Category Archives: Aboriginals

Reconciliation & the Shipwreck of the Auguste

27 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by in Aboriginals, Amerindians, Chants de France, Nouvelle-France

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Siège de Louisbourg en 1758. Guerre de Sept Ans. Vaisseau le Prudent en feu et vaisseau le Bienfaisant capturé. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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The Plains of Abraham

  • the defeated
  • Jules’s anger
  • Reconciliation

The French and Indian War (1754-1763) started with the assassination of Louis de Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville, on 28 May 1754. The incident grew into the Seven Years’ War and also sparked the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). It has also been suggested that this event developped into the French Revolution. Aubert de Gaspé repeats that the defeated are forever defeated and situates the battles in the realm of the “relative.”

The juxtaposition of one murder and a world war makes one feel a little dizzy. The disproportion is enormous, but incidents have led to years, if not centuries, of conflicts.

Un grand capitaine qui a égalé de nos jours Alexandre et César, n’a-t-il pas dit : « Quel est celui qui n’a jamais commis de faute à la guerre? » Vae victis !
Les Anciens Canadiens (XIV: p. 314)

[A great general, who has equaled in our own day the exploits of Alexander and of Cæsar, has said: “Who is he that has never made a mistake in battle?” Vae victis!]
Cameron of Lochiel (XIII: 188-199)

Si le marquis de Montcalm eût remporté la victoire sur l’armée anglaise, on l’aurait élevé jusqu’aux nues, au lieu de lui reprocher de n’avoir pas attendu les renforts qu’il devait recevoir de monsieur de Vaudreuil et du colonel de Bougainville ; on aurait admiré sa tactique d’avoir attaqué brusquement l’ennemi avant qu’il eût le temps de se reconnaître, et d’avoir profité des accidents de terrains pour se retrancher dans des positions inexpugnables ; on aurait dit que cent hommes à l’abri de retranchements en valent mille à découvert ; on n’aurait point attribué au général Montcalm des motifs de basse jalousie, indignes d’une grande âme : les lauriers brillants qu’il avait tant de fois cueillis sur de glorieux champs de bataille, l’auraient mis à couvert de tels soupçons.
Les Anciens Canadiens (XIV: p. 315)

[Had Montcalm been victorious he would have been lauded to the skies, instead of being heaped with reproaches for not awaiting the re-enforcements which would have come from De Vaudreuil and De Bougainville. We would have praised his tactics in hurling himself upon the enemy before the latter had had time to establish himself. We would have said that a hundred men behind cover were equal to a thousand in the open. We would never have imputed to General Montcalm any jealous and unworthy motives. His shining laurels, gained on so many glorious fields, would have shielded him from any such suspicions.]
Cameron of Lochiel (XIII: 199-200)

Chapter XIV is a long chapter. Aubert de Gaspé repeats that the defeated are forever defeated and blames Louis XV, but discreetly.

However, in the same chapter, he brings Arché and Jules together. Jules is wounded and angry. Arché succeeds in finding him in an hospital. Jules and Arché fought under enemy flags, but both young men have did their duty as soldiers. Orders came from serious commanders. Arché is a precious Highlander, an élite regiment. When he realizes that the French are winning at the Battle of Sainte-Foy, fought on 28 April 1760, under the Chevalier de Lévis and James Murray, he takes his men to safety. He has lived in Quebec City and traveled to Jules’s father’s seigneurie. So he knows the terrain.

Jules’s first reaction echoes Marie’s, a “sorceress.” Jules refers to the future.

« Garde ta pitié pour toi-même : tu en auras besoin, lorsque tu porteras dans tes bras le corps sanglant de celui que tu appelles maintenant ton frère ! Je n’éprouve qu’une grande douleur, ô Archibald de Locheill ! c’est celle de ne pouvoir te maudire ! Malheur ! malheur ! malheur ! »
Les Anciens Canadiens (XIV: p. 323)

[“Keep your pity for yourself, Archibald de Lochiel. You will have need of it all on that day204 when you shall carry in your arms the bleeding body of him you now call your brother!”]
Cameron of Locheil (XIII: 203-205)

And later:

– Défendez-vous, monsieur de Locheill, vous aimez les triomphes faciles. Défendez-vous ! Ah ! traître ! À cette nouvelle injure, Arché, se croisant les bras, se contenta de répondre de sa voix la plus affectueuse :
– Toi aussi, mon frère Jules, toi aussi tu m’as condamné sans m’entendre !
Les Anciens Canadiens (XIV: pp. 324)

[“Defend yourself, M. de Lochiel; you, who love easy triumphs, defend yourself, traitor!” At this new insult, Archie folded his arms and answered, in a tone of tender reproach: “Thou, too, my brother Jules, even thou, too, hast thou condemned me unheard?”]
Cameron of Lochiel (XIII: 204-205)

However, as Arché leaves Jules, Jules presses his hand. Arché will then ask to speak to the superior of the hospital. She is Jules’s aunt. At first, she cannot find as suitable a composure as she wishes, but she listens to Arché carefully, weighing every word and will allow him to see Jules.

We are in 1760, three years before the Treaty of Paris 1763. Everything depends on what Jules calls un coup de dé (p. 338), a throw of the dice. But Arché says that, whatever the outcome of the war, he plans to return to Canada and live near his friends.

– Dans l’un ou l’autre cas, dit de Locheill, je ne puis, avec honneur, me retirer de l’armée tant que la guerre durera ; mais advenant la paix, je me propose de vendre les débris de mon patrimoine d’Écosse, d’acheter des terres en Amérique et de m’y fixer. Mes plus chères affections sont ici ; j’aime le Canada, j’aime les mœurs douces et honnêtes de vos bons habitants ; et, après une vie paisible, mais laborieuse, je reposerai du moins ma tête sur le même sol que toi, mon frère Jules.
[“In either case,” said Lochiel, “as long as the war lasts I can not honorably resign my commission. But when peace comes, I propose to sell the poor remnant of my Highland estate and come and establish myself on this side of the water. My deepest affections are here. I love Canada, I love the simple and upright manners of your good habitants; and after a quiet but busy life, I would rest my head beneath the same sod with you, my brother.”]
Cameron of Lochiel (XIII: 212-213)

That is also Jules’s wish, but he has military obligations. Once he has fulfilled his obligations, he will return to Canada.

The Battle of Sainte-Foy by George B. Campion, watercolour. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Shipwreck of The Auguste

Many upper-class families traveling back to France abord the Auguste died at sea. Chapter XV/XIII is entitled: Le Naufrage de l’Auguste, The Shipwreck of the Auguste. Among victims were Charles-René Dejordy de Villebon, Louis-Joseph Gaultier de La Vérendrye, and Louis de la Corne, Chevalier de la Corne.

L’Auguste (1758 ship) was a full-rigged sailing ship that sank at Aspy Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1761 while carrying exiles from the fall of New France.

(See Auguste, Wikipedia)

In Aubert de Gaspé’s novel, Monsieur de Saint-Luc survives to tell about the unfortunate event. Those who escaped death were helped by Amerindians:

Nous nous traînâmes ainsi, ou plutôt je les traînai pour ainsi dire à la remorque (car le courage, ni même les forces ne me faillirent jamais), jusqu’au 4 de décembre, que nous rencontrâmes deux sauvages. Peindre la joie, l’extase de mes compagnons, qui attendaient à chaque instant la mort pour mettre fin à leurs souffrances atroces, serait au-dessus de toute description. Ces aborigènes ne me reconnurent pas d’abord en me voyant avec ma longue barbe, et changé
comme j’étais après tant de souffrances. J’avais rendu précédemment de grands services à leur nation ; et vous savez que ces enfants de la nature ne manquent jamais à la reconnaissance. Ils m’accueillirent avec les démonstrations de la joie la plus vive : nous étions tous sauvés. J’appris alors que nous étions sur l’île du Cap Breton, a trente lieues de Louisbourg.
Les Anciens Canadiens (XV: p, 355)

[“Thus we dragged ourselves on, or rather I dragged them in tow, for neither courage nor strength once failed me till at length, on the 4th of December, we met two Indians. Imagine if you can the delirious joy of my companions, who for the last few days had been looking forward to death itself as a welcome release from their sufferings! These Indians did not recognize me at first, so much was I changed by what I had gone through, and by the long beard which had covered my face. Once I did their tribe a great service; and you know that these natives never forget a benefit. They welcomed me with delight. We were saved. Then I learned that we were on the island of Cape Breton, about thirty leagues from Louisbourg.”Thus we dragged ourselves on, or rather I dragged them in tow, for neither courage nor strength once failed me till at length, on the 4th of December, we met two Indians. Imagine if you can the delirious joy of my companions, who for the last few days had been looking forward to death itself as a welcome release from their sufferings! These Indians did not recognize me at first, so much was I changed by what I had gone through, and by the long beard which had covered my face. Once I did their tribe a great service; and you know that these natives never forget a benefit. They welcomed me with delight. We were saved. Then I learned that we were on the island of Cape Breton, about thirty leagues from Louisbourg.]
Cameron of Lochiel (XIV: 221-222)

A little later, Monsieur de Saint-Luc tells le capitaine d’Haberville, that his family owes a postponement in their returning to France to Cameron de Lochiel, which sounds fictional. James Murray, however, was very good to the people of a defeated New France to the point considering settling in Quebec. (See James Murray, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography). There are descendants of seigneurs in Quebec and Canada. Louis-Joseph Papineau was a seigneur.

