Race & the Rule of Law in British Columbia – a chronology

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British Colonist, 8 March 1861:

• “Locate reservations for them on which to earn their own living, and if they trespass on white settlers punish them severely. A few lessons would soon enable them to form a correct estimation of their own inferiority, and settle the Indian title too.”

Land Ordinance, 1865, ends the First Nations right to homestead which existed during the governorship of James Douglas.  It states:

• Such right of pre-emption shall not be held to extend to any of the Aborigines of this Continent, except to such as shall have obtained the Governor’s special permission in writing to that effect.

Joseph Trutch, Chief Comissioner of Lands & Works, BC, 1867:

• The Indians really have no right to the lands they claim, nor are they of any actual value or utility to them. . . .”

Joseph Trutch, 1869:

• “Our system of treatment of Indians was more humane than in any other country. Our laws entitled them to all the rights and privileges of the white man; they have thriven under them and had vastly improved in every respect by contact with the white man. The laws when applied to the Indians were always strained in his favour.”

1871-BC joins Confederation and becomes part of Canada.  Clause 13 of the Terms of Union states:

• The charge of the Indians, and the trusteeship and management of the lands reserved for their use and benefit, shall be assumed by the Dominion Government, and a policy as liberal as that hitherto pursued by the British Columbia government shall be continued by the Dominion Government after the Union.

1872-First Nations and Chinese excluded from voting in BC.  At this time, First Nations outnumber the non-First Nations population (including a major Chinese population) more than two to one.

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* * * * * * * *   Professions barred to persons not having the provincial vote: Law, pharmacy, chartered accountancy, political office, police, forestry, post office work, public health nursing.

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1876-Chinese and First Nations prohibited from voting in municipal elections in the province.

1878-BC passes a law prohibiting Chinese from employment in public works.

1878-The Chinese Taxation Act, 1878, an Act of the BC government, requires all Chinese to pay a license fee of $10 a month.  (At that time, 50 cents a day was a common wage for a Chinese, or a First Nations, and a dollar a day for a man of European descent.)  The Chinese Taxation Act is struck down by the court because it interferes with the exclusive right of the government in Ottawa to pass immigration laws.

1881-1884-Fifteen thousand Chinese are hired as indentured servants to build the CPR.

1884-BC enacts An Act to prevent Chinese from acquiring Crown Lands.

Gilbert Sproat, 1885, on the character of the Chinese labourer:

• “Of a fixed persistent type, alien, beyond any control or chance of change, to everything that concerns western civilization.”

H.O. Bell-Irving, BC businessman, 1884:

• “I think it is the destiny of the white man to be worked for by the inferior races.”

1885-Euro-Canadian rioters attempt to chase all Chinese from Vancouver.

1890-Under pressure from White coalminers, BC amends the Coal Mine Regulation Act to prohibit Chinese from working at better-paying jobs at the coal face.

• S. 4. No boy under the age of twelve years, and no woman or girl of any age, and no Chinaman, shall be employed in or allowed to be for the purpose of employment in any mine to which this Act applies below ground. Coal Mine Regulation Act, RSBC, 1890, C. 138

1895-Japanese excluded from voting in BC.

1899-The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court in the British Empire, strikes down s. 4 of the Coal Mine Regulation Act because it interferes with federal powers regulating immigration.

1907, September 7^th-Thousands of Euro-Canadians demonstrate under the banner, “Stand for a White Canada.”  They later riot in Vancouver’s Chinatown.

1908-“Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan limits Japanese immigration to Canada to 400 persons a year.  Federal Immigration Act amended, contrary to the laws of the British Empire, to prevent immigration from India, another British colony.

1909-French-Canadian workers encouraged to move to BC to replace Chinese and South Asian lumber mill workers.  Maillardville founded.

1911-South Asians excluded from voting in BC.

1913-1916-(See the Land Question chronology for actions of the McKenna-McBride Commission in regard to Indian reserve allocation and cut-off lands.)

1914-The ship Komagata Maru, carrying 376 potential immigrants from India, is turned away from Vancouver harbour.

1923-Canada passes the Chinese Immigration Act, 1923, virtually eliminating Chinese immigration to Canada.  From 1923 until its repeal in 1947, only twelve Chinese enter Canada as immigrants.

1927-In response to lobbying from the Six Nations in Ontario for self-government and the Allied Tribes of BC for recognition of Aboriginal title, the Federal Government passes the Pursuit of Claims Act making it illegal for any lawyer or other person to receive money to assist First Nations in the pursuit of claims.  The Allied Tribes and other First Nation organizations collapse, as well as Euro-Canadian groups such as Friends of the Indians.

