Content warning: This story contains information and graphic descriptions of extreme violence against children under the age of 16.
THE BATTLEFORDS — George Green would have been 143 today.
Though he was born in London, England 20 years before the turn of the 20th century, Green’s body would be found 15 years later in a barn in rural Ontario 128 years ago. His frame emaciated, limbs gangrenous, body bearing wounds affiliated from violent assaults with a pitchfork from the woman who was supposed to care for him.
At 9 p.m. he would die because of neglect, beatings and starvation.
Green was just one of hundreds of thousands of children under the age of 12 who were taken from the streets of the United Kingdom and sent to Canada to serve as domestic servants or farm labourers at the end of the 1800s and the start of the 1900s — 70 years altogether, beginning 154 years ago this November.
Some children like Green would die by suicide — hanging, gunshots, poison, drowning, others were found chained in basements, others wearing clothing to bed to avoid rape despite being unable to get pregnant due to their age. Others were beaten by their foster parents every Sunday after church, another reported sleeping outside with dogs and eating what the animals had left him in the trough after gruelling labour in the fields.
A young girl received her first Christmas stocking in Canada, discovering dried chicken feet and potato peels because she, ‘didn’t deserve anything better,’ according to her host family.
Susan Brazeau is a descendent of one of the ‘British Home Children,’ one of the 100,000 or more children who were often abused in one of Canada’s most unknown yet torrid legacies of forgotten child abuse.
“For the most part, this is not a pretty history, or a happy one, for it is full of hardship, hard labour, abuse of every kind, feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, loneliness in shame,” said Brazeau at a presentation in the North Battleford Public Library, just one of the twelve she’s done across Canada in 2023 at the time as she fights to educate Canadians on a dark chapter in our shared history.
“Now for some, it’s a difficult story to hear, but it's one that must be told. And thousands of descendants like myself are committed to making it more well known,” she said.
A Legacy of Abuse: Remembering Canada’s Forgotten Children
Jump started in 1969 by Annie MacPherson, the process was proposed as the answer to street urchins and poor children living in the streets of Britain. It also served to provide labour in Canada and to add more British people to the growing control of the Canadian provinces.
“The child had no say in where they were going to go, or who they would work for … even shipping lines received a bonus for each child. And they sometimes brought upwards of 300 children per passage," Brazeau said, recounting their passage, hopefully out of the poverty and prejudice of Europe.
Over the following 69 years, more than 100,000 were sent over to Canada, shepherded by 50 different religious and philanthropic organizations with the full support of the Governments of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Canada.
“Historically child labour and child migration were long-accepted practices in Europe," she noted, adding that sending children to work on farms in American Colonies and Dutch farms in 麻豆传媒AV Africa was not looked at through today's moral lens.
“But what was different with this migration plan was the concentrated mass movement of thousands of children each year — away from their family if they had them, and away from their friends, culture, homeland, and whatever possible future they might have had," she said.
“However, instead of being encouraged and positive the plan [to move children out of poverty] was filed with vitriol, disgust and a sense of urgency … they wanted destitute children removed … calling them waifs, strays, guttersnipes, and thieves.”
Dream of a better life in Canada dashed
Children dreaming of a better future in Canada were often coerced — boys told they could be cowboys or RCMP members, girls dreaming of clean clothing and families, helping out with children — and parents would often agree to send the children away in hopes of a better future.
They would never hear from or see their children again.
“Many children who had been asked if they wanted to go to Canada were eager and excited ... but some said they didn’t want to go. But in reality, no child had a choice,” she said, adding that they were often moved without regard for the separation of siblings.
And while originally the plan was to move children into the country and use them for their labour while providing a fresh start for children, Brazeau said that public opinion soured.
“Enthusiasm turned to suspicion, anger, and distrust.”
The British stigma of being dirty or dangerous followed them into Canada, with the later head of the Psychology Department at the University of Toronto saying, "In Canada, we are deliberately adding to our population … bearing the stigma of physical and mental degeneracy. All you have to do is take one look at them.”
Frederick Nicholls, a former Canadian MP is quoted as having said, "These waifs and strays are tainted and corrupt with moral slime and filth inherited from parents and surroundings of the most foul and disgusting character ... there is no power whatever that can cleanse the lepers so as to fit them to become desirable citizens of Canada."
Overcoming the Travesty; Canada's Sordid History
Brazeau’s own grandmother, Grace Ruth Sillett, told her family that she came to Canada as a little girl to be a companion to a little rich girl.
Although these children were expected to become nobodies, amounting to nothing, home children like Sillet would go on to raise children and hold jobs — proving their true characters despite struggling with trauma.
Charlie Young became a member of the RCMP with a highlight of his life including protecting then Princess of Wales Elizabeth II and Prince Philip on one of their visits to Canada.
James Rennicks became a Judge in Ontario. Nick Hodson became a renowned international artist. Ken Donovan’s daughter sewed the first Canadian Flag and delivered it to Prime Minster Lester B. Pearson. Claude Nunney and Walter Rayfield were awarded the Victora Cross for their service in the First World War.
Journalists. Artists. Judges. Mothers. Fathers. Despite having to overcome the travesty, Brazeau says that children did survive and became a part of the fabric of Canada.
When asked about the effects on her family structure, Brazeau wrote via email, "This is definitely an important issue for some families, including my grandmother and her 3 children: my father and his two siblings. What stands out most of all is the lack of self-confidence and self-worth in all four of them, even though they all did well; and, that it seems they covered that up by being unkindly sarcastic."
"Something interesting about my father” she wrote, “was his love of learning through personal experience, reading, or teaching us, his children. His greatest interests were Canadian and Second World War history. His mind was like a book of knowledge with all the details. He was also a storyteller and had a great sense of humour when he wasn’t adding sarcasm to it."
Remembering Canada's British Home Children
But there are still graves across Saskatchewan and the country marked with the symbol of the British Home Children — sunflowers — many hoping that recognition and late but necessary acts of remembrance can happen still for the graves of children and former British Home Children between Saskatoon, Prince Albert, North Battleford, Estevan, Assiniboia and elsewhere across the province.
Even now, one person works to memorialize over 7000 gravesat www.britishhomechildren.com.
On the anniversary of his death and on his birthday on Feb. 8, people planned to lay flowers on George Green's grave and remember him and the thousands who died and who lie in graves sprinkled across the country.