Conclusion

If one juxtaposes the Battle of Jumonville Glen and the fall of the New France, the gap is dizzying. But “brothers” who fought on opposite sides, are brought together. All bodes well for the future. Aubert de Gaspé has brought to his a redeeming symmetry. Nouvelle-France falls but it consigned to memory of its people, and it is reborn.

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources

Wikipedia, The Canadian Encyclopedia, & Britannica
Les Anciens Canadiens (ebooksgratuits.com). FR
Cameron of Lochiel (Archive.org ), Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN
Cameron of Lochiel is Gutenberg [EBook#53154], Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN

The video I am using is about the Battle of Quebec, but this battle is not the Battle fought at the end of December 1755, at an early battle during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)

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Love to everyone 💕

Danaé (Danaë) et la pluie d’or, par Orazio Gentileschi (1563–1639) Cleveland Museum of Art (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
27 July 2021
WordPress

Les Anciens Canadiens & the Noble Savage

15 Thursday Jul 2021

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canada, Colonialism, Enlightenment, Justice, Quebec history

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Aubert de Gaspé’s old manoir at Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, where he wrote Les Anciens Canadiens at the age of 76.

In Chapter X/IX of Les Anciens Canadiens, monsieur d’Egmont speaks about an Iroquois who does not like a building located in New York. In the large building an Iroquois examines, “sauvages” who have not paid the white man are incarcerated and cannot therefore catch beaver pelts to repay their debt. Their hands are tied. However, I have not quoted the Good Gentleman’ full statement. The bon gentilhomme believes that civilization thwarts the human mind, in which the novel uses the myth of the Noble Savage :[1]

Une chose m’a toujours frappé : c’est que la civilisation fausse le jugement des hommes, et qu’en fait de sens commun, de gros bon sens, que l’on doit s’attendre à rencontrer dans la cervelle de tout être civilisé (j’en excepte pourtant les animaux domestiques qui reçoivent leur éducation dans nos familles), le sauvage lui est bien supérieur. En voici un exemple assez amusant. Un Iroquois contemplait, il y a quelques années, à New-York, un vaste édifice d’assez sinistre apparence ; ses hauts murs, ses fenêtres grillées l’intriguaient beaucoup : c’était une prison. Arrive un magistrat.
– Le visage pâle veut-il dire à son frère, fit l’Indien, à quoi sert ce grand wigwam?
– C’est là qu’on renferme les peaux-rouges qui refusent de livrer les peaux de castor qu’ils doivent aux marchands.

Les Anciens Canadiens (X: p. 232)

[“It has always struck me that civilization warps men’s judgment, and makes them inferior to primitive races in mere common sense and simple equity. Let me give you an amusing instance. Some years ago, in New York, an Iroquois was gazing intently at a great, forbidding structure. Its lofty walls and iron-bound windows interested him profoundly. It was a prison. A magistrate came up.
“‘Will the pale face tell his brother what this great wigwam is for?’ asked the Indian. The citizen swelled out his chest and answered with an air of importance: “
“‘It is there we shut up the red-skins who refuse to pay the furs which they owe our merchants.'”]

Cameron of Lochiel (IX: 147-149)

One can understand that Aubert de Gaspé (1786-1871) would look upon Amerindians with kindness. Le bon gentilhomme is a fictionalized Aubert de Gaspé. Aubert de Gaspé was too generous and did not realize at which point he started loaning money he did not have. Had monsieur d’Egmont not given his entire property, within ten years, one of the houses he owned would have repaid his debt in full. Authorities waited before incarcerating Aubert de Gaspé, but he was imprisoned and unable to help his two sick children. He was careless and wanted to repay authorities. However, in 1841, after nearly four years of detention, he was heard by authorities and released.

Aubert de Gaspé was not a seigneur during the years he spent in a prison. His mother was the seigneuresse de Saint-Jean-Port-Joli. Quebec had its nobility and many feared being sent back to France. Several died when l’Auguste, a ship, sank as a storm raged. However, Aubert de Gaspé would be a seigneur after his mother’s death. He would be the last seigneur of Saint-Jean-Port-Joli. The Seigneurial System was abolished in 1854, before Aubert de Gaspé published his book (1863).

Interestingly, Aubert de Gaspé fictionalized himself as le bon gentilhomme, the Good Gentleman, the man who was too severely punished, and, as Jules, an image of innocence. It is as though le bon gentilhomme, monsieur d’Egmont, had seen Jules loan money he did not have to a person who had kicked him. To help Dubuc, Jules borrows money from Madeleine who has a debt of gratitude, but gratitude is rare.

The novel is historical and autobiographical. But it is also a cautionary tale. Le bon gentilhomme wants to tell his story to Jules, so Jules’s generosity does not lead him astray (II: pp.22… ) (I: 22-26). (Aubert de Gaspé experienced rulings that did not take into account his good character and extenuating circumstances. In 1841, Aubert de Gaspé was freed after nearly four years of detention. His conviction was not legally unjust, but it was “unfair” and disloyal. Therefore, Aubert de Gaspé uses the myth of the Noble Savage, a soul untainted by civilization. Moreover, the bon sauvage is at hand. Nouvelle-France was home to Amerindians.

Incarcerating a good man, monsieur d’Egmont, le bon gentilhomme, is discordant. Discordant is a term I have borrowed from Maurice Lemire, the editor of my copy of Les Anciens Canadiens. In Les Anciens Canadiens, the uncivilized are Europeans, not the natives of New France. One remembers the Jesuit Relations and Lahontan‘s Noble savage. Les Anciens Canadiens attacks civilized men. Montgomery who orders Arché to burn his friends’ manoir is inferior to the “Noble Savage.” Aubert de Gaspé’s fate, imprisonment, may be legal, but it is disloyal, and given his fault, detention is discordant. We can therefore situate Aubert de Gaspé’s novel among literary works pertaining to the myth of the Noble Savage. It is close to the Enlightenment, Jean-Jacques Rousseau viewed man in the state of nature as good, at times because of a Social Contract, but Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan pictured man in the state of nature as a horrible zoomorphic serpent.

It should be noted, moreover that the wars Nouvelle France fought with or on behalf of Amerindians were exhausting. Our visitor to New York is an Iroquois, an Amerindian confederacy allied to the British. The French were allied mostly to the Hurons-Wendats. In chapter VII/VI, le capitaine d’Haberville is described as battled wearied:

Le seigneur d’Haberville avait à peine quarante-cinq ans, mais il accusait dix bonnes années de plus, tant les fatigues de la guerre avaient usé sa constitution d’ailleurs si forte et si robuste : ses devoirs de capitaine d’un détachement de la marine l’appelaient presque constamment sous les armes. Ces guerres continuelles dans les forêts, sans autre abri, suivant l’expression énergique des anciens Canadiens, que la rondeur du ciel, ou la calotte des cieux ; ces expéditions de découvertes, de surprises, contre les Anglais et les sauvages, pendant les saisons les plus rigoureuses, altéraient bien vite les plus forts tempéraments.

Les Anciens Canadiens (VII: pp. 155-156)

[The Seigneur D’Haberville was scarcely forty-five years old, but the toils of war had so told on his constitution that he looked a good ten years older. His duties as captain in the Colonial Marine kept him constantly under arms. The ceaseless forest warfare, with no shelter,104 according to the stern Canadian custom, except the vault of heaven, the expeditions of reconnoissance or surprise against the Iroquois or against the English settlements, carried on during the severest weather, produced their speedy effect on the strongest frames.]