1942-Order-in-Council PC1486 prohibits “all persons of the Japanese race” from living within 100 miles (160 km.) of the BC coast.

1947-Chinese and Indo-Canadians gain the right to vote in provincial elections.

1949-Japanese and First Nations granted the right to vote in provincial elections.

1951-The Pursuit of Claims sections, along with sections prohibiting the potlatch, are quietly removed from the Indian Act.

1960-First Nations are permitted to vote in federal elections.

1969-The Federal government issues their White Paper on Indian policy which proposes to abolish Indian status and Indian reserves.  All First Nations are to be assimilated into the Canadian population.

Brian Smith, Attorney General of BC, 1985:

• “You start negotiating land claims and you’re down the Neville Chamberlain route.”

Chief Justice McEachern, in Delgamuukw v. The Queen, BC Supreme Court, 1991:

• “There is no doubt, to quote Hobbs [sic], that aboriginal life in the territory was, at best, “nasty, brutish and short.”

History of Colonization 1 – 300 Spartans Fought to Protect It

1. The Standard Model

Modern history begins in 1492.  That part of history which Europeans like to emphasize has been told and retold for more than 500 years.  It has formed the core of our school curricula.  It has become folklore.  It has become Hollywood product.  Disney has a version.  Three hundred Spartans fought to protect it.

In the course of the last 500 years, the history of the rise of Europe has become the Standard Model of human history.  This, despite the fact that it leaves practically everybody out, unless you are European–and leaves most Europeans out, too, especially if you are poor, or rural, or working class, or female, or Eastern European, or inconvenient.

My project, of which this is the first instalment, is an attempt to open a discussion of history as seen from the point of view of the Indigenous people of Canada.  It is not intended to present a new Standard Model of history, but it is definitely intended to question the existing Standard Model, which has been more or less forced upon all of us.  Gypsies.  Presbyterians.  Telephone repair personnel.  All of us.  Maybe even you.

So you’ll have to excuse me if I say something here or there which challenges your point of view.  I just think that once in a while the Standard Model has to be questioned, and today I will take my turn.

Please don’t send your 300 Spartans after me.

2. Some Cats Got It

One of the things that has plagued European historians is the question of what it is that makes Europeans so darn superior to everybody else.  Is it their inventiveness?  Their natural love of freedom?  Their climate?  The peculiar shape and geography of the European continent which defies stultifying empire building?  Was it the influence of the Hebrews, the Romans and the Greeks?  Was it the work of Irish monks?  Or maybe those clever Scots?  Or was it merely the good old Protestant work ethic?  Or, as everyone once solemnly believed, are Europeans simply just superior?

“Some cats got it,” as Leiber and Stoller said, “and some cats ain’t.”

Everything on the above list has been seriously asserted by historians to explain the rise of Europe after 1492, (except Leiber and Stoller whose none-too-serious assertion is meant to explain why some cool cats are cooler than others.)  Most of the listed ideas still hold some currency in some quarters, not least the notion of inherent European superiority, that is, racism.  The idea that Europeans are somehow more inventive, more rational, have and had more rational family structures, are more freedom loving, are more venturesome, are less violent than other people—all of these are merely racism as well, no matter how people try to pretend that they aren’t.

And me, I’m just an irksome contrarian who doesn’t like racist explanations for things.  You have to do better than that, I insist, stern-voiced, forefinger a-wiggle waggle, a crinkle in my brow.

But before we go forward, I should clarify something.  I am talking about after 1492 here.  The inhabitants of what is now thought of as Europe, (the concept of a place called Europe, of a civilization distinctly European, did not exist in the 15th century) were no more advanced socially, economically, or technologically than other Old World civilizations prior to 1492.

Says JM Blaut in The Colonizer’s Model of the World:

When we travel, mentally, back to medieval Europe, we pass backward through the eras in which Europeans clearly were technologically superior to everyone else, and so we tend to expect that superiority to have been the state of things at all prior times.  But Europe advanced technologically beyond Asia and Africa mainly after the beginning of the industrial revolution.  Europe did not even begin to forge ahead of other civilizations in technology and science until the seventeenth century or even later. (109.)

Blaut calls the tendency to read in the past what you have experienced in the present as “telescoping history.”  Thus the American founding fathers, who were mostly just making a power play in 1776, are today portrayed as freedom-loving because the country they created became freedom-loving.  Even the Spartans, from a militaristic slave state obsessed with racial purity (yes, the original fascist society, beloved of Hitler) are today mythologized as noble and rational defenders of Western values—at least in the Hollywood version, which, a lot of the time, is the only version we get.

