A National Crime
A National Crime
One hundred years ago, Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce exposed the horrifying death toll among children in residential schools.
No one wanted to listen to Dr. Peter Henderson Bryce. He documented the truth, reported the facts about residential schools, and faced opposition from the most powerful entities of his time — the Canadian government and the leading Christian churches: Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, and Presbyterian.
In 1922, Bryce, the former chief medical officer for the Department of the Interior and the Department of Indian Affairs, published and distributed The Story of a National Crime, being an Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada, a document so powerful that its words rang out to the hearts and minds of his intended audience — the Canadian public — and still ring out to the descendants of those whose story he wanted to share.