Abstract:
The lives of Aboriginals have been dramatically changed since their contact with European settlers. Families were torn apart, lives succumbed to disease and abuse, culture and language were lost, and traditional health practices were changed through colonization. The bodies of Aboriginals were central players in the process of colonization and as a result, Aboriginal’s physical health was fundamentally altered. Authority, held by the colonizers, was the key factor in the process of colonizing Aboriginal Bodies. The colonizers authority controlled and dictated what health standards were and how Aboriginals were to meet these standards of health. Aboriginal bodies were seen as dirty so the colonizers took measures that they saw fit to make them clean. During the era of residential schools, authoritative measures used the schools to their advantage and created experimental laboratories to explore health. Residential school’s used and abused aboriginal bodies in the residential schools which kept aboriginals health at a disadvantage. This disadvantage carried forward generation after generation leaving Aboriginals with lifetime impact on their bodies today as a result of this colonization of bodies.