WARNING: This story incorporates particulars of sexual abuse and experiences at residential colleges.
The evening was delicate and the March moon vibrant when Agnes Benn fled the Birtle Indian Residential College by the playroom window, just a few weeks after she informed a buddy that the principal, Henry Currie, put his hand over her mouth so she would not scream in his workplace.
Helen MacKay, the instructor on responsibility that Tuesday night within the playroom, mentioned the teenager lady was appearing up and hanging out the window, “which is strictly forbidden,” and ignoring instructions to cease.
“To ensure she heard me, I twitched her costume. Nonetheless there was no response,” mentioned MacKay in a handwritten letter to Duncan Campbell Scott, the notorious deputy superintendent for the federal Division of Indian Affairs.
The instructor mentioned Agnes solely stopped taking part in within the window after she threatened to ship her to the principal’s workplace. Whereas MacKay was distracted, Agnes jumped out the window someday after 7 p.m. on March 11, 1930.
A search celebration of some older male college students led by a workers member spent about two hours trying for Agnes, however discovered no hint and gave up, in accordance with Indian Affairs information.
Principal Currie and Percy Lazenby, the Indian agent, “weren’t unduly alarmed” by Agnes’s escape.
Agnes was “sturdy and able-bodied” and an “skilled truant” who had walked 18 kilometres south from the establishment in Birtle, Man., to her residence on the Birdtail Sioux reserve on 5 earlier events. Currie and Lazenby let the lady go, “realizing they’d carry Agnes again to the residential college quickly sufficient,” mentioned an Aug. 25, 1930, memo despatched to Scott in regards to the case.
A number of weeks earlier than operating away, Agnes informed 14-year-old Maggie Whitecloud that Currie took her into his workplace, “put his hand beneath her garments and bought on prime of her,” in accordance with a typewritten transcription of an announcement Maggie gave to RCMP and Manitoba Provincial Law enforcement officials months later.
“She began to scream and Mr. Currie put his hand over her mouth to maintain her from screaming,” mentioned Whitecloud in her assertion.
It wasn’t the primary time.
Agnes Benn was discovered lifeless on April 16, 1930, about 12 kilometres from Birtle residential college. Her physique was partly eaten by wolves, in accordance with division information.
Manitoba’s “Official Discover of Dying” says her date of delivery was “not identified precisely”; the doc guessed her age to be 17. The data within the doc was supplied by Lazenby, who, because the Indian agent, oversaw and manged affairs in Agnes’s residence reserve on behalf of the federal authorities.
The small print of Agnes’s escape and what she informed Maggie about Currie had been omitted from the historic document compiled by the Reality and Reconciliation Fee (TRC), which was created to delve into Canada’s residential college historical past on account of the multibillion-dollar 2006 residential college settlement settlement between the federal authorities and survivors of the establishments.
The explanation the TRC heard little or no about Agnes Benn is as a result of the federal authorities did not switch information to the fee about her case — and the a number of intercourse abuse prices Currie confronted.
Currie confronted ‘severe legal motion’ involving ladies
Currie waited practically two weeks, till March 23, 1930, earlier than lastly alerting police that Agnes was lacking. Police then launched the second search, which lastly discovered her, in accordance with division information.
Indian Affairs officers thought of a proper investigation, however decided “there could be no benefit” in charging Currie “with negligence within the case of Agnes Benn,” mentioned the Aug. 25 memo to Scott.
Of their estimation, Currie had greater issues. He confronted “a severe legal motion” involving different ladies from Birtle, mentioned the memo. Currie was awaiting trial on eight prices involving three ladies on the college: Maggie Whitecloud, Helen Benn and Lucy McKay.
Currie was charged with a number of counts of indecent assault, illicit connection, “seduction of a ward” and “carnal information of a lady between the ages of 14 and 16 not being his spouse.”
The investigation additionally revealed that Agnes Benn was considered one of Currie’s victims, and that she “was to be whipped simply earlier to her leaving the college,” in accordance with a Manitoba Provincial Police report.
