many residential schools were started when the indian act was passed in 1876. in 1896, a change was made to the act so that all first nations children had to go to school. a lot of their communities were located far away from schools, so they had to go to residential schools and live there for the school year. these schools were usually very far away from their families in order to encourage them to assimilate. there were residential schools in every province and territory except for new brunswick and prince edward island.