Sconvolta dalla notizia dei resti umani scoperti alla fine del maggio scorso nei pressi di una scuola residenziale canadese, l’infermiera professionale Roberta Hill ricorda sul Toronto Life i duri anni trascorsi alla fine degli anni cinquanta presso il Mohawk Institute di Brantford in Ontario.

Roberta Hill passò coi genitori e sei fratelli la sua prima infanzia nella riserva indiana delle Sei Nazioni (Six Nations of the Grand River) in cui coabitavano differenti Nazioni autoctone (Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca, Cayuga, Oneikmda, Tuscarora e inoltre membri della Nazione Delaware). Si tratta della più grande riserva canadese, che copre una superficie di 184 km² e ha una popolazione di 25.660 abitanti.

Growing up on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve in the early 1950s, I shared a two-room house with my parents and six brothers and sisters. My dad worked for Massey-Harris, a farm equipment manufacturer, while my mom took care of the kids. We didn’t have running water, so we used an outhouse. For fun, my six siblings and I explored the bush around our home, played in the swamp and listened to records on our parents’ phonograph. Every once in a while, we borrowed a car from a friend and drove into Brantford to get groceries and household supplies. It was just a small town then, but to us, it felt like a big city. We were happy.

Alla morte del padre, quando Roberta aveva solo quattro anni, la crisi psicologica della madre, che si ritrovò sola con sette figli da crescere, si concluse col suo ricovero in un ospedale psichiatrico.

Then, in 1954, when I was four, my father died of pneumonia. Without him, my mom unravelled. Suddenly, she was a single mother responsible for seven kids. She became depressed and paranoid, and two years after my dad’s death, she was committed to a psychiatric hospital, where she stayed for about 20 years. At six years old, I was effectively an orphan.

Per i bambini del Sei Nazioni rimasti senza genitori c’era un solo posto dove andare: il Mohawk Institute, una collegio di  Brantford gestito dalla Chiesa Anglicana.

Many of my relatives had spent time there. It had a reputation for strictness and austerity, but parents sent their children there because it promised food, a clean bed and a good education. Other families were forced to send their kids to the school, as dictated in the Indian Act, and children were often taken there without their parents even knowing.

Fu così che Roberta e i suoi fratelli vennero portati a Brantford, per frequentare quella che è diventata “la scuola dell’orrore” dopo le recenti, macabre, scoperte.

So, on a frigid day in February 1957, a relative scrubbed us down, dressed us in fresh clothes and packed us into a car. She drove us to Brantford, turning onto a long, tree-lined driveway leading up to an imposing brick building with a columned façade and a white cupola. There was a farm attached to the school, with cows, chickens and vegetable gardens. We’d only been in the car for 15 minutes, but I’d never felt farther from home.

Immagine da Wikimedia Commons