Cameron of Lochiel (VI: 103-105)

We meet our first Amerindian, a Huron, at Trois-Saumons River. When he arrives at monsieur d’Egmont’s cottage, he is ill. Monsieur d’Egmont and André Francœur look after him for several weeks. Four years later, when he has nearly been forgotten, he visits Monsieur d’Egmont carrying a fortune in pelts, moccassins, and other valuable products the French cherished.

Ce n’était pas le même homme que j’avais vu dans un si piteux état : il était vêtu splendidement, et tout annonçait chez lui le grand guerrier et le grand chasseur, qualités inséparables chez les naturels de l’Amérique du Nord. Lui et son compagnon déposèrent, dans un coin de ma chambre, deux paquets de marchandises de grande valeur : car ils contenaient les pelleteries les plus riches, les plus brillants mocassins brodés en porc-épic, les ouvrages les plus précieux en écorce, et d’autres objets dont les sauvages font commerce avec nous. Je le félicitai alors sur la tournure heureuse qu’avaient prise ses affaires.

Les Anciens Canadiens (X: pp. 224-225)

[“I had entirely forgotten my Indian, when about four years later he arrived at my door, accompanied by another savage. I could scarcely recognize him. He was spendidly clad, and everything about him bespoke the great hunter and the mighty warrior. In one corner of my room he and his companion laid down two bundles of merchandise of great value—the richest furs, moccasins splendidly embroidered with porcupine quills, and exquisite pieces of work in birch bark, such as the Indians alone know how to make. I congratulated him upon the happy turn his affairs had taken.]

Cameron of Lochiel (IX: 143-145)

– Écoute, mon frère, me dit-il, et fais attention à mes paroles. Je te dois beaucoup, et je suis venu payer mes dettes. Tu m’as sauvé la vie, car tu connais bonne médecine. Tu as fait plus, car tu connais aussi les paroles qui entrent dans le cœur: d’un chien d’ivrogne que j’étais, je suis redevenu l’homme que le Grand Esprit a créé. Tu étais riche, quand tu vivais de l’autre côté du grand lac. Ce wigwam est trop étroit pour toi : construis-en un qui puisse contenir ton grand cœur. Toutes ces marchandises t’appartiennent.

Les Anciens Canadiens (X: p. 225)

[“‘Listen to me, my brother,’ said he. ‘I owe you much, and I am come to pay my debt. You saved my life, for you know good medicine. You have done more, for you know the words which reach the heart; dog of a drunkard as I was, I am become once more a man as I was created by the Great Spirit. You were rich when you lived beyond the great water. This wigwam is too small for you; build one large enough to hold your great heart. All these goods belong to you,’] 

Cameron of Lochiel (IX: 144-145)

Cameron of Lochiel (Gutenberg)

Le bon gentilhomme is moved to tears. Gratitude is a quality lacking in the individuals to whom he loaned money. Our Noble Savage, returns to the Trois-Saumons River carrying precious gifts: pelts, moccasins, and other goods. Monsieur d’Egmont could build a much better wigwam by selling the pelts and other riches the Noble Savage has brought. But he chooses otherwise. A priest will distribute among the needy the riches the grateful Amerindian has brought to thank the God Gentleman.

The War

Ironically, le bon gentilhomme’s cottage will be home to the d’Habervilles after their manoir is destroyed by fire and Quebec City house, destroyed. Arché’s superior, Montgomery, orders Arché to set fire to every house.

– Mais, dit le jeune officier, qui était Écossais, faut-il incendier aussi les demeures de ceux qui n’opposent aucune résistance ? On dit qu’il ne reste que des femmes, des vieillards et des enfants dans ces habitations.

[“But,” said the young officer, who was a Scotchman, “must I burn the dwellings of those who offer no resistance? They say there is no one left in these houses except old men, women, and children.”]

– Il me semble, monsieur, reprit le major 265 Montgomery, que mes ordres sont bien clairs et précis ; vous mettrez le feu à toutes les habitations de ces chiens de Français que vous rencontrerez sur votre passage. Mais j’oubliais votre prédilection pour nos ennemis !

Les Anciens Canadiens (XII: pp. 265-266)

[“I think, sir,” replied Major Montgomery, “that my orders are quite clear. You will set fire to every house belonging to these dogs of Frenchmen. I had forgotten your weakness for our enemies.”
“Every house you come across belonging to these dogs of Frenchmen, set fire to it. I will follow you a little later.”]

Cameron of Lochiel (XI: 169-170)

The Noble Savage has returned:

– Voilà donc, s’écria-t-il [Arché] avec amertume, les fruits de ce que nous appelons code d’honneur chez les nations civilisées ! Sont-ce là aussi les fruits des préceptes qu’enseigne l’Évangile à tous ceux qui professent la religion chrétienne, cette religion toute d’amour et de pitié, même pour des ennemis. Si j’eusse fait partie d’une expédition commandée par un chef de ces aborigènes que nous traitons de barbares sur cet hémisphère, et que je lui eusse dit : « Épargne cette maison, car elle appartient à mes amis ; j’étais errant et fugitif, et ils m’ont accueilli dans leur famille, où j’ai trouvé un père et des frères », le chef indien m’aurait répondu : « C’est bien, épargne tes amis ; il n’y a que le serpent qui mord ceux qui l’ont réchauffé près de leur feu. »

Les Anciens Canadiens (XII: pp. 276-277)

[“Behold,” said he, “the fruits of what we call the code of honor of civilized nations! Are these the fruits of Christianity, that religion of compassion which teaches us to love even our enemies? If my commander were one of these savage chiefs, whom we treat as barbarians, and I had said to him: ‘Spare this house, for it belongs to my friends. I was a wanderer and a fugitive, and they took me in and gave me a father and a brother,’ the Indian chief would have answered: ‘It is well; spare your friends; it is only the viper that stings the bosom that has warmed it.’]

Cameron of Lochiel (XI: 176-177)

CONclusion

Jules and Arché (Cameron of Lochiel)’s friendship will survive the War. However, Aubert de Gaspé needed the bon sauvage. New France’s Amerindians were friends of the French, but there is no entity called the Noble Savage. It is an image and a wish. However, Amerindians have a great deal of common sense. I quite agree with the Jesuits who saw Amerindians as good persons who did not need to be converted. Yet, they continued their work as missionary and a few fell victims to the Iroquois who, as noted above, were friends of the British. La Grande-Loutre is an Iroquois. The Iroquois confederacy were allies of the British and protected by the British. The French were allies of the Hurons-Wendats and protected the Hurons-Wendats.

Aubert de Gaspé went further in the rehabilitation of the defeated French. Not only did he feature the Noble Savage, but he created Cameron of Lochiel, a Scot, whose father fought at Culloden. Arché will move to Canada and have a house built, half of wish will be Dumais’s home. He saved Dumais ‘s life who saved Archie from torture and death when the Iroquois captured him. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 will be the Amerindians’s “precedent,” and is included in the 1982 Constitution Act, Canada.

As for the Quebec Act of 1774,[2] it constitutes a “precedent” to a bilingual Canada. The French in America did not attempt to assimilate Amerindians. Monsieur d’Egmont and André Francœur have in fact left France, Europe being too civilized, to live among natives. Jules and Cameron of Lochiel will remain friends. Some of Aubert de Gaspé’s children would marry the Scots, or the English. It is not treason, but a legitimate and realistic wish to take part in the political life of Canada. Finally, persons whose origins are not the same may fall in love. The French in Quebec were happy to have escaped the French Revolution. This reaction, however, was often dictated by the clergy and the seigneurs. At any rate, Canadians must clean up a mess: Residential Schools, the remnants of Imperialism.

I will write briefly about the Battles, but I have already done so in Canadiana.1. I must include Les Anciens Canadiens‘s Plains of Abraham.

RELATED ARTICLES

Sources and Resources

Les Anciens Canadiens (ebooksgratuits.com). FR
Cameron of Lochiel (Archive.org ), Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN
Cameron of Lochiel is Gutenberg [EBook#53154], Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, translator. EN
Une Colonie féodale en Amérique: l’Acadie 1604 – 17 (Rameau, Google Books)

_________________________

[1]Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Noble savage”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Apr. 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/noble-savage. Accessed 14 July 2021.
[2]Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. “Quebec Act”. Encyclopedia Britannica, 12 Jul. 2016, https://www.britannica.com/event/Quebec-Act. Accessed 14 July 2021.