So, to make my point, whatever those cats in Europe got, technologically speaking, they got it after 1492 and not before.

The next instalment discusses why 1492 was so important (even if Columbus wasn’t, except in a lot of nasty ways.)

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Readings:

J.M. Blaut, The Colonizer`s Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History, 1993, Guildford Press, NY, presents extended versions of the arguments made here, as well as arguments not touched on, and represents an excellent inoculation against the Standard Model.

Acknowledgements:

The Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller quote is taken from the song “What Is the Secret of Your Success?” recorded by the Coasters in 1957.

Glossary:

Standard Model – used here to characterize a type of history telling which substitutes a heavily white-washed story  of the rise of Europe for the story of civilization itself.

Telescoping history – the tendency to imagine in the past what exists in the present, and to presume that what is true now has always been true.

On Being Political

The following is a excerpt from the introduction to my book Featherfolk, a work in progress.

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The book will be seen as political. And it is, in the sense that it is an attempt to influence people. It is also partly directed toward the educational system of Canada, an arena already supercharged with cultural politics. The intention of this book is both to inform and to advocate change, change in people’s thinking and assumptions, change in the way, for instance, Canadian educators—and their directors—interact with and serve the Indigenous people who are among their clients.

I make no apology for being political.

An article in the Vancouver Sun[1], vintage 2005, cites the Aboriginal graduation rate from Vancouver high schools: 14%. The comparable rate for students of other ethnicities is given as 82%. This is a remarkable discrepancy, and you might suppose it indicated a problem with the schools. If Aboriginal people were 5 of 6 times more likely to die at a certain hospital than non-Aboriginal people, you might be excused for thinking there was something wrong at that hospital, and that maybe something ought to be done about it. No excuses. No alibis. Just solve the problem.

But no, according to the Vancouver Sun’s analysis—and the apparent consensus of the education officials interviewed by the newspaper—the problem lies with the First Nations themselves, and the “poverty and domestic instability” which characterizes their lives. The article states, “The reason for failure among first nations [sic] children are as varied as the lives of those who fall away.”[2]

But blaming the Aboriginal students’ failure entirely on the dysfunctional lives they live outside of the school system doesn’t make sense. The figures refuse to add up. To be workable as an explanation, 80 or 90% of the Aboriginal families in Vancouver would have to be living lives ravaged by poverty and/or a crippling domestic instability. Yes, everybody knows that the problems in the Aboriginal community run deep. But really, guys and gals, not that deep.

To satisfactorily explain the Aboriginal failure rate in Vancouver schools (and everywhere else in Canada, for that matter) we’ll have to do better than scapegoating Aboriginal poverty. The reality is that some people somewhere are not doing their jobs right. They have been hired to serve all the children in the school system equally, but they have not been serving Aboriginal children anywhere near as well as they have been serving non-Aboriginal children. To add contempt to incompetence, they blame the Aboriginal children themselves for this failure. A poor workman blames his tools, and a poor school system blames its students.

And the local media, well, they blame the students too. So nothing is done. In fact, nothing is even promised.

In the face of such attitudes, what is an Aboriginal educator to do but get political about it? Politics is inescapable if you want something to be done.

Regardless, being born Aboriginal in Canada sometimes feels like a political act all by itself. You have to answer for it somehow.

You tell me you are Aboriginal, sir. Explain yourself!

I have found myself defending my Aboriginality on street corners and classrooms, in bars and buses, during dinnertable conversations and in job interviews, to school counsellors and fishermen, law students and bureaucrats, sportsmen and evangelists. In the courtrooms of Canada, lawyers in dark robes explain it to learned justices. In 1492, on the beach in Hispaniola, the Tainos tried to explain it to Columbus.

No one has to choose to be political if they are Aboriginal. It is a role we are born to, thrust into by the very fact of our existence. To be Aboriginal is to answer for the actions and words of every Aboriginal person, live or fictional, that a person has ever heard of. Whaling? That’s my business, whether I am Inuit or Metis, whether I live by the sea or on the prairies or in the mountains. Taxation? That’s my business, whether I have an income to pay taxes on or not. Scalping? That’s my business, although nobody I know has ever practiced it, and I’m fairly sure it’s no longer a problem in Winnipeg or Toronto, either.

To be Aboriginal is to be the object of a thousand theories, most of them predicated on ignorance, whether with good intentions or bad. To be Aboriginal is to be spoken to, spoken about, examined, criticized, lauded, explained, and deconstructed without ever truly being seen. We are told that we have too much when so many of us have neither property nor dignity nor pride, when so many of us have had our parents stolen, our children, our culture, our languages, our religions, our freedom and our lives.

