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The teachings of Jesus Christ flourished throughout the European society and the lands that they conquered (Religion: Christianity). They took their beliefs and forced it on the Indigenous people they exploited, believed that anyone that did not share the name views on God were savages.
The people that they assimilated were forced to let go of their rich beautiful culture and were Introduced to a religion that was carried out ruthlessly by the Europeans, a religion that was made to supported negative reflections towards women, a religion that was based on the ideology of natural order, and a political system that used the church to diminish a culture. The belief of Christianity created a racial outlook that provoked colonizers to assimilate the Indigenous people and has a continual impact on Aboriginal life today.
Christianity Is a religion that has been monopolized by men for centuries. In the days when Christianity was dominated by European society Is was clear that women had no place in the church. The European society considered women to be unequal’s, insignificant. When they set sail to explore the Indies this gender stereotype came with them, but now it was even worse. When it came to Native women of color they were treaded with less respect than animals. They believed that God had put these women on earth to be controlled by the European colonizers.
Often these women ere treated as sexual playthings, field laborers and beast of burden. They were targeted because in there culture women were held with the highest of respect. Men and women were equals, there was a balance between them both, and not one more dominate than another. They both had important responsibilities, for men it was to hunt and protect, and women was to gather, and give new life to the tribe. When the colonizers seen the balance between the two genders they knew that these people were savages, a people without a religion. In the eyes of God no women could be equal too man.
The settlers knew that because of the lack of profundity the First Nouns had, that God had made the colonizers the superior group and because of that they were allowed to unleash such brutality on theses people. The ideology that these Christian colonizers oppressed was the theology of natural order. They were consumed with the power of their religion and beliefs that they used it as a means to murder, victimized, and conquer the lands of others. They believed so highly in their God that the domination of their people was an act of natural order, an act that God gave them the power to accomplish.
They used this ideology to justify the brutality that they inflicted on the Indigenous people. Every women, child, and man they killed, community they wiped out they used God as an excuse for their actions. However, this philosophy was a way to escape the responsibilities of their actions. They introduced a way of life to these people that they never knew existed, a religion of war, violence, and politics (Lehmann, Jennifer M). Still being forced into assimilation. The government of Canada and the Catholic Church believed it was their responsible for educating and caring for the country’s
Aboriginal people. It was thought that their best chance for success was to learn English and adopt Christianity and Canadian customs. The government used their power and their conservative way of thinking to force First Nations into residential schools. The idea of residential schools was that the children would pass their adopted lifestyle on to their children, and their native traditions would diminish, or be completely abolished in a few generations. Thousands of Aboriginal children all across Canada were shipped off to government-funded industrial schools.
During the years of residential schools these children were raped, beaten, starved, and murdered. All of these acts of vindictiveness were actions of the Catholic Church. It was believed that native children could be successful if they assimilated into mainstream Canadian society by adopting Christianity and speaking English or French. But it was also another way for the government to eliminate the already small population of First Nations people. By eliminating the Aboriginal population the government would not have to up hold any of there promises they made with the Indigenous people.
The government used the church as a way to push assimilations and created an already negative outlook on the Christian religion (A History of Residential Schools in Canada). For thunders of years Aboriginal people were genocide by the people that called themselves Catholic followers. This history has created negative views about the church and what it stands for as a religion. The gender stereotypes, man domination, natural order, and the politics behind the residential schools have all resulted in the social and economic problems First Nations continue to deal with today.
The settlers used their beliefs to such a negative extent that they were able to dramatically impact every individual First Nation person throughout Canada. The first peoples of Canada continue to fight for their culture and all what they lost the moment the first Catholic settlers walked onto there land.