Love to everyone 💕

Céline Dion chante “S’il suffisait d’aimer” (If love were enough)
The Province of Quebec in 1774.

© Micheline Walker
15 June 2021
WordPress

Mary Simon, Canada’s Governor General

06 Tuesday Jul 2021

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canadian History, Confederation, Racism

≈ 11 Comments

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

Mary Simon, 74, is Canada’s New Governor General.

‘She knows where she comes from’: Mary Simon seen as humble, professional leader (msn.com)

Allow me to quote MSN (Microsoft News):

Mary has been a leader in the North for the last four decades. She served as president of Makivik Corp., the Nunavik land-claim body, and Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national Inuit organization. She was Canada’s first ambassador for Circumpolar Affairs and also served as the country’s ambassador to Denmark.

MSN

Madame Simon is an Anglophone Inuit, and she has promised to learn French during her tenure as Governor General. But the truth is that Madame Simon has a mother tongue of her own, which she must keep. The era and mindset that led to the creation of Residential schools is a by-gone era, never to return.

I hope Madame Simon’s appointment will help consolidate the position of Amerindians in Canada. Europeans intruded on their land but if anyone belongs to a country, it is its indigenous population. Canadians must realize fully that Amerindians were its first inhabitants.

Simon is well known for her role in negotiating the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement between the Cree and Inuit of northern Quebec, the provincial government and Hydro-Quebec in 1975. The deal affirmed Inuit and Cree hunting and trapping rights in the area and established $225 million in compensation over 20 years in exchange for construction of hydroelectric dams.

MSN
© Sean Kilpatrick/Radio-Canada Mary Simon se tourne vers le premier ministre Justin Trudeau lors d’une annonce au Musée canadien de l’histoire à Gatineau, au Québec, le mardi 6 juillet 2021. Mme Simon été nommée gouverneure générale du Canada, la première personne autochtone à assumer ce rôle.

Canada’s new Governor General is married to Whit Fraser, a former CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) producer. They have three children.

Canadians are removing or vandalizing statues, including a statue of Queen Victoria and one of Elizabeth II. That is destruction and it will not help. Nor will it help to burn churches. Let us go forward together and make Canada a better country.

I wish Mary Simon a happy tenure as Governor General. Her appointment as Governor General is genuine progress. Mary Simon is a very accomplished person whose achievements have been recognized.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/mandryk-imperfect-residential-school-reparation-will-still-be-costly/ar-AALPENf?ocid=msedgntp

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Aboriginals in North America (page)

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

John A Macdonald

© Micheline Walker
6 July 2021
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The Blacks in Canada

28 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by in Aboriginals, Black history, Canada

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Depiction of Loyalist refugees on their way to the Canadas during the American Revolution,  (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

The image above belongs to: https://howardpyle.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html

The Royal Proclamation of 1763

  • the Capitulation of Montreal
  • from 1760 to 1763
  • the Royal Proclamation 1763

We have seen that the slaves in Nouvelle-France were mostly the Indigenous people of North America who themselves had slaves. Slavery between Amerindians is humiliating, but it is not racism. Amerindian nations fought one another and the better warrior enslaved rival and lesser warriors.  For the purpose of this post, suffice it to know that as France grew more vulnerable. France was outnumbered. After losing the battle of the Plains of Abraham, thus named because the land where the battle was fought belonged to fisherman Abraham Martin, Montreal capitulated, but its native allies were no longer protected. (See The Capitulation of Montreal, Canadian Encyclopedia.)  In fact, they were at the mercy of the inhabitants of Britain’s Thirteen Colonies. They feared a land rushes, but Chief Pontiac, an Ottawa leader, fought the Thirteen Colonies quite successfully, which he could not do indefinitely.

Pontiac-chief-artist-impression-414px.jpg

No authentic images of Pontiac are known to exist. This interpretation was painted by John Mix Stanley. (Photo and Caption Credit: Wikipedia)

To protect Amerindians, England issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, providing Aboriginals with a vast reserve. The territory was large and nearly impenetrable. Later, the Act of Quebec (1774) ended attempts to assimilate the former New France. A very large province of Quebec was created, which, in the eyes of American patriots, was an Intolerable Act.

The Thirteen Colonies
Upper and Lower Canadas

The light pink shows the land where the Indigenous population of Canada could live without fear of losing their land. In 1775, Louisiana belonged to Spain. In the second map, we see Quebec as it was in 1791, under the Constitutional Act. We also see part of Rupert’s Land.

The Revolutionary War

The future United States signed a Declaration of Independence on 4th July 1776 and it then fought its Revolutionary War, or War of Independence, from 1675 to 1783, defeating Britain. This victory was formalized by the Treaty of Paris 1783.

United Empire Loyalists: the Constitutional Act of 1791

  • shift in demographics
  • slavery
  • White loyalists and Black loyalists

However, among Americans, some families and individuals did not approve of independence. They fled to the large British province of Quebec. To help United Empire Loyalists, the large Quebec was divided into two Canadas: Upper Canada and, lower down the St Lawrence, Lower Canada. The Constitutional Act, which divided the Province of Quebec, was legislated in 1791.

The Constitutional Act did not divide the province of Quebec into an English-language Upper Canada and a French-language Lower Canada. The Eastern Townships,[1] the area of Quebec where I live, was given to the Loyalists and their slaves, whom they were allowed to bring to Canada as part of their property. The Loyalists also settled in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The arrival of the Loyalists was a blessing and a curse. The future Canada welcomed the Loyalists, Whites and Blacks. However, the citizens of the former New France were a minority.

White Loyalists and Black Loyalists

There were Black loyalists who had earned their freedom by fighting with Britain against the future United States had earned their freedom. They settled in Ontario and New Brunswick, but most tried to settle in Nova Scotia.

AricanNovaScotianByCaptain_William_Booth1788

The earliest known image of a black Nova Scotian, in British Canada, in 1788. He was a wood cutter in Shelburne, Province of Nova Scotia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Blacks in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia would be Black slaves’ best destination. Although the Imperial Act of 1790 assured slave owners that they could retain Black slaves, in 1788, Nova Scotia abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou “published the first anti-slavery literature in Canada and began purchasing slaves’ freedom” (…).  He set an example. Many Nova Scotia Loyalists freed their slaves. (See Slavery in Canada, Wikipedia.)

However, a total of 3,500 Black Loyalists left the current United States. Nova Scotia would be home to many, were it not that white Loyalists attacked Black Loyalists.  The Shelburne Riots that took place in July 1784 revealed racism. White Loyalists were given the best land, which they felt entitled to as White Loyalists. So, in 1792, 1300 Black loyalists left for Sierra Leone, where they would be free and would govern themselves.

Until recent reforms in immigration, about 37% of Canada’s Black community lived in Nova Scotia.

The Act Against Slavery, 1793 (Wikipedia)

Vrooman vs Cooley

Ontario slave owners opposed the enfranchisement of Black slaves. In Ontario the case of Chloe Cooley, is a sad example of entitlement. Chloe tried to escape an abusive owner, Sergeant Adam Vrooman. He had bound her in a boat in an attempt to take her to the State of New York, to sell her. She protested violently and the event, witnessed by William Grisley, led to the passage of the Act Against Slavery of 1793. On 14 March 1793, The event was reported to Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, John Graves Simcoe. However, Vrooman had not broken the law. Loyalists could bring their slaves to British North America. He also noted that in 1760, the French inhabitants of Lower Canada had been allowed to keep their slaves. Yet, despite the reluctance of the several representatives of the government of Upper Canada, the Act Against Slavery of 1793 was legislated.

Let us read the letter Sergeant Vrooman wrote to the authorities. He used the law to perpetuate an abuse. In this respect, his letter is a classic:

[…] been informed that an information had been lodged against him to the Attorney General relative to his proceedings in his Sale of said Negroe Woman; your Petitioner had received no information concerning the freedom of Slaves in this Province, except a report which prevailed among themselves, and if he has transgressed against the Laws of his Country by disposing of Property (which from the legality of the purchase from Benjamin Hardison) he naturally supposed to be his own, it was done without knowledge of any Law being in force to the contrary.
(See Chloe Cooley and the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada. The Canadian Encyclopedia.) 

Laws can be used to wrong a human being. In this respect, the fate of Chloe Clooney is a classic. In the eyes of slave-owning Loyalists, ownership had no limits. If so, what a nightmare for a woman.