Somebody said once that for a moment on the beach in the Indies in 1492, there seemed a chance at understanding. Columbus wrote in his journal, “At daybreak great multitudes of men came to the shore, all young and of fine shapes, and very handsome. Their hair was not curly but loose and coarse like horse-hair. All have foreheads much broader than any people I had hitherto seen. Their eyes are large and very beautiful….”[3]

For a moment, there was wonder, acceptance, but as quickly it was gone.

The next day Columbus wrote: “I could conquer the whole of them with fifty men and govern them as I pleased.” It has been a long struggle to return to that lost moment, just before conquest.

Is the message that I present political? Indeed it is, for without presenting this dimension, the picture would be incomplete. Without an acknowledgement and an elucidation of the expressly political in the Aboriginal experience, this work could be nothing more than a tourist brochure of some foreign port:

Come ashore, learn some local phrases, buy a miniature totem; tomorrow we visit an ancient site, eat bannock and see a Native dance

—and if the local feather-folk have concerns beyond my entertainment, what is that to me?

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[1] June 18, 2005, C1-C4.

[2] Terms designating ethnic groups are commonly capitalized in English. For instance, English, Latvians, Mennonites, etc. To use non-capital letters in the term First Nations is the stylistic equivalent of referring to a grown woman as a girl.

[3] This quote and the one in the following paragraph is taken from Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Lowen. Simon & Schuster, NY, 1996.

Illustration by Haisla Collins.

An Informal Chronology of the Aboriginal Land Question in B.C.

Joseph Trutch, 1867:

The Indians really have no right to the lands they claim, nor are they of any actual value or utility to them. . . .

Joseph Trutch made Indian land policy from 1864 to 1871.

During his regime, the standard reserve allocation became a maximum of ten acres per family of five.

During the same period white settlers could pre-empt (that is, homestead) 320 acres in the interior of the province, and 160 acres on the coast.

Land Ordinance, 1865, ends the First Nations right of pre-emption which existed during the Douglas era.  It states:

Such right of pre-emption shall not be held to extend to any of the Aborigines of this Continent, except to such as shall have obtained the Governor’s special permission in writing to that effect.

1865:

Cowichan refuse to fence their lands for fear of weakening their claims to unfenced lands.

Secwepemc Chief Nisquaimith charges white ranchers rent to range cattle on Secwepemc lands

Trutch reduces a reserve along a 40 mile stretch of the Thompson River to three reserves totalling 12 square miles.

Reserves on the lower Fraser are reduced by some 40,000 acres (16,190 hectares.)  Trutch offers no compensation.

Joseph Trutch, 1869:

Our system of treatment of Indians was more humane than in any other country. Our laws entitled them to all the rights and privileges of the white man; they have thriven under them and had vastly improved in every respect by contact with the white man. The laws when applied to the Indians were always strained in his favour.

1871–B.C. joins Confederation. Clause 13 of the Terms of Union states:

The charge of the Indians, and the trusteeship and management of the lands reserved for their use and benefit, shall be assumed by the Dominion Government, and a policy as liberal as that hitherto pursued by the British Columbia Government shall be continued by the Dominion Government after the Union.

Joseph Trutch is generally credited with the wording of this clause.

As an inducement for entering Confederation, Canada agrees to build a railroad to B.C.

1872–Indians (and Chinese) excluded from voting in B.C. At this time, First Nations outnumber the non-First Nations population more than two to one.

Professions barred to persons not having the provincial vote:

Law, pharmacy, chartered accountancy, political office, police, forestry, post office work, public health nursing.

1873–Canada suggests Indian reserve allocations of eighty acres per family. B.C. is only prepared to offer ten.

1875–Canada renews its request that B.C. accept the 80 acres per family of 5 minimum standard of reserve allocation.  In response B.C. agrees to set up a committee to look into the issue.  At the same time it reluctantly agrees to publish Papers Connected With the IndianLand Question, 1850-1875.  The committee set up to deal with reserve allocations meets several times, but without the participation of the governing faction.  In the end it recommends acceptance of the 80 acre minimum.  The recommendation never becomes a part of the official government record owing to manoeuvrings of the governing faction, and the recommendation is not adopted.

1875–Joint Reserve Commission established.  Reserves are to be alloted without a preset or fixed acreage.  Lands removed from a reserve are automatically to revert to the province–the “reversionary interest.”

1876—A three man Joint Reserve Commission begins work, including Gilbert Sproat as the joint commissioner.

1877-78--BC tries to get the Joint Reserve Commission disbanded. Succeeds in 1878 in having it reduced to one commissioner, Sproat.

