Statues of Britain's Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II and explorer Captain James Cook have been toppled and desecrated by a violent mob during protests across Canada on its national day over the discovery of mass graves of indigenous schoolchildren.
In scenes reminiscent of the BLM protests where a 'hit list' of 'racist' statues was drawn up for destruction after the murder of George Floyd, the bronze sculptures of Britain's current monarch and her great-great grandmother in Winnipeg were hauled down, daubed with red paint and even appeared to have been strangled with Mohawk flags.
With no police to be seen anywhere, protesters in orange led by members of the left-wing anti-colonial 'Idle No More' group, who are campaigning for Canada Day to be canceled, tied ropes to the necks of the statues and ripped them to the ground to chants of 'no to genocide' and 'bring her down' amid fury over the deaths of 1,000 indigenous children found buried in mass graves over the last month.
Between the 18th century and the 1970s, 150,000 indigenous Canadian children were forced to convert to Christianity and not allowed to speak their native languages after being sent to Catholic schools.
Many were beaten and verbally abused, and up to 6,000 are said to have died, but the policy of the Canadian Government appears to have little to do with the British Royal Family, who are ceremonial heads of state.
Yesterday's protests in Canada raise the prospect of them spreading to the US and similar investigations into mass graves there after claims of neglect, abuse and death.
In the United States, monuments to figures now deemed racist or problematic by activists have been removed from sites across the country.
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A gigantic statue of Queen Victoria has been torn down and daubed in red paint in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on Canada Day as a backlash over the country's colonial history ramps up
Canada became an independent state in 1867 but Queen Elizabeth II remain's Canada's constitutional monarch and is still seen as representative of colonialism but some Canadians. This is her statue before and after it was torn down
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was 'terribly saddened' by the new discovery at Marieval Indian Residential School, and told indigenous people that 'the hurt and the trauma that you feel is Canada´s responsibility to bear.. Justin Trudeau visits the makeshift memorial erected in honor of the 215 indigenous children remains found at a boarding school in British Columbia, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on June 1
In particular, statues of Confederate figures in the South have been toppled in the wake of the police killing Floyd, which sparked nationwide protests demanding an end to systemic racism.
Statues that paid tribute to the likes of Christopher Columbus, Robert E. Lee and George Washington were among those removed or defaced during anti-racism protests.
While there's no official number of statues taken down over the last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center previously revealed that 168 Confederate symbols were removed in 2020, including 94 monuments.
The United States is also grappling with historical treatment of Native Americans. Hundreds of Native American boarding schools were also established in the United States during the early 19th and mid 20th centuries to 'civilize' Native American children into Euro-American culture.
As many as 40,000 Native American children may have died from care at government-run boarding schools around the US, a researcher has claimed, prompting a federal investigation to address the trauma's 'intergenerational impact.'
US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a June 22 memo that her department will prepare a report that identifies federal boarding school facilities, map out the locations of known and possible student burial sites, and learn the identities and tribal affiliations of the children.
In her memo, Haaland - a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and first Native American Cabinet Secretary - said most indigenous parents could not visit their children at these schools, where some were abused, killed and buried in unmarked graves.
'Survivors of the traumas of boarding school policies carried their memories into adulthood as they became the aunts and uncles, parents, and grandparents to subsequent generations,' Haaland wrote in her memo.
'The loss of those who did not return left an enduring need in their families for answers that, in many cases, were never provided. Distance, time, and the scattering of school records have made it more difficult, if not impossible, for their families to locate a loved one’s final resting place and bring closure through the appropriate ceremonies.'
That's why she's directing the Department of the Interior to undertake this investigation and address the 'intergenerational impact' of Indian boarding schools 'to shed light on the traumas of the past.'
'While it may be difficult to learn of the traumas suffered in the boarding school era, understanding its impacts on communities today cannot occur without acknowledging that painful history,' she said.
US interior secretary Deb Haaland said in a June 22 memo that the US federal government will investigate US-run boarding schools for Native Americans following a Dartmouth scholar's grim discovery that 'it's quite likely 40,000 children died ' in these institutions
The investigation comes after Preston McBride, a Dartmouth College scholar, documented at least 1,000 deaths from 1879 to 1934 at just four of the over 500 schools.
Haaland, in an essay published on June 11 in the Washington Post, said the news from Canada made her 'sick to my stomach.'
'Many Americans may be alarmed to learn that the United States also has a history of taking Native children from their families in an effort to eradicate our culture and erase us as people,' wrote Haaland.
For over 150 years, hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children were uprooted from their communities and forced into US government-operated boarding schools that focused on assimilation.
Before shutting down in 1918, the Carlisle school housed some 10,000 indigenous children.
Many students were forced to cut their braids, dress in uniforms, speak English and adopt European names. Infectious diseases and harsh conditions claimed the lives of many children buried there.
The deaths were primarily from diseases made far more lethal in many of the schools because of poor treatment.
Extraordinary footage of Queen Victoria's Winnipeg statue being toppled in broad daylight showed hundreds of people cheering and squealing with joy as she fell, before many began dancing with joy on the fallen figure and its plinth while waving Canadian indigenous flags. The statue of the current Queen, yards away, was brought down soon afterwards.
1,500 miles west, a statue of Captain Cook - the first Briton to land in British Columbia - was also pulled down in the city of Victoria before being hurled in the harbor in scenes reminiscent of the destruction of the Edward Colston statue in Bristol last year.
Cook's statue was replaced by a red wooden dress - a color and symbol for indigenous people in Canada with the plinth vandalized with 'colonizer.'
A nearby statue of Queen Victoria is taped off after being covered in paint - but a mob failed to destroy it - and at least ten churches were also desecrated overnight.
Queen Elizabeth's statue was also torn down amid growing anger in Canada over the treatment of its indigenous communities over hundreds of years
The defaced statue after being toppled during a rally, following the discovery of the remains of hundreds of children at former indigenous residential schools, outside the provincial legislature on Canada Day in Winnipeg
Victoria's face appears to have been smothered with a flag with a rope used
