She has served as an advisor to the British Columbia Treaty Commission. She holds a degree in history from the University of Victoria and a law degree from the University of British Columbia. Number One comes at a time of recognitionby governments and society at largethat only through knowing the truth about these past injustices can we begin to redress them.īev Sellars is chief of the Xatsu'll (Soda Creek) First Nation in Williams Lake, British Columbia. BC Book Prize, Non-Fiction, Bev Sellars, They Called Me Number One (Finalist)Burt Award for First Nations, Mtis, and Inuit Literature: Bev Sellars. They Called Me Number One: Secrets and Survival at an Indian Residential School by Bev Sellars Xat'sull Chief Bev Sellars spent her childhood in a church-run residential school. Like thousands of Aboriginal children in Canada, and elsewhere in.

Joseph's Mission, Sellars breaks her silence about the residential school's lasting effects on her and her familyfrom substance abuse to suicide attemptsand eloquently articulates her own path to healing. They Called Me Number One Secrets & Survival at an Indian Residential School Bev Sellers. In this frank and poignant memoir of her years at St.

Perhaps the most symbolically potent strategy used to alienate residential school children was addressing them by assigned numbers onlynot by the names with which they knew and understood themselves.

These institutions endeavored to 'civilize' Native children through Christian teachings forced separation from family, language, and culture and strict discipline. Like thousands of Aboriginal children in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere in the colonized world, Xatsu'll chief Bev Sellars spent part of her childhood as a student in a church-run residential school.

They called me number one