PROTESTERS toppled then defaced statues of Queens Victoria and Elizabeth II amid fury over the gruesome discovery of hundreds of Indigenous children's graves.
Demonstrators smeared Queen Victoria's sculpture in red paint and left a sign that read "we were children once. Bring them home".
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The toppled statue of Queen Elizabeth II 9
Protesters also tore down a statue of Queen Victoria 9
Statue of Queen Elizabeth II in the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative building Credit: Alamy 9
Demonstrators were cheered on by onlookers Credit: Reuters
Footage captured of the toppling shows protesters tying a rope around one statue, chanting "knock her down!".
A group of supporters rally around and yank the statue down, receiving cheers from onlookers.
The protesters, dressed in orange shirts to honour the lost children, headed for the legislature as part of the "Every Child Matters" rally.
CBS News reports a man who came to criticise the demonstrations has been arrested.
Police are yet to arrest protesters but have launched an investigation.
The toppling outside Canada's Manitoba Legislature on Thursday tops off weeks of protests by First Nation communities over their alleged treatment in state-sanctioned boarding schools during the 19th and 20th centuries.
It also coincided with the country's federal holiday, Canada Day, which celebrates the unification of all four British territories into one confederacy on July 1, 1867.
First Nation communities accuse Britain of incarcerating and then siphoning off swathes of indigenous lands in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Many tribes, in particular the Haudenosaunee people in modern day Montreal, were forced to surrender land in exchange for protection by British colonial forces.
In 1763, King George III issued a Royal Proclamation barring indigenous people for settling or trading in western Canada without Britain's permission.
By the 1800s, more communities were forced to surrender territory to make way for a new wave of European settlers and widespread dispossession continued throughout the century, forcing many indigenous people into squalid communes.
In the late 1800s, Canadian authorities pursued a policy of forced education of First Nations children, which saw more than 150,000 kids stripped from their families and housed in poor conditions and sexually and physically abused.
An estimated 6,000 children perished while attending the schools.
The backlash comes as 200 bodies were found in a mass grave at St Eugene's Mission school in Cranbrook, British Columbia, earlier this week.
Another 761 children's remains were uncovered in a mass grave at a former Indigenous boarding school in southern Saskatchewan.
The discovery - the largest to date - was made by the Cowessess First Nation on last Thursday, who are continuing their mission to expose the exploitation and "cultural genocide" of their ancestors.
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The statue of Queen Victoria with the Manitoba Legislative Building in the background Credit: Alamy 9
Queen Elizabeth II's defaced statue Credit: Reuters 9
Two women embrace at the Cartier Statue near Mont Royal in Montreal Credit: AFP 9
The monuments were torn down during Canada Day, a federal holiday celebrating the country's confederation Credit: Reuters 9
All statues were defaced Credit: Reuters
ROYAL RAGE
THE toppling outside Canada's Manitoba Legislature on Thursday tops off weeks of protests by First Nation communities over their alleged treatment in state-sanctioned boarding schools during the 19th and 20th centuries.
It also coincided with the country's federal holiday, Canada Day, which celebrates the unification of all four British territories into one confederacy on July 1, 1867.
First Nation communities accuse Britain of incarcerating and then siphoning off swathes of indigenous lands in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Many tribes, in particular the Haudenosaunee people in modern-day Montreal, were forced to surrender land in exchange for protection by British colonial forces.
In 1763, King George III issued a Royal Proclamation barring indigenous people for settling or trading in western Canada without Britain's permission.
By the 1800s, more communities were forced to surrender territory to make way for a new wave of European settlers and widespread dispossession continued throughout the century, forcing many indigenous people into squalid communes.
By the late 1800s, Canadian authorities pursued a policy of forced education of First Nations children, which saw more than 150,000 kids stripped from their families and housed in poor conditions, and sexually and physically abused.
An estimated 6,000 children perished while attending the schools.
Saskatchewan survivor Belinda Vanderbroeck raged at the queen for giving away indigenous people's land.
"This queen is the one that gave our land away just like that to her merry gentleman — her fur traders," she told CBS news.
"So I really have no place for her in my heart. I never did.
"She means nothing to me except that her policies and her colonialism is what is dictating us right to this minute as you and I speak," she said.
Jack Kruger, one of many students transported by train and cattle truck to St Eugene's, said he still suffers from nightmares.
"As they uncover more graves at other sites, I’ll have to relive it all over again.
"I don’t anticipate that I’ll stop having nightmares or pain for the next two years. The next two years, you’re going to find many, many, many, many more graves."
Demonstrators have also rallied around gravesites while Catholic churches, which ran the schools, around the country have faced arson attacks.
Residential schools were established during Queen Victoria's reign and remained open until the 1990s.
Students were prohibited from speaking in their native tongue and it was common for them to never be reunited with their families.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged the country's blood-strained history during the federal holiday.
"The horrific findings of the remains of hundreds of children at the sites of former residential schools in British Columbia and Saskatchewan have rightly pressed us to reflect on our country’s historic failures, and the injustices that still exist for Indigenous peoples and many others in Canada," he said in a statement.
"We as Canadians must be honest with ourselves about our past," he said.