Mary Tequalot Bara Story

The Mary Tequalot Foundation was created to honour the memory of a mother whose children and grandchildren are reclaiming their identity through the amendment made to bill S-3. Mary was born on her traditional lands of the Sto:lo Nation in around 1890. Through historical oral stories and records it was said that she left her territory and moved to Ashcroft to avoid being registered for residential school. In her brief thirty two years of life she gave birth to eleven children. After her passing her children were separated with the older boys staying on to work the land, others adopted by family members, and some like my grandmother placed in residential schools where they lived out their childhood. The children lived in two worlds, having no status they were not considered “Indian” and nor were they considered “white” giving way to discrimination as they moved through life.
In 2022, Mary Tequalot Bara was posthumously registered as a status Indian based on the amendment of the Indian act thus opening the door for her children and their children to make claim to their Identity and First Nation services that were denied to them for generations. It is with this knowledge and experience that the Mary Tequalot Indigenous Foundation has come to exist as an organization that will help create change and empowerment through indigenous identity.