1880–Sproat is replaced by Peter O’Reilly, Joseph Trutch’s brother-in-law. O’Reilly spends much of his time in the next five years revising Sproat’s work and reducing reserves.

   FN pop. ……Total pop.

1881 ……..25,661…………49,459

1891 ……..28-35,202…..98,173

1901……..25,488………..178,657

1884--B.C. transfers 10,976,000 acres of land–the Railway Belt–to the Dominion to help finance the building of the CPR. An additional 3,500,000 acres–later known as the Peace River Block– are transferred in the Peace River area.

1885–Canadian Pacific Railway completed.

Nisga’a Chief Skadeen, to white trespassers, 1886:

Saayeen! Saayeen!–Get off my land!

1887–Royal Commission sent to Tsimshian/Nisga’a Territories to hear their grievances. They lacked any authority to change any decisions. Their conclusion was that it was unthinkable to recognize aboriginal land rights because that would bring settler rights into question.

Kincolith Chief to Royal Commission, 1887:

We nearly fainted when we heard this land was claimed by the Queen.

1889–O’Reilly resigns as Reserve Commissioner.

1890--Nisga’a land committee formed under the leadership of Lakalzap Chief Arthur Calder and with the help of missionary Alfred Green.  The purpose of the Committee was to lobby politicians and government officials in respect of the Royal Commission of 1887 and in regard to the federal fishing permit system lately introduced which restricted Nisga’a fishing.

1899–Treaty No. 8 is signed with the First Nations of northern Alberta and part of the Northwest Territories.  The intention is also to include First Nations from the Peace River area of British Columbia.

1900-1914–Various Dene groups in north-eastern British Columbia are brought under Treaty No. 8.  Reserve land is allotted to them from the Peace River Block, under the control of Canada. B.C. is not consulted and is not present at the negotiating table.

1906–Tsimshian in Prince Rupert surrender land the federal government wants for railway purposes.  B.C. claims the reversionary interest in the land, parcels and sells it to private individuals. The Tsimshian are not compensated.

1907–Nisga’a Land Committee (newly re)formed to press the land issue.  The NLC is composed of 16 chiefs–4 clan chiefs from each of the 4 villages of the Nisga’a in the NassValley.

1908–Government of Premier Richard McBride refuses further provincial co-operation in reserve allocation.

1909–Nisga’a Land Committee approaches other coastal First Nations groups.  The Indian Rights Committee is formed to lobby against Premier McBride’s policies.

Interior First Nations meet at SpencesBridge to form the Interior Tribes of B.C.  The Nisga’a meet with them to discuss the land question.  The meeting results in a delegation to PM Wilfred Laurier who showed a willingness to support an appeal to the JCPC. Laurier loses the election shortly afterwards.

A white group, Friends of the Indians, offers support to the Indians at this time. A prominent member of this organization, Arthur O’Meara, an Anglican minister, 20 years a lawyer, becomes associated with the land question thereafter.

1912–McKenna-McBride Agreement reached between the federal government and the government of BC establishing a royal commission to adjust the size of reserves in British Columbia.

1913–Royal Commission of Indian Affairs for the Province of B.C. (McKenna-McBride Commission) is formed and begins work. Its mandate does not include aboriginal rights or title, nor fishing, hunting, water or foreshore rights. The Commissions promises First Nations appearing before it that no lands will be cut off from their reserves without their consent. At the end of this process the Province is supposed to give up its reversionary interest, allowing it to reclaim any Indian reserve land that loses legal reserve status.

The 5 member commission travels the province listening to First Nations, but also to farmers, mayors, railway representatives, and so on.

1913–Nisga’a petition the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England, the highest court in the British Empire, in regard to the land question.  Their Statement of the Nisga’a Nation or Tribe of Indiansclaims title to their lands under the Royal Proclamation, 1763, as a human right.  They ask for a treaty and self-government. The Judicial Committee refers the matter back to the Canadian government. [Note: At this point the Royal Proclamation becomes generally known to BC FNs. Pan-Indian sentiments grow as different groups see themselves as one of the “nations or tribes” recognized by the Proclamation and denied justice in B.C.]

