By the 1900s, the treaties of friendship the English had signed with the Mi’kmaq were nearly forgotten. The Canadian Government had a new plan. It would make the First Nations people just like everyone else.

Government Plans

There were three ways in which the Canadian Government tried to do this. The first way was in 1930, when it forced all First Nations children to go to residential schools. Children were taken from their families and sent far away to schools run by churches. The schools tried to make the children stop being Mi’kmaq. They were harshly punished if they were caught speaking the Mi’kmaw language. Some children were beaten and abused in these schools. Some of the children did not feel they belonged with their families anymore. They also knew they did not belong with non-Indians. They did not know where they belonged and suffered emotional problems because of this. More than 1,000 Mi’kmaw children in Nova Scotia went to the residential school in Shubenacadie. It finally closed in 1966. It had failed to make the Mi’kmaw people disappear.