Wikwewekong yielded two further examples, one in the 1880s and the other following the dispute and relocation to Spanish in 1911-12. In the 1880s 'desertions were very frequent' among the boys, and parents reportedly 'resented corporal punishment, since it was an unknown thing for parents to chastise their children.' In 1881 'several boys were taken away from the school, on the plea that their dormitory was overrun with bed bugs and fleas, and the food given them was insufficient,' and, finally, in January 1885 a fire destroyed the girls' school. In the midst of this troubled era, 'one boy resisted punishment to the point of seizing the teacher by the throat, and abusing him severely.' At Spanish, while the new school was being built, 'a woman ... dared to enter a girls' school room, and slap in the face the teacher who had punished her daughter.'

      The brutal regime of Father Mackey at Shubenacadie, which had resulted in a federal inquiry and whitewash, led men of the Shubenacadie band to plan the priest's assassination. After much discussion, they gave up the scheme for fear that Mackey's death would mean worse treatment for their children.

      Another rarity that showed a similar pattern of escalation from protests and petitions to Native assertion was litigation that erupted in 1913 over mistreatment of children at the Mohawk Institute near Brantford, Ontario. At the behest of two parents, the Six Nations Council in the autumn of 1913 embarked on a campaign against mismanagement at the school. They decided to ask the New England Company, which still nominally operated the school, to investigate the principal, 'the Council being under the impression that the Indian Department has no control of this Industrial School.' The parents, with council backing, also retained a local lawyer to pursue the matter with Ottawa. (True to form, the principal retaliated by informing one of the complaining fathers that he was going to discharge his two children.) Unsurprisingly, deputy minister Duncan Scott minimised the allegations of hair-shearing, whipping, inadequate food, and refusal to allow parents to visit their children, and firmly discouraged his minister from giving in to a request for a thorough investigation. Unable to get anywhere with the bureaucracy, one parent, with the financial backing of the council, proceeded to haul the principal into court.