The arrival of the Loyalists led to the Constitutional Act of 1791, which separated a large Quebec into Upper and Lower Canada. French-speaking Canadiens lived in Lower Canada, part of which was the Eastern Townships, given to Loyalists. I cannot make sense of the Constitutional Act of 1871. It received royal assent in June 1791 and it seems an attempt to assimilate French-speaking Canadians.

The Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada received royal assent on 9 July 1793, but in Upper Canada, slavery was not abolished until 1833. However, the Underground Railroad, helped slaves flee to Canada. United Empire Loyalists had taken their slaves with them, as property. But Blacks that escaped were no longer owned.

Conclusion

I will conclude here. We must introduce the Underground Railroad, an organization that helped Black Slaves flee to Canada. I am reading The Slave in Canada by William Renwick Riddell. It is an Internet Archive publication. I have looked for videos and saw one about the Royal Proclamation of 1763. It features a rush for land which is called freedom. It is as though the proclamation deprived the colonists of their freedom. Does freedom allow human beings to displace and destroy other human beings? An Aboriginal was not seen as a person, nor was a mortal whose colour was not white. I must close.

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Sources and Resources

Love to everyone ♥

_______________
[1] “Under the terms of the Constitutional Act of 1791, the Eastern Townships were open to settlement and a land rush followed. Most of the 3,000 or so settlers came from the United States. A few were Loyalists, at least in spirit, but most simply wanted land and had no strong feeling about nationality. Many more immigrated from the British Isles, including Gaelic-speaking Scots.” (See Eastern Townships, Wikipedia)

Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea)

Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea)
(courtesy National Gallery of Canada/5777) Painting of Joseph Brant by William Berczy, circa 1807, oil on canvas.

© Micheline Walker
28 June 2020
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Rupert’s Land: Amerindians, Métis, and the Red River Colony

14 Sunday Jun 2020

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canada

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a man wearing a microphone

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation

Above is a picture of Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. Mr Adam claims he was the victim of police brutality, which is unacceptable. However, although they may be the very devil, I would hesitate to put The Royal Canadian Mounted Police on trial. In my life, they have done what the police is supposed to do: to protect and to serve.

—ooo—

In fact, the killing of George Floyd has led to accusations, resignations, dismissals, or a form of revisionism. Some of these are convincingly justifiable, others, less so. There can be no doubt that there are rotten apples in nearly every basket, but although racism is a serious problem in the United States, I could not extend the term “racist” to every American. Too many Americans oppose racism for me to generalize. Moreover, Barack Obama, an African-American, was elected to the Presidency of the United States and proved one of its finest presidents.

Macdonald, Sir John A.

Sir John A MacDonald (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

 

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The Métis provisional government (Wikipedia)

Aboriginals in Canada

  • Rupert’s Land
  • The Royal Charter of 1670
  • Aboriginal title
  • What of the Red River Colony?

I nevertheless researched the topic of Aboriginals in Canada and Blacks in Canada. However, this post is about the indigenous people of Canada. It cannot go further. It is about Amerindians after Confederation and the “purchase” of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay Company, chartered in 1670. In Wikipedia’s relevant entry, by virtue of the Royal Charter, Rupert’s Land, which was bought by the first four confederated provinces of the future Canada, could not include territory already settled and inhabited by the indigenous people of North America.

However, this did not settle the issue of Aboriginal title over the land. At the time the Royal Charter was granted in 1670, the Crown did not have the authority to give jurisdiction of sovereignty over the territory already settled and inhabited by the indigenous people of North America.
(Rupert’s Land, Wikipedia)

Therefore, it appears that, by virtue of the Royal Charter of 1670, the “purchase” of Rupert’s Land by the first confederated provinces precluded settling land that was settled by the indigenous people of North America.

For that matter, could the first four provinces of the Canadian Confederation resettle the Red River Colony? The Red River Colony was established by the Earl of Selkirk who purchased and settled the Colony to give a home to dispossessed Scottish crofters (See Crofting, Wikipedia). However, the Red River Colony was soon home to retired voyageurs, and to several members of the disbanded Régiment de Meuron and De Watteville Régiment. These were Swiss mercenaries and veterans of the War of 1812. The Red River Colony was multicultural and bilingual. It was also home to English-speaking Métis and French-speaking Métis. It was Louis Riel’s Canada, officially bilingual and bicultural, and eventually described as multicultural. But it wasn’t so until the Official Languages’ Act was passed, in 1969. The Red River Colony was bought and settled land.

There are times when “officials” act too quickly, but under the Royal Charter, could the Red River Colony be part of Rupert’s Land?  This is questionable. Yet, after the purchase of Rupert’s Land, descendants of United Empire Loyalists rushed west to get land. But it was not a Wild West.

Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald first began planning a permanent force to patrol the North-West Territories after the Dominion of Canada purchased the territory from the Hudson’s Bay Company.
(See The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Wikipedia.)

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was established in 1873 and was first named the North West Mounted Rifles and renamed the North-West Mounted Police. Although Quebec and Ontario have their own provincial police corps, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is Canada’s national police force, so, as soon as it was appointed, settling west in Canada was policed. But, in a policed Canada Amerindians were nevertheless sent to reservations and French-speaking Canadians had to live in the Province of Quebec because of the Orange Order. Sir John A. MacDonald and three other Prime Ministers of Canada were members of the Orange Order.

In an earlier article, I quoted the Canadian Encyclopedia:

Its members generally viewed Roman Catholics and French Canadians as politically disloyal or culturally inferior.
(See Orange Order in Canada, The Canadian Encyclopedia.)

I will close by stating, once again, that the purchase of Rupert’s Land was not consistent with the Royal Charter. Officials may not have read the details or may have reached an agreement that ignored the Royal Charter. Land was taken that belonged to Amerindians. They were not given a word to say, nor were the Métis. As for the use of French outside Quebec, the Orange Order (Wikipedia), Orange order (The Canadian Encyclopedia) would not allow it. They had no tolerance for the French and despised Catholics. Four Prime Ministers of Canada were Orangemen. Louis Riel’s Canada was born in 1969, when the Official Languages Act was passed, but Amerindians have lived on reservations, and I wonder whether this arrangement was the best. Confederation was followed by sending children to Residential Schools. Canada’s aboriginals were compensated for the harm inflicted on children who attended these schools.

During the years I taught at Saint Francis Xavier University, a young woman came to talk to me. She was taking a course I taught. She told me she was Amerindian and that she would therefore pass the course. I could not understand what she wanted. In the end, I had to tell her that I did not base grades on race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc., but on the quality of one’s performance. She could, however, come to see me, if she experienced difficulties with the subject matter. She could also phone me at the office or at home. I would help.

Before closing, I should note that there is confusion concerning the word “race.” In French, race means “breed” and “race.” In l’abbé Lionel Groulx’s L’Appel de la race (The Call of the Race) race is breed or roots. I never included L’Appel de la race as necessary reading in my classes on French-Canadian literature. However, it is central to what is called “la question des écoles,” French-language schools outside Quebec, an issue one cannot remove from the discussion.

A discussion of the War of 1812, is relevant to both the Amerindian and Métis populations. Individual Amerindian chiefs negotiated treaties with the White. The famous Tecumseh opposed these treaties. He favored a centralized body of indigenous people. Tecumseh was killed on 5 October 1813, at the Battle of the Thames during the War of 1812.

There is/was racism in Canada and there were racial wrongs. Many Chinese died building a rail road across ranges of mountains. Moreover, the Japanese were sent to camps. As for the Indigenous people of Canada, they had a right to their land, and French-speaking Canadians should have been allowed to move west. They faced the school question, la question des écoles, which takes us back to Louis Riel. It is possible that the Royal Charter was amended officially, but I doubt it.

I must read further, but for the time being, I would urge demonstrators to be extremely careful. Covid-19 could kill millions. Demonstrations are very dangerous.

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Sources and Resources

The Canadian Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
Britannica
Newspapers
http://nationtalk.ca/story/featured-video-of-the-day-joseph-boyden-on-louis-riel-and-gabriel-dumont

Love to everyone 💕

© Jean-Marc Philippe Duval, studio Spinner, Nancy – SACEM, Paris.

