since announced a three-year, $10-million effort to search the grounds of residential schools in the province. How and when the funds will be allocated remains unclear. The federal government has also made $27 million in funding available for searches - part of the nearly $34 million committed in the 2019 budget to honour missing residential schoolchildren.

Should Six Nations' request be granted, the search would not be the first on the grounds of the former Mohawk Institute, which is now managed by the Woodland Cultural Centre, a museum that preserves and promotes Indigenous history.

Ground-penetrating radar technology was used in 2010 to search the grounds from the south side of the museum, adjacent to the former residential school, to Mohawk Street.

We were putting in a new water line," said the centre's executive director, Janis Monture. Because of the stories, we knew that we had to make sure we did due diligence to ensure that we weren't going to find anything."

In 2011, author and activist Kevin Annett claimed he found evidence - such as human bones and a button from a uniform - during a dig at the school, but the validity of the findings has been a point of controversy.

Finally, between 2017 and 2019, roughly five acres of the 29-acre property - from the girls' entrance of the former residential school to Mohawk Street - was searched in order to build the Mohawk Village Memorial Park, a grassroots initiative led by survivors.

Survivor stories of burials in an apple orchard within that search area prompted advocates to request a team of archeologists to excavate at the base of the trees - all of which have now been removed.

We confirmed that there were no human remains there," said Paul Racher, principal with Archaeological Research Associates Ltd. (ARA), Ontario's oldest archeological and heritage consulting firm.

But Racher said other artifacts were found - objects that corroborate stories of physical and emotional abuse.

We found things like little toys that the kids had hidden away," he said. They weren't allowed to have toys, but they had them anyway, and they had hiding spots for them."

Together, ARA Ltd. and the Ontario Archaeological Society donated more than 5,000 hours - or about $300,000 worth of work - to research at the Mohawk Institute.

In the weeks following the discovery in Kamloops, the Mohawk Institute's front steps - where students would first enter the building to have their hair cut and clothes exchanged for uniforms - were covered by a sea of tiny beaded moccasins, child-sized shoes and teddy bears.

For survivors like Sherlene Bomberry, the inclusion of the latter is significant.

We didn't have toys here," she said. We played with rocks."

Bomberry was first taken to the Mohawk Institute in 1966 at 10 years old, after a brief period in foster care. She left the school in 1970, the year it closed.

That was the worst part of coming back here, coming up that long laneway when I used to go home on weekends," said Bomberry, 65, referring to the now tree-lined driveway leading to the main entrance. When we came back on a Sunday night, usually it was really dark out and all the lights were on in the whole building because that was the time when kids were getting ready to go to baths and showers."

In addition to the orchard area, archeological assessments were also carried out around the building, which is undergoing a multi-year, multimillion-dollar restoration. The plan is to transform it into an interpretive centre - a place to remember and learn from the past.

Every time they had to dig up somewhere, every time they found a new crack in the foundation, when they took the steps off, we would race in and we would do the archeology first to make sure that nothing was going to be wrecked in the process," Racher said.

In an email to The Spectator, a spokesperson for the Six Nations elected council said it is in the planning stages of its ground-searching project. Decisions around the budget, as well as where and how much of the original 350-acre property to examine, have yet to be made. Six Nations says any searches that occur will be survivor-led.

It won't be easy, though. In fact, Racher said a ground-penetrating radar search of that magnitude would be very difficult."

It's fairly slow, it's fairly time consuming," he said. The data is extremely difficult to read, and we try to be very careful with it."

Racher, who has not consulted with the elected council on this project, suggested a viable option might be to create an archeological master plan" for the former Mohawk Institute grounds, which would draw on survivor accounts, documentary sources, anecdotes and any other evidence to point you in the vicinity that you want to look at." From there, ground-penetrating radar and archeological methods could be used.

There is already evidence of between 30 and 50 deaths of Indigenous children at the Mohawk Institute. And that's just the early research," said the Woodland centre's Monture.

We do anticipate that there will be probably higher numbers."

The deaths, she said, have been partially documented" through government or church records, but they're incomplete. For instance, the cause of many deaths is unclear. Another concern is the location of the graves of those children, which Monture said is not entirely certain."

And, then, of course, there are the stories," she said.

Over the years, research and survivor accounts of abuse, suicide and disease indicate there may be more to uncover on the grounds.

I've heard survivors tell us that they remember stories of girls becoming pregnant and then wondering what happened to the babies that were born," Monture said.

The sheer size of the original property, part of which is now privately or municipally owned, and the fact that two buildings were previously burned down by students, makes knowing where to look more complicated.

Stories have indicated that there are (unmarked graves), but we also have to acknowledge that this is the third building, and this is not the original site," she said. We've also heard stories about possible graves at adjacent farmers' fields."

Monture said survivors have expressed a desire to uncover the truth.

It needs to be investigated to find out the truth either way," she said. If there aren't any, there aren't any, and if there are then we'll have to deal with that. But ... let's find out, let's uncover the truth, and hopefully try to bring some closure."

Monture said the Woodland centre is prepared to support and assist any future searches, but it will let the community take the lead.

Henry, likewise, supports the call.

Since the 1990s, he has been advocating for fellow residential school survivors. Over the past few weeks he has spent weekends at the former Mohawk Institute, volunteering his time to educate Indigenous and non-Indigenous visitors alike.

I just figure it's my duty to talk for these kids," he said. They can't talk for themselves."

Kate McCullough is a Hamilton-based reporter covering education at The Spectator. Reach her via email: kmccullough@thespec.com

Crisis Line

The Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line is available 24 hours a day for anyone experiencing pain or distress as a result of a residential school experience. Support is available at 1-866-925-4419.