Failure to switch information raises questions
The TRC, which completed its work in 2015, didn’t obtain any of the information outlining the investigation into Currie whereas he was principal of the Presbyterian Church-run boarding college. The official historical past of residential colleges compiled by the TRC contained solely fragments from this a part of Birtle’s story.
The TRC report did point out Agnes Benn, citing a Winnipeg Free Press story that mentioned she was discovered 4 kilometres from her residence on the Birdtail reserve in “a hole by a farmer on the lookout for his stray horses.” The story mentioned she froze to demise at age 15 after she was caught in a blizzard.
Presbyterian Church information reviewed by the TRC mentioned “no blame connected to the superintendent” for the lady’s demise.
The TRC famous, individually, that Currie was “honourably acquitted” at a trial the place he confronted prices of “immoral conduct.” The TRC cites a 1940 Indian Affairs memo that reported two of Currie’s accusers “got jail phrases and a 3rd relieved of her instructor’s certificates.” The TRC famous it “may find no additional data on this case.”
This a part of Birtle’s historical past — which ran from 1888 to 1970 — got here to gentle solely after Tyla Betke, a doctoral candidate within the historical past division at Carleton College in Ottawa, unearthed the information at Library and Archives Canada in 2021. She revealed her findings within the December 2023 issue of The Canadian Historic Evaluation.
The information had been by no means microfilmed, which can clarify why they had been by no means turned over to the TRC, mentioned Betke. She mentioned the information included police stories and the transcription of verbal statements by Currie’s teenage victims.
“If somebody deemed it too delicate due to the abuse materials inside it, then what number of different information which have essentially the most delicate of supplies have by no means been microfilmed, which have by no means been digitized?” mentioned Betke. “This cannot be the one case.”
CBC Information was supplied a redacted copy of about 400 pages of information by researcher Edward Sadowski, who obtained them by the Entry to Data Act. Sadowski additionally supplied CBC Information with a duplicate of Agnes Benn’s Manitoba demise document.
Sadowski, who retired as analysis and archives co-ordinator for Algoma College’s Shingwauk Residential College Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., transferred 1000’s of paperwork from his many years of labor to the Investigative Journalism Basis, which has unveiled a one-of-a-kind database of residential school records.
‘There are paperwork on the market’
The earlier Liberal authorities informed CBC Information it continues to seek for, establish and switch residential college associated information.
Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC) mentioned “scoping” work by a residential colleges paperwork advisory committee recognized 23 million residential school-related paperwork that go “past the kind” initially transferred to the TRC.
Some key information nonetheless stay past the scrutiny of historians and the general public, mentioned Cadmus Delorme, the former chair of the residential colleges paperwork advisory committee.
Delorme, whose mom attended Birtle residential college, mentioned the federal authorities refuses to launch many information, citing solicitor-client privilege between Justice Canada and the federal departments it represented — similar to Indian Affairs, which was break up into CIRNAC and Indigenous Companies Canada.
Different information, similar to information from Indian hospitals and sanitoriums, which handled residential college college students, stay locked away on account of ongoing class-action litigation, mentioned Delorme.
“I can not say a quantity, however I can inform you, there are paperwork on the market,” mentioned Delorme, former chief of Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan.
“They’re technically our paperwork.… These are our relations…. To ensure that us to really do reconciliation on this nation, we have to validate the reality. These paperwork validate the reality.”
CIRNAC Minister Gary Anandasangaree introduced in early March that the federal government had reached a settlement settlement on the Indian hospital class-action case. It is unclear if this can result in the discharge of associated information.
The federal authorities destroyed 1000’s of pages of residential college information throughout the 1900s. Consequently, the true variety of what number of kids attended and died at residential colleges may never be known.
That is what makes these lately found Birtle information important. They comprise the phrases and experiences of three younger ladies who had been violated after which deserted by the system that was supposed to guard them, mentioned Betke.
