Residential schools in Canada were based on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School model founded in 1879 by Lieutenant Richard Henry Pratt in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The aim of such a schooling system was the forced assimilation of aboriginal people into the colonial society. This was to be achieved by wiping out their past ethnic and cultural associations and replacing them with European ones. Driven by a kind of missionary zeal, Pratt believed it was important to remove all aspects of being aboriginal from the child and to immerse that child, as a kind of baptism, into white socialization. The duty to "civilize" lay on the shoulders of the white man. This was rationalized as a viable alternative to war and the slaughter of people. In spite of this rationalization, however, economic considerations were their actual driving force. Trade with the aboriginal peoples in the United States had begun to diminish, and was replaced with a...