Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery (RM of Cornwallis)

In this small cemetery in the Rural Municipality of Cornwallis are the graves of people who were students at the Brandon Indian Residential School. A commemorative monument contains the names of 11 people known to be buried here but it is believed there are other unmarked graves inside and outside a chain link fence at the site.

Another cemetery, near the Assiniboine River, contains earlier burials from the school.

Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery (September 2014) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Commemorative monument in the cemetery (September 2014) Source: Gordon Goldsborough Site Location (lat/long): N49.87356, W99.99074 denoted by symbol on the map above

Names on the Monument

Name	Age	Community	Death Date
Roderic Beardy	?	Cross Lake	16 April 1949
George Byrd	?	?	Before 1929
John Kirkness	?	?	10 June 1957
Cornelius Linklater	10	?	10 December 1928
Ewart Monias	28	Nelson House	18 August 1942
Rebecca Spence	17	?	14 June 1931
Angus Sunkawasky [Sunkawasti]	9	?	9 January 1932
Mary Sutherland	15	Morson, Ontario	30 November 1932
Henry Swanson	15	?	2 August 1940
Lydia Wesley	7	?	21 April 1931
Sam Young Skunk	15	Lac Seul, Ontario	26 September 1932

See also:

A Cup of Cold Water: Alfred Kirkness and the Brandon Residential School Cemeteries by Anne Lindsay, Clare Cook, and David Cuthbert
Manitoba History, Number 78, Summer 2015

Investigation of unmarked graves and burial grounds at the Brandon Indian Residential School by Katherine Lyndsay Nichols, MA thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba, 2015.

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Indian Residential School (RM of Cornwallis)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Indian Residential School Cemetery (RM of Cornwallis)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Brandon Old Indian Residential School Cemetery (Brandon)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Birtle Indian Residential School (Birtle, Municipality of Prairie View)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Elkhorn Indian Residential School (Elkhorn, RM of Wallace-Woodworth)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: MacKay Indian Residential School (Opaskwayak Cree Nation)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Portage la Prairie Indian Residential School (Crescent Road West, Portage la Prairie)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Pine Creek Indian Residential School / Camperville Indian Residential School (Pine Creek First Nation)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Norway House Indian Residential School (Norway School)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Julia Clark School (611 Academy Road, Winnipeg)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Residential School Totem Pole (Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg)

Historic Sites of Manitoba: Rupert’s Land Indian Industrial School / St. Paul’s Industrial School (Middlechurch, RM of West St. Paul)

Sources:

Death registrations, Manitoba Vital Statistics.

“Social activities and recent events in school circles,” Brandon Sun, 4 October 1932, page 5.

“Social activities and recent events in school circles,” Brandon Sun, 6 December 1932, page 7.

We thank Jack Dodds, Tom Mitchell, Katherine Nichols, and Anne Lindsay for providing information used here.

This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.

Page revised: 11 June 2021

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