Ideas from the CBC: Betrayal of Faith

At a glance, the story looks recent: an Indigenous child taken from his family and community, relocated far away where he's stripped of his culture and language, inculcated into an alien worldview, eventually fails to integrate yet unable to reintegrate back into his original community, develops an abusive relationship with alcohol and then dies tragically young. But this story happened 400 years ago: a young Innu boy was taken to France by Franciscans to learn Latin, French and theology while they were to learn his language and customs with the aim of converting his people and others. We know his name: Pastedechouan. And what we know of his story comes to us through records kept by the 17th century clerics who tried to make use of him, records scoured by University of Ottawa historian, Emma Anderson.