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Theresa Tam, Canada’s Top Doctor

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Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, PhD
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Racism in Canada: Notes

08 Monday Jun 2020

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canadian History, Covid-19, New France, Racism, U.S.A Elections

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A Métis man and his two wives, circa 1825-1826.jpg

A Métis man and his two wives, circa 1825-1826. Mikan # 2835810, Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1973-84-1

The killing of George Floyd nearly drowned the discussion about Covid-19. The current conversation is about a man who was killed by a man whose duty it was to protect him, even as he arrested him. The police have duties to everyone. Therefore, it was racism at its worst. George Floyd’s life didn’t matter.

Racism in the United States is a complex topic because the economy of the United States depended, in certain southern states, on slavery. Blacks travelled packed like sardines in the hull of a slave ship and, on their arrival in North America, they were sold. Slavery took away a person’s life. A human life belonged to the owner of a plantation, which means that life was taken away from a human being. Black lives matter. The mindset of Americans is therefore rooted in colour and status.

Racism exists in Canada. A the moment, the question is whether it is “systemic” racism (racisme structurel) or racism. Our Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, says racism in Canada is systemic. At first, monsieur Legault of Quebec stated that racism in Canada is not systemic, but it seems he changed his mind. Premier Doug Ford of Ontario also believes that racism in Canada is systemic. For my part, I need to read further before I position myself. As for Dr Theresa Tam, Canada’s top doctor, she urges protesters to stay safe.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/dr-tam-s-message-to-anti-racism-demonstrators/vi-BB155XJK?ocid=msedgdhp

Because the Black in the United States were slaves, racism in the United States cannot be the same as racism in Canada. Canada’s racism may be systemic, but Canada’s economy did not depend on the work of slaves. Diamonds were not found on the shores of the St Lawrence River. Canada’s diamonds where its precious pelts at a time when men wore high beaver hats.

In other words, in the 17th century, survival in Nouvelle-France depended on agriculture and fur-trading. Logging was also important. Some houses were log cabin. It should also be noted that, in New France, settling would not have been possible without the Amerindians. Jacques Cartier the official discoverer of Canada made three trips to Eastern Canada. He first travelled to Canada in 1534. He took to France chief Donnacona‘s two sons and returned them to their father in 1535. They had learned French.

Cartier waited too long to return to France, so his ship(s) was locked into the ice and his men were rapidly dying of scurvy. Amerindians provided thuya occidentalis, white cedar rich in  On his first trip, the French could not have gone to les pays d’en haut, the countries above or to the north, as voyageurs, in particular. They needed bark canoes and, snowshoes and the guidance Amerindians could provide. A canoe could be made in a matter of hours and the French had to work with the natives. “Survival” is a keyword in the history of Canada.

The fact remains, however, that the fur trade in Canada did not preclude abuse. The French gave trinkets and alcohol to natives who were prone to alcoholism, which outraged Monseigneur Laval, François-Xavier de Montmorency-Laval (1623-1708). But their land was not taken from Amerindians.

François de Laval - Project Gutenberg eText 17174.jpg

The Bishop of Quebec

However, in the United States, settlers deprived aboriginals of the land they had inhabited for centuries, if not millennia. American natives were sent West forcibly west of the Mississippi. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) would facilitate that process. Moreover, the French had settled in New Orleans, Nouvelle-Orléans, but the population of the rest of Louisiana consisted primarily of Aboriginals. In Canada, their land was not taken from Amerindians until what is known as Confederation (in 1867), or the birth of Canada.

There was hostility between tribes which affected New France. Iroquois captured and killed a number of French-speaking citizens of New France. Iroquois also tortured and killed eight Jesuit missionaries. They are the Canadian Martyrs. To defend the citizens of Nouvelle-France, France sent le Régiment de Carignan-Salières. Le Régiment de Carignan-Salières, soldiers, who arrived in 1759, which is during the ten years or so when les Filles du Roy, the King’s wards were sent to New France.

Before the arrival of the Filles du Roy, the French resorted to marrying the natives, which explains why some Québécois have Amerindian ancestry. Métissés Québécois never formed a nation and are not recognized as Métis. Therefore, I am métissée, but I must pay my taxes, and look after myself. Québecois are considered culturally French and we identify with France. However, I am proud of my Amerindian ancestry. It makes me feel a legitimate inhabitant of the North American continent. It appears I am also a descendant of Alix de France, Eleanor of Aquitaine‘s daughter with Louis VII, a Bourbon king.

The French lost the Seven Years’ War, called the French and Indian War in North America. France had to give some of its colonies. So when Nouvelle-France was officially ceded to Britain, Amerindians feared for their lives. They were rescued by George III’s Proclamation of 1763, which did not please Americans.

Ironically, Amerindians in the what would be Canada lost their waterfront lots beginning in 1867, when four provinces of Canada when Nova Scotia, New Brunswick Québec and Ontario confederated and bought Rupert’s Land. It was land that belonged to the Hudson’s Bay Company. The HBC retained its trading posts, but Amerindians were eventually placed on reservations, a mixed blessing.

See the source image

Rupert’s Land

Louis Riel was a Métis, the most famous among Métis, and he was elected three times to Canada’s Parliament. Riel was executed on 16 November 1886 for the execution of Thomas Scott, an Orangeman (Protestant) from Ontario. The Métis thought they would participate in the creation of Canada and that it would be bilingual and Catholic, in the case of Catholic Métis. Between the Conquest, 1763, and Confederation, 1867, voyageurs were employed in the fur trade and when the beavers were nearly extant, they accompanied explorers, such as David Thomson, who married an Amerindian.

The Métis in Canada live West in or near Winnipeg and are the descendants of the voyageurs, persons who went west to collect fur from the Amerindians. But voyageurs also retired in Minnesota. When the border between Canada and the United States was traced, after the War of 1812, voyageurs trading posts were suddenly located in Minnesota, where a significant number of voyageurs retired. One of the voyageur who settled in Minnesota is Gabriel Franchère, a hero to Americans. (See Gabriel Franchère, a Hero to Americans.)

Voyageurs married Amerindians, because they could be away from Quebec for three years. Some had two wives, one west and one in Quebec. As the picture above illustrates, some had two Amerindian wives. Derek Chauvin has a French name, which suggests voyageur ancestry, but not necessarily Amerindian ancestry. Derek Chauvin has a French name. Other Métis are the descendants of the baron de Saint-Castin, who was an Amerindian chief. (See Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie, Baron de Saint-Castin.) One of my readers is a descendant of Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie, Baron de Saint-Castin.

Several Quebecers are métissés but they are not considered Métis. French-speaking Canadians identify with France, their motherland. We are culturally French, so despite our ancestry, we must pay our taxes. I like being métissée because it makes me feel that I belong just a little more than others.

a person standing in front of a computer: Chief Allan Adam of the Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation.

© Global News Chief Allan Adam of the Athabascan Chipewyan First Nation

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/enough-is-enough-first-nations-chief-says-he-needed-to-tell-story-of-alleged-rcmp-beating/ar-BB158toC?ocid=msedgdhp

Northern Alberta First Nations chief alleges he was beaten by RCMP

The Blacks in Canada

Mathieu da Costa, an African-Portuguese translator, was “[t]he first Black inhabitant of Nouvelle-France. He was a member of the exploring party of Pierre Dugua, the Sieur de Monts, and Samuel de Champlain and arrived in Nova Scotia sometime between 1605 and 1608 as a translator for the French explorer Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mon(t)s. He was the first recorded free black person to arrive on the territory of today’s Canada.” (See Pierre Dugua, sieur de Mons, Wikipedia.) Mathieu da Costa died in Quebec City in approximately 1619.

Ironically, Pierre Du Gua de Mons travelled to North America in 1599 with Pierre Pierre de Chauvin de Tonnetuit who had a house built at Tadoussac. But Pierre de Chauvin probably returned to France. (See Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons, Wikipedia.)

Nova Scotia has a black population some of whom are part Amerindian.

Conclusion

However, I stand by George Floyd. His colour is an accident of birth and his ancestors. The only justice is eradicating racism and the process must start at home and in schools. We must not let children bully others.

Kind regards to everyone. 💕

a man smiling for the camera

© Provided by The Canadian Press

© Micheline Walker
8 June 2020
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Gabriel Dumont, a Métis Leader

10 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canada, Métis

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93488558-8f0b-4e99-9620-b5734d1bc42f

Gabriel Dumont, resistance fighter
Gabriel Dumont was a man of great chivalry and military skill, superbly adapted to the presettlement prairie life (courtesy Glenbow Archives). (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

We do not require a long post on Gabriel Dumont (1837 – 1906), not at this point. A synopsis will suffice.