Proclamation of 1763

“WHEREAS we have taken into Our Royal Consideration the extensive and valuable Acquisitions in America, secured to our Crown by the late Definitive Treaty of Peace, concluded at Paris the 10th Day of February last; and being desirous that all Our loving Subjects, as well of our Kingdom as of our Colonies in America, may avail themselves with all convenient Speed, of the great Benefits and Advantages which must accrue therefrom to their Commerce, Manufactures, and Navigation, We have thought fit, with the Advice of our Privy Council, to issue this our Royal Proclamation, hereby to publish and declare to all our loving Subjects, that we have, with the Advice of our Said Privy Council, granted our Letters Patent, under our Great Seal of Great Britain, to erect, within the Countries and Islands ceded and confirmed to Us by the said Treaty, Four distinct and separate Governments, styled and called by the names of Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Grenada, and limited and bounded as follows, viz.

First — The Government of Quebec bounded on the Labrador Coast by the River St. John, and from thence by a Line drawn from the Head of that River through the Lake St. John, to the South end of the Lake Nipissing; from whence the said Line, crossing the River St. Lawrence, and the Lake Champlain, in 45 Degrees of North Latitude, passes along the High Lands which divide the Rivers that empty themselves into the said River St. Lawrence from those which fall into the Sea; and also along the North Coast of the Baye des Châleurs, and the Coast of the Gulph of St. Lawrence to Cape Rosières, and from thence crossing the Mouth of the River St. Lawrence by the West End of the Island of Anticosti, terminates at the aforesaid River of St. John, etc. etc. etc. Given at our Court at St. James’s the 7th Day of October 1763, in the Third Year of our Reign.

God Save the King

1914–Canadian government approves hearing the Nisga’a case in the Exchequer Court of Canada under certain conditions:

If the Nisga’a win, they were to immediately surrender the lands for settlement and accept whatever compensation the government offers. The size of reserves were to be determined by the McKenna-McBride Commission, after which all claims against B.C. were to cease. The B.C. government could appoint its own lawyers; the Nisga’a lawyers were to be appointed and paid for by the federal government.

The Nisga’a reject these conditions.

1916–Allied Tribes of B.C. formed at a meeting at the Squamish reserve in N. Vancouver organized by Andrew Paull and Peter Kelly, with representation from both coastal and interior groups excluding just the Nuu-chah-nulth and Kwaguilth. The coastal organization, the Native Rights Assn. is dissolved; the Interior Tribes of B.C. continues.

The Allied Tribes’ demands include reserves of 160 acres per person, recognition of aboriginal title and compensation for lands already taken. They want to take the court case all the way to the JCPC.

1916–McKenna-McBride recommends the addition of 87,000 acres of reserve land and the cut-off of 47,000 acres. The value of the lands to be cut off is more than three times the value of the lands to be added.

1920--To implement the recommendations of the McKenna-McBride Commission, Canada passes the B.C. Indian Lands Settlement Act. The Act removes the necessity of obtaining First Nations consent when cutting off land from reserves.

1924--Recommendations of the McKenna-McBride Commission adopted.

1927--A joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons is appointed to deal with the land claims issue. Representatives of the Allied Tribes are heckled by members of the committee while making their presentations, and crucial evidence is withheld from them by Indian Affairs.  The committee finds that the First Nations claims have no merit. An additional $100,000 a year is allocated to B.C. in lieu of treaty settlements.  Canada then passes an amendment to the Indian Act. It is thereafter illegal for anyone to accept money to pursue Indian claims. The Allied Tribes of B.C. disintegrates shortly afterward.

1931–Native Brotherhood of B.C. is founded. Although on the surface a fisher’s union, it continues to uphold ideals of the Allied Tribes.

1938–The province adopts Order-in-Council 1036, conveying title to Indian reserve lands in the province to Canada. The province retains the rights to precious metals on these lands, and the right to take back up to 5% of them for public works.

1951–Pursuit of Claims clause and prohibition of the Potlatch dropped from the Indian Act.

1955–Nisga’a Tribal Council is formed with the settlement of the land question their main objective.

1958–Nuu-chah-nulth form tribal council.

1960–First Nations are permitted to vote in federal elections.

1965–In the Queen v. White & Bob case, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds Douglas treaties as legal treaties under Canadian Law.

1969–The Nisga’a take their land claim to court. B.C. courts rule that Indian title never existed in the province.

1969--Federal government issues their White Paper on Indian policy which proposes to abolish Indian status and Indian reserves. All Indians are to be assimilated into the Canadian population.

1973–The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the Nisga’a did hold title to their lands prior to the creation of the colony of British Columbia. They split evenly over whether this title still exists. The federal government moves to start negotiating land claims.

1974–Quebec signs the James Bay agreement with First Nations of Northern Quebec, the first modern treaty recognizing aboriginal rights.

1976–Canada begins land claim negotiations with the Nisga’a. B.C. will not participate.

1981–B.C. and Canada begin negotiating with First Nations over compensation for the McKenna-McBride cut off lands.

