"Not a Shred of Evidence": Settler Colonial Networks of Concealment and the Birtle Indian Residential School.

This article investigates how settler colonial systems in Canada enabled the extensive and deliberate cover-up of sexual abuse by Henry B. Currie, principal of the Birtle Indian Residential School (IRS) from 1910 to 1932. Despite multiple testimonies and evidence of Currie’s abuse of Indigenous girls, institutions including the Department of Indian Affairs, the Presbyterian Church, Indian agents, police, courts, and local press collaborated to protect him through strategies such as bribery, transferring accused principals, document falsification, forced marriages, and suppressing runaways. The article highlights how these interconnected settler colonial networks prioritized preserving Currie’s reputation over Indigenous children’s safety and critiques the incomplete treatment of this case in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Final Report, partly due to archival omissions. It underscores the importance of archival access and continued research to fully uncover the systemic abuses and concealments within Canada’s IRS system.