Dumont, the Bison Hunter

What we need to know is that Dumont was famous as a bison hunter. “In the 1860s, Gabriel was the chief of the Métis bison hunters and commanded approximately 200 hunters.” (Virtual Museum of Canada). As noted in the caption above, below his photograph, he was “superbly adapted to the presettlement prairie life.” His life gives us an insight into the life of Métis before the bison disappeared. The bison/buffalo fed the Métis, prairie Amerindians (North-American Indians), and voyageurs.

I should also point out that Dumont was among the Métis who left the former Red River Colony at the time of the Red River Rebellion, hoping Métis could settle on river lots further west, in Saskatchewan or Alberta. They did, briefly. Gabriel Dumont operated a ferry service, “Gabriel’s Crossing,” and opened a General Store with a billiard table, on the South Saskatchewan River.

Father Alexis André

Once Métis arrived, so did a priest. Father Alexis André (1832 – 1893), an Oblate born in France, would minister to the Métis who had left the Red River. He helped Gabriel Dumont form a Provisional Government for the community he was founding, Saint-Laurent de Grandin. As you know, Gabriel Dumont, a linguist, could not write.

At times, Father André was a spokesman for Métis. For instance, he feared for their well-being as he saw the bison disappear. Father André and North-West Mounted Police commissioner George Arthur French  “urged the federal government to exercise tighter control over these hunts so as to prevent the extermination of the bison.” (See Alexis André, Dictionary of Canadian Biography.) But the federal government had turned its back on petitions, which is why Gabriel Dumont sought Louis Riel’s assistance. Louis Riel was well educated and possessed charisma.

Louis Riel returns

Dumont is, in fact, best remembered for going to Montana to ask for Louis Riel’s help. Therefore, the two figures are inextricably linked. Riel was to be the political leader of the North-West Rebellion and Gabriel Dumont, its military leader.

But the Canadian government was pushing its way west not realizing that Métis and Amerindians could remain on their rectangular lots abutting a river. Petitions went unanswered. So, blood was shed. At the Battle of Batoche (9 – 12 May 1885), 250 Métis fought Major-General Frederick Middleton’s superior force of 916 regulars and militia. Dumont escaped, but, on 15 May 1885, Louis Riel surrendered. (See The Battle of Batoche, Wikipedia.)

Father André also tended to the spiritual needs of Louis Riel during the period Riel awaited his execution. Father André believed Riel was insane, but Riel left a good impression on Father André.

The priest spent hours in conversation with the Métis leader and was impressed with Riel’s sincerity, yet convinced of his insanity.

(See Alexis André, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography.)

Joseph Boyden on Riel and Dumont

Writer Joseph Boyden published Extraordinary Canadians, Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont, a fine book on Riel and Dumont. The video below (click on the link) is short, but very informative.

Joseph-Boyden-on-Louis-Riel-and-Gabriel-Dumont-600x313

http://nationtalk.ca/story/featured-video-of-the-day-joseph-boyden-on-louis-riel-and-gabriel-dumont

A Mari usque ad Mare

As we know, moving west was a mere respite for Métis and the indigenous people of the Prairie Provinces. On 20 July 1871, a year after Manitoba entered Confederation, British Columbia also joined. A dream came true. Canada stretched from sea to sea: A Mari usque ad Mare. The people of British Columbia wanted a wagon road built between Lake Superior and the Pacific Ocean, but Cartier offered a railway instead. Construction would begin within two years and be completed in ten years. Cartier/Canada also agreed to take over the colony’s considerable debt of almost $1.5 million and provide an annual subsidy of $216,000. 

(See British Columbia Entering Confederation, A People’s History, CBC.ca.)

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Hoping to attract white settlers to B.C., land commissioner Joseph Trutch refused to recognize Indian land rights in the 1860s. (Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada) (Photo credit: CBC.ca)

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During the 1860s, B.C. refused to recognize Indian land titles and often usurped Indian land and gave it to speculators and settlers. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) (Photo credit: CBC.ca)

Conclusion, later…

I will not conclude at this point, because my computer no longer works properly.  It has to be repaired. Something went wrong.

© Micheline Walker
10 May 2018
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From the Red River Rebellion to the North-West Rebellion

08 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canadian History, Extremism, Métis

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William McDougall,
June 1872 (courtesy Library and Archives Canada, PA-033505). (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

This post is a continuation of Louis Riel, Hero or Rebel, published on 18 March 2018. The main subject matter of my earlier post was the Red River Rebellion, and résistance remains our subject matter. However, we will be focussing on William McDougall. William McDougall was the lieutenant-governor designate of Rupert’s and the North-West Territories. He and his party were prevented from entering the Red River by Métis, led by Louis Riel.

I will also introduce Gabriel Dumont, a Métis who left the Red River in 1869-1870 and settled in Saskatchewan. Dumont spoke six first nation languages and Michif-French, but did not speak English and could not write. (See Gabriel Dumont, The Virtual Museum.ca.) He went to Montana where Louis Riel taught school and asked for his assistance in petitioning the Canadian government to ensure that Métis did not lose their river lots and Amerindians, their land. In 1873, three years after the Wolseley Expedition, an emboldened Dominion of Canada had established the North-West Mounted Police and a railroad that would ensure Canada stretched from sea to sea, a Mari usque ad Mare, was under construction. The railway was a promise to British Columbia.

To some extent, we are revisiting the Red River Rebellion because there are gaps to fill. First, Riel’s story begins in the Red River Rebellion and ends in the North-West Rebellion. Métis leader Gabriel Dumont was born in the Red River settlement and he is the person who asked Louis Riel to come to Saskatchewan to help him appeal to John A Macdonald’s deafened Canadian government. Louis Riel would be hanged a few months after the Battle of Batoche which was not only the end of Riel’s story but also that of the North-West Rebellion.

Moreover, Riel had dreamed of a bilingual and multicultural Canada West, which was could not happen. Canada West would be, in its initial years, William McDougall’s Canada: English and Protestant. French Canadians were prevented from settling west of Quebec, as if there had not been a Quebec Act of 1774. As for Amerindians, they were sent to “Indian Reserves” and their children were educated in Residential Schools, despite the Royal Proclamation of 1763. (See A History of Residential Schools, CBC.ca.)

The  Canadian Party

In the Red River, William McDougall, a Clear Grit, met members of the Canadian Party, two of whom were Doctor John Christian Schultz and Charles Mair. The Canadian Party supported Canada’s expansion westward, a noble cause, were it not for William McDougall who was anti-Catholic and anti-French. His world was white, English and Protestant. It was Thomas Scott’s world, who was and sentenced to death by a Métis court and then turned into a martyr in a 19th-century Orangist Ontario.

The growing threat, in his view, was ultramontane interference from Lower Canada in the civil affairs of the united province, a fear that would increasingly distort his political perception.

(See William McDougall, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography.)

In April 1861, for example, McDougall indicated in a fit of pique that he would ‘look to Washington’ to rescue Canada West from ‘the control of a foreign race, and of a religion which is not the religion of the Empire.’

(See William McDougall, The Canadian Encyclopedia)

Therefore, one wonders why he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Rupert’s Land and the North West territories.

No poorer choice for the post could have been made, in view of the necessity for diplomatic caution in dealing with the officials of the HBC and with the lay and clerical spokesmen of the various groups at Red River. The transfer was to take place on 1 Dec. 1869.

(See Louis Riel, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography.)

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Howling Hay by William Kurelek (Photo credit: Consignor Canadian Fine Arts)

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Carolers Heading to Church by William Kurelek, 1975 (Photo credit: Heffel Fine Art Auction House)

Louis Riel

Louis Riel was a Métis, one-eight Amerindian. Métis and Amerindians stood to lose their land, unless the future Manitoba’s entry into Canadian Confederation were carefully negotiated. Riel and his government advocated a bilingual and multicultural expansion westward. Moreover, the citizens of the Red River were Catholics and Anglicans. As for the descendants of Scottish crofters and other Scots, fur traders and their descendants, they were Presbyterians. All had lived at Red River harmoniously. Its Anglican bishop and archbishop was Robert Machray and Alexandre-Antonin Taché, its Catholic bishop and then archbishop. Under the leadership of William McDougall, who was anti-Catholic, Manitoba could have become a state and faith society, other religions not being “the religion of the Empire.”