1982—Existing Aboriginal rights are affirmed and protected in Canada’s newly patriated constitution.

1984–The Supreme Court of Canada in the Guerin case states that aboriginal rights in B.C. pre-existed British, Canadian and British Columbia law.

1985–The B.C. Court of Appeal grants an injunction to the Nuu-chah-nulth to halt logging on MearesIsland. The reason they give is that logging might destroy the value of Nuu-chah-nulth aboriginal claims to the island.

  Attorney General of B.C. Brian Smith, 1985.

“You start negotiating land claims and you’re down the Neville Chamberlain route.”

1988–First Nations Congress formed.

1989–The Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en bring their land claim to court.

1990–The Supreme Court of Canada in the Sparrow case affirms the aboriginal right to fish for food and ceremonial purposes in B.C., subject only to the need for conservation.

B.C.Land Claims Task Force is established with input from the federal and provincial governments and the First Nations Summit.

1991–Chief Justice Allen McEachern rules against the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en, saying that aboriginal title had been extinguished in B.C. before 1871.

1992–B.C. government acknowledges the existence of aboriginal title. B.C., Canada and the First Nations Summit sign an agreement to establish the B.C. Treaty Commission.

1993–B.C. Treaty Commission begins operating.

B.C. Court of Appeal partially reverses McEachern’s decision in the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en case, recognizing a limited form of aboriginal title, not including self-government.

1994–The government of Jean Chretien accepts that there exists a constitutional right for aboriginal self-government.

1996–An agreement-in-principle is reached between the Nisga’a and the governments of B.C. and Canada in the Nisga’a treaty negotiations.

1997—Supreme Court of Canada rules in Delgamuukw case in favour of the Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en, affirming continuing Aboriginal title in B.C.

1999—The Nisga’a final agreement is signed by B.C., Canada and the Nisga’a, and is finally ratified by Parliament in 2000.

2008—The first agreement is reached under the BC Treaty Process with the Tsawwassen First Nation. (The Nisga’a agreement was not negotiated under this process.)

 

Lies Which Are Better Than the Truth

The Smiths and Goodbears have a land dispute. The Goodbears own certain land that the Smiths want, and refuse to move off of it.  To force the issue, three Smith brothers break into the Goodbears house wielding knives.  They sexually assault one girl before they are chased off by the girl’s brother wielding a baseball bat.  While being driven off, one Smith brother is killed, another has his arm broken, and the third escapes with the angry Goodbear boy in pursuit.  The third Smith brother is cornered, beaten up and turned over to the police, by then also sporting a broken arm.

“Man,” he said, as the police took him into custody, “that guy was going crazy with that bat. You should lock him up too.”

This incident is later reported in a history book in the following manner. “In the land dispute between the Smiths and Goodbears, there were assaults and injuries on both sides. Contrary to the way the story has been told in the past, both sides, not just the Goodbears, exhibited ‘uncivilized’ behaviour.”

If you are an Aboriginal person, you are probably familiar with this kind of ‘balanced’ reporting by historians, which is not balanced at all.  Admittedly, it is fairer than the kind of reporting which preceded it, the kind that turned a genocidal gloryhound like James Armstrong Custer into a folk hero, celebrated in Hollywood movies like “They Died With Their Boots On.”  But Custer was most notable for making war against civilian populations, attacking Aboriginal encampments while the people slept.  Cavalry generals quoted slogans like “Nits become lice” in defense of Custer’s strategy of killing children as well as women and the elderly in his early morning raids.

Another example of old time history telling is exemplified in the painting, “The Death of Captain Cook.”  The painting depicts Captain Cook on shore, surrounded by agitated Hawaiians, signaling to some of his men in boats just offshore to hold back, to desist from attacking the natives.  The image is of the quintessentially civilized European protecting the Hawaiians from attack and bringing on his own death because of it.

In fact Cook had started out that day attempting to kidnap the Hawaiian king, and that is why he was standing on that beach and why the natives around him were agitated.  It was an attempted act of political terrorism which didn’t turn out as well as similar acts Cook had carried out earlier in his travels.  Yet he still might have lived if he hadn’t discharged his pistol upon one of the angry Hawaiians, thus prompting at last their fatal attack upon him and his men.  The Cook who stood upon that beach in Hawaii was not noble nor was he a hero, whatever else you might say about a remarkable man and a remarkable life.  And the lie told is against the Hawaiians who are forever vilified in history for merely resisting a criminal act by a dangerous and ill-intentioned foreigner.

History is filled with such lies, many of which have yet to be untold.

