Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement
The Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) is an agreement between the Government of Canada and approximately 86,000 Native Canadians who at some point were enrolled as children in the Canadian Indian residential school system, a system which was in place between 1879 and 1996. The IRSSA recognized the damage inflicted by the residential schools and established a $2 billion compensation package for all former IRS students and, in particular, those who had been abused or otherwise harmed. The agreement, announced in 2006, was the largest class action settlement in Canadian history. As of December 2012 a total of $1.62 billion has been paid to 78,750 former students.
Rapid City Indian School
These schools were put in place by the government for two main reasons: to require the mastery of English and to "civilize" the Indians. There were roughly 100 Indian boarding schools that the US government operated, often forcing children away from their families for schooling. Twenty-five of these schools were off-reservation boarding schools in 1900, holding 7,430 students. Every day was filled with strict schedules and specific activities for girls and boys, home-making skills for the former and carpentry for the latter. Some students were forced against their will to go, others were in poverty and the boarding schools were a way out, and others wanted education and to meet other people from different tribes. Reports on these Indian boarding schools are largely negative, with most students found to be "malnourished, overworked, harshly punished and poorly educated." While the conditions at the schools weren't ideal, they were better than the certain poverty that most children faced at home in their reservations.