Interestingly, both bishops and William Mactavish, the governor of Assiniboia and Rupert’s Land, warned against a premature arrival of Canadians at Red River. According to William Mactavish “as soon as the survey commences the Half breeds and Indians will at once come forward and assert their right to the land and possibly stop the work till their claim is satisfied.” Ironically, Mactavish was imprisoned by Riel, yet his wife was a countryborn, a Métis. He died of tuberculosis, in Liverpool, a few weeks after his release. (See Louis Riel, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography.)

Ukrainian Christmas Eve by William Kurelek, 1973
The Section Foreman’s House by William Kurelek, 1966

(Photo credit:  Heffel.com, left; Heffel.com, right)

In July 1869, William McDougall, then minister of public works, sent a survey party to the Red River under Colonel John Stoughton Dennis. In fact, a team, including Thomas Scott, was already building a road linking Upper Fort Garry (Winnipeg) to Lake of the Woods. It would be called “the Dawson Road,” after Simon James Dawson, a surveyor exploring the country between Lake Superior and the Red River settlement, in 1857. Yet, the transfer of Rupert’s Land to Canada was to occur on 1st December 1869.

The Red River Rebellion

Under such circumstances, Métis and Amerindians had cause to fear a takeover of Red River. As well, one can understand that its inhabitants felt alarmed when “strangers” attempted to settle in the former Red River Colony. Since the arrival of tens of thousands United Empire Loyalists, including 3,000 Black Loyalists, the English-speaking population of Britain’s still new colony to the north of the United States had increased significantly.

But as noted above, on 2nd November 1869, Métis under Riel, prevented William McDougall, his family, and his entourage from entering the Red River. They were pushed back to Pembina, North Dakota. The Métis then seized Fort Garry and, beginning in December, Louis Riel was forming a Provisional Government. This story was told in Louis Riel, Hero or Rebel (20 March 2018). We also know that the Provisional Government’s “List of Rights” would be deemed acceptable. Louis Riel and his provisional government did succeed in negotiating Manitoba’s entry into Confederation

On 15 March 1870, Taché read a telegram in which Joseph Howe, the secretary of state for the provinces, stated that the “List of Rights” was “in the main satisfactory.” Delegates could go to Ottawa. On 23 and 24 March, a three-man delegation left for Ottawa. These were Abbé Ritchot, representing the Métis, Judge Black, representing the English settlers, and Henry Scott, representing the Americans.

However, Schultz and Mair arrived in Toronto before the three-man delegation and described the execution of Thomas Scott as a murder. Thomas Scott, Schultz, and Mair  had plotted to overthrow Riel’s Provisional Government, but a death sentence was too cruel a punishment. Thomas Scott’s execution was turned into a murder and he was depicted as a victim and a hero. Thomas Scott was a violent man, but Riel blundered. Consequently, upon their arrival in Toronto, Noël-Joseph Ritchot and Henry Scott were detained for “abetting murder,” but released because the judge ruled that the warrant was not legal. (See Louis Riel, The Dictionary of Canadian Biography.)

Negotiations were successful. On 12 May 1870, the Manitoba Act received royal assent.

“My mission is finished,” Louis Riel

On 24 August 1870, the day the Wolseley Expedition reached Fort Garry, Louis Riel learned that the soldiers planned to lynch him. So, he left Fort Garry. Before leaving, he told Bishop Taché that his mission was finished. His mission had been a negotiated entry of Manitoba into the Canadian Confederation, but, in 1890, French ceased to be one of the two official languages of Manitoba under Premier Thomas Greenway. Bilingualism would not be revived until the Official Languages Act of 1969 and the Manitoba Act would not be recognized until the Constitution Act of 1982.

Conclusion

The Northwest Rebellion, A Country by Consent (CBC.ca) summarizes the North-West rebellion. Riel surrendered on 15 May, after the Battle of Batoche. He was tried, convicted of treason, and hanged, on 16 November 1885. Montreal journalist Joseph Israel Tarte, editor of Le Canadien, had this to say:

At the moment when the corpse of Riel falls through the trap and twists in convulsions of agony, at that moment an abyss will be dug that will separate Quebec from English-speaking Canada, especially Ontario.

—ooo—

The art works featured in this post are by William Kurelek, a Canadian Ukrainian who was raised in the Canadian prairies.

Love to everyone ♥

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© Micheline Walker
8 May 2018
WordPress

A Print by Kenojuak Ashevak & a Diagnostic

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Aboriginals, Art, Canada, Sharing

≈ 11 Comments

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The late Kenojuak Ashevak , considered one of the pioneers of Inuit art, saw her first-ever print, Rabbit Eating Seaweed, included in the 1959 Cape Dorset collection. The early work points to the distinctive style for which the famed artist would become renown. (Historymuseum.ca) (Photo credit: CBC.ca)

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The Red Fox by Kenojuak Ashevak (Photo credit: Nunatsiaq News (See Aboriginals in North America)

I apologize for not posting for a long time. There has been a change in my life, but it is not a serious change.

Here is my story. A few weeks ago, I told my doctor that my memory was playing tricks on me. Test confirmed mild cognitive impairment. I will lose my driver’s license and my precious little red Toyota.

Do not be alarmed. I was not diagnosed until the early 1990s, but I have suffered from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME since 1976. Victims get lost in mid-sentence and don’t remember words and names. I continued working and had a successful but shorter career than I would have liked. The only difference between the old and the new diagnostic is age. I am now older. But it could simply be that moving tired me out and that taking a mortgage, at my age, was stressful. Life is not always easy.

In short, I could not work on posts for several days because I was making various arrangements that would allow me to stay home for many long years, despite mild cognitive deficiency. Ironically, destiny led me to purchase a lovely apartment in the appropriate building. It has elevators, a heated interior swimming pool, and, as I have told you in an earlier post, it is located very near a small market place that includes a post office and most of the facilities I require.

My next post is on Métis leader Gabriel Dumont and the North-West Rebellion. Métis and Amerindians were losing their land, so surveyors can cut it up into little squares while a railroad was being built that woul take citizens from sea to sea: A Mari usque ad Mare, the Canadian motto.

Canadian Confederation was very costly,

As a leader, Gabriel Dumont was second only to Louis Riel. They resisted losses brought by Canadian expansion westward. The video inserted below is a fine account of events that took Canada from sea to sea, but a post is necessary.

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Gabriel Dumont (Photo credit: The Canadian Encyclopedia)

© Micheline Walker
19 April 2018
updated 20 April 2018
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Aboriginals in North America

03 Tuesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Aboriginals, Canadian History, Kenojuak Ashenak, Métis

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Acclaimed Cape Dorset artist Kenojuak Ashevak’s striking Red Fox is predicted to be one of the most popular prints of this year’s collection. (PHOTO COURTESY OF CAPE DORSET FINE ARTS)

Photo credit:  Nunatsiaq News

 

Aboriginals in Canada

King Philip’s War (20 September 2015)
Bernard-Anselme and Joseph d’Abbadie: Sons of a Different Mind (16 September 2015)
Jean-Vincent d’Abbadie, Baron de Saint-Castin (11 September 2015)
The Métis in Canada (4 June 2015)
The Red River Settlement (30 May 2015)
Canada’s Amerindians: Enfranchisement (24 May 2015)
Residential Schools for Canada’s Amerindians (21 May 2015)
The Art of Kenojuak Ashevak (19 May 2015)
Inuit Art (17 May 2015)
Au pays des jours sans fin (16 May 2015)
Aboriginals in Canada (14 May 2015)
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 (Indigenous Foundations) (6 May 2015)
Louis Riel as Father of Confederation (22 May 2012)

Aboriginals in the United States

Welsh Native Americans: Madoc’s Story (11 October 2015)
The Ten Lost Tribes: Native Americans (24 September 2015)
King Philip’s War (20 September 2015)
“The Song of Hiawatha,” completed (1 September 2015)
“The Song of Hiawatha,” as Amerindian Lore (29 August 2015)
“The Song of Hiawatha,” a Prologue (27 August 2015)
Comments on Aboriginal Tales (23 August 2015)
The Deluge and other Amerindians Myths (21 August 2015)
Collecting Amerindian Folklore (17 August 2015)

Fiction (Complete text)

“The Humming-bird and the Crane” (14 August 2015)
“How the Bear Lost its Tale,” a Cherokee Fable (4 August 2015)

Collections online

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© Micheline Walker
22 May 2015
WordPress