The historian of my fictional feud between the Goodbears and the Smiths at least did not pretend that the Smith brothers were heroes.  But that doesn’t mean the reporting was balanced, either.  The Smiths died or were injured while engaging in criminal acts.  The death and the injuries they sustained were brought on by themselves, and the Goodbear who fought them off was defending his family and his home.

Since the legitimate point of view of the Goodbears is not made clear in the telling, the impression that the reader takes away with him from my fictional historian is fundamentally a lie.  It is a lie because it pretends to be balanced, and it is not.  It is a lie which is not only a lie, but a hypocritical lie, the kind of lie which pretends to be better than the truth.

And no, telling history in that way “without taking sides” is not good enough.  Custer was a war criminal.  Cook was killed while committing a crime.  These characterizations are judgements based on the idea that acts committed in self-defense are not equal to the same acts committed by criminal assailants.  It matters who is in the wrong in a given situation.

This is “taking sides,” I suppose.

It is also telling the truth.

Why Featherfolk?

I started this project in order to talk about Aboriginal culture and history and related subjects, most of which you learned nothing of in school if you are at all an average Canadian.

I’d say that the average Canadian, including the average Canadian journalist and the average Canadian school teacher, and certainly the average Canadian politician, has probably gained more of their understanding of Aboriginal people from watching the Lone Ranger and Tonto, and old John Wayne movies, than they learned in any other way.  Hollywood historiography being what it is, the understanding imparted is consequently muddle-headed, rotten with stereotypes, and wrong.  It is in fact, whether you realize it or not, a fundamentally racist understanding, part of the self-serving mythos of a conquering people designed to prove that the people they conquered, enslaved, raped, robbed and oppressed were deserving of what they got.

Sound like Hollywood to you?

I also realize that it’s not your fault.  You didn’t mean to be so wrong.  You couldn’t know you were being misled.  And you promise not to watch any more cowboy and Indian movies without adult supervision. You’re just another victim of the times.

Everybody understands, and nobody holds a grudge.

History is written by the victors–we’ve all heard that before.  The fashionably cynical like to quote it when they can’t think of anything else to say.  I’ve had it said to me innumerable times throughout my career as an educator, as a teacher of history, but I’ve never been quite sure to what point.  Is it an excuse for past behaviour, for past lies and past distortions about Aboriginal people?  If so, I accept it as an excuse.  History telling has been a long time growing up.  But the fact that we did it in the past is hardly a reason to continue doing the same in the present, and nor is it  a solid basis for ongoing educational policy.

Lies: bad.

Truth: good.

Even a school trustee can understand that.

Do people tell me that history is written by the victors assuming that it can’t be any other way?  But that’s nonsense.  Historians can strive for accuracy and balance, and most of them probably do.  In fact, I rely on such historians for much of what I have to say.

Anyway, what you will find here is history not as told by the victors, not as referred to by the ignorant, the historical denialists, the colonizers and racists.  You will find here those parts of history which the “victors” –whoever they are–have left out.

So why featherfolk?  I use the term to refer to the mainstream image of Aboriginal people.  I once saw it when my daughter was young, while walking down the halls of her elementary school.  Some teacher had asked his or her students to draw a picture of Indians, and the image produced by student after student and now posted on a hall display, was of somebody wearing a feather.

Try it yourself.  Ask a child or an adult to draw an Indian.  See how often the stereotype returns.  Then consider whether such a stereotype is a healthy or respectful one, or whether it speaks to a well-rounded, nuanced understanding of Aboriginal people in general.

For one thing, the image derives from a lifestyle long past.  It is an image frozen in time, as if Aboriginal people were frozen in time as well.  For another, the image is representative of a single time and place, whereas Aboriginal people belonged to hundreds of different cultures which represented a greater variety of cultural expression than what was found in Europe at the time of contact.  It is as if the whole of European culture and history was represented in the image of a Bavarian yodeler with a Robin Hood cap and lederhosen.  No European would accept such reductionism.  Aboriginal people should not be expected to, either.

I address this project to Aboriginal people who wish to continue to educate themselves about the past, and to aid their understanding of present day issues.  I equally address this project to those of the Canadian public who wish to enrich their understanding of Aboriginal people, who might be dismayed at the thought that perhaps their understanding of these matters up to now has been coloured by colonialism and unconscious racism, or who wish to learn more or examine another point of view.

Of course there are those who do not want to hear or know the truth.  Fine.  Ostriches were once purported to hide their heads in the sand, although that myth has been long since defeathered.  The only creatures who really do such a thing, so far as I know, are people.  People of the ostrich clan, and many other species of denialist, will get little satisfaction here.

And a hell of a lot of sarcasm.