“It was a 14-year-old lady retelling what occurred,” Betke mentioned. “You possibly can inform the ladies did not perceive what was taking place to them, what had occurred to them.”
How the case towards Currie fell aside
In her June 10, 1930, assertion to police, Maggie Whitecloud mentioned Currie took her into his workplace in April and closed the door. Maggie mentioned she “tried to cease him,” however “he was too sturdy.” She mentioned she cried and Currie informed her to not inform anybody, and gave her sweet. When Currie discovered she had informed somebody about what occurred, he stripped her bare within the boy’s lavatory and beat her with a strap.
“Then he gave me bread and water for supper and breakfast,” mentioned Maggie.
In her June 10 assertion, Helen Benn mentioned the second time Currie attacked her, it occurred within the laundry room round Christmastime when when she was 18. She mentioned Currie threw her to the ground. Benn mentioned she tried “to shout out, however Mr. Currie put his hand over my mouth.”
In her assertion, Lucy McKay mentioned Currie first began to fondle her when she was 16, and that it continued each month for the following two years. He would inform her to not fear, that she wasn’t going to have a child. She mentioned he gave her cream and powder for her face and informed her that he needed to take her again to British Columbia with him.
All three ladies informed police they met Currie the morning earlier than their interviews, and he informed them to say nothing.
After the June 18, 1930, preliminary listening to held on the city corridor in Birtle, Man., Currie was ordered to face trial in October.
The information present that Currie, with the assistance of Indian agent Lazenby and the interim principal at Birtle, started a strain marketing campaign by the ladies’ family members to get them to vary their tales. In a single case, Currie used cash and a sack of flour to persuade the sister of one of many victims to signal a word with the sufferer’s title rescinding her allegations.
Currie was charged with the rape of a former scholar named Annie Benn earlier than the beginning of his Nov. 11, 1930, trial in Minnedosa. The Crown lined up 17 witnesses to testify. However it all fell aside.
Rescinding the allegations
Maggie and Helen recanted their allegations at trial. The Crown then withdrew the rape cost involving Annie Benn. The jury acquitted Currie on the costs involving Lucy.
Maggie, Helen and Annie had been then charged with perjury and tried in January 1931. Throughout their trial, Maggie and Helen each mentioned they had been pressured into altering their tales throughout Currie’s trial. The Crown withdrew the perjury cost towards Annie. Not one of the ladies had been represented by a lawyer, as a result of officers deemed it wasn’t vital.
Justice of the Peace H.P. Reid concluded that “Mr. Currie had been acquitted on perjured proof,” however could not be tried once more, in accordance with a report on the listening to by Lazenby. Reid sentenced Maggie and Helen to serve two years on the Salvation House in Winnipeg.
The case created “quite a lot of dissatisfaction” within the Birtle district, wrote W.M. Graham, an Indian commissioner based mostly in Regina, Sask., in a letter to Duncan Campbell Scott, the deputy superintendent for the Division of Indian Affairs, shortly after the ladies had been sentenced.
Graham steered the division ought to attempt to have the ladies launched and despatched to a different residential college to calm native feelings.
“Anybody who is aware of Indians effectively may perceive how straightforward it might be to get them to perjure themselves,” wrote Graham.
Scott dismissed the suggestion.
“I’m inclined to allow them to end their sentence,” he wrote in a February 1931 response. “The age of those ladies and their latest expertise would make them moderately disturbing influences in considered one of our colleges.”
The Investigative Journalism Basis has simply revealed a database containing 1000’s of pages of details about residential colleges which have by no means earlier than been made public. See their web site to view the database and read about what the paperwork reveal.
Help is accessible for anybody affected by their expertise at residential colleges and people who are triggered by the newest stories. A nationwide Indian Residential College Disaster Line has been set as much as present assist for former college students and people affected. Individuals can entry emotional and disaster referral providers by calling the 24-hour nationwide disaster line: 1-866-925-4419.
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