History gets active in the United States

Democratic Party presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders, responding to the Black Lives Matter campaign against police killings of black Americans, recently declared that the United States was founded "on racist principles."

To which the rest of the world would probably have said, "Duh!"  But the Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, a strong supporter of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, responded with a New York Times op-ed declaring that it was not so and proclaiming that the idea of the United States founded on racial slavery is "a myth."

Yes, slavery was a powerful institution in 1787. Yes, most white Americans presumed African inferiority. And in 1787, proslavery delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia fought to inscribe the principle of property in humans in the Constitution. But on this matter the slaveholders were crushed.

Turns out that in the United States, the history blogosphere lives. There has been an outpouring of online responses from historians to Wilentz's argument.  The blog We're History, by a collective of Americanists, has been all over it, and at History News Network, Matthew Pinsker offers Wilentz's initial response to his critics and links to other Wilentz statements on slavery and the constitution -- as well as to Pinsker's own blog posts on how to teach the subject and the controversy.

Wilentz attributes opposition to his position mostly to

scholars and activists on the left who are rightly angry at America’s racist past.

and he may be right that the history bloggers who have seized on the issue are not a representative sample of the political affiliations of all American historians. And few of his critics have access to the op-ed pages of the New York Times, probably.  Still good to see the liveliness of the HistBlog down there and the engagement of historians in live issues.

Photo: from We're History

Pere Charlevoix returns

On est ravi de voir que Charlevoix, blogue (bilingue) de la Nouvelle-France, vit encore. Et avec de bonnes nouvelles:

As of early September, Archives Canada-France has risen from its ashes, with a new interface and under a new name: Archives de la Nouvelle-France.

Conferences

Went last Saturday to a daylong event on and about the Toronto Carrying Place, which drew on the fact that Samuel de Champlain and Etienne Brulé were in the vicinity (loosely defined) 400 years ago.

Almost two hundred people at 9:00 am on a sunny Saturday morning for a history event!  And all organized by keen young people at the local historical societies of Etobicoke, Swansea, and West Toronto Junction).  There was a morning panel session in which a lot of people (including Carolyn Podruchny, John Steckley, Annie Veulleux, Christian Bode, me) talked history. But they also organized a walking program along the Carrying Place that included an original music performance by Ars Musica, related dramatic monologues from Humber Shakespeare, and an enactment of the Haudenosaunee ritual one dish one spoon (suitably adapted).  Nice to see an awareness that a history event can be more than talking at you!

Same lesson from two First Nations speakers, Gary Sault of the Mississaugas of New Credit and Amy Desjarlais of the Anishnabe. They spoke, but they also drummed, chanted, and prayed.  Don't often see a non-indigenous historian trying that! Not easy, either.

Speaking of conferences, I'm looking forward to the Active History conference in London, Ont, next week, as promoted here.

Why Stephen Harper does it... and gets away with it.

Really a prime minister

A couple of weeks ago there was some note on this blog of Stephen Harper's frequent declaration -- though it ain't so and he must know it -- that Canadians do not elect a bunch of parties, they elect a leader and a government.

So here's a silly piece in the Toronto Star, no friend to Mr Harper, about past and present politicians with beards. And in it Sandro Contenta cheerfully declares:

The last Canadian prime minister to sport a beard was Mackenzie Bowell. But voters didn’t elect him.

and that:

The last elected prime minister with a beard was Alexander Mackenzie, who took over in 1873, after John A. Macdonald resigned.

Maybe the subliminal suggestion is that the election of bearded Thomas Mulcair would also be illegitimate. But both the quoted statements betray the confusion about Canadian elections that Stephen Harper works to encourage.

Mackenzie Bowell was no less prime minister than any other, because no prime minister is elected. He led the government that had the support of a majority of members of the House of Commons at the time, and that is the credential all prime ministers hold. If Sandro Contesta wants to say Bowell was not a real prime minister, he should note that Mackenzie came to power without an election too; he too had the support of a house majority before ever taking his party to the polls.

Pierre-Elliot Trudeau, Paul Martin, Kim Campbell, Paul Martin, John Turner... just a few prime ministers who, like Mackenzie and Bowell, took office without first winning an election.

We were saying a couple of weeks ago that Stephen Harper knows better.  But when so many journalists and commentators are determined to believe the same fallacy -- that prime ministers are elected -- you can see why he continues to work with it.

That Review of Canadian History Books WANTS YOU

I've been doing a little planning and organizing about how to marshall the talents of the readership here to run more notices about recent and noteworthy books in Canadian-interest history.  And that continues. More news to come, I hope.

But in the meantime, the fall book season is upon us, and something needs to be done.  So:  a pitch to readers of this blog who might consider doing book note reviews here. If interested, take a look below the jump.  If not, move along!

Cundill Prize shortlist

I've become a bit of a fan of the Cundill Prize, which gives $75,000, no less, to pretty much the best history book in the (English-speaking) world.  It aspires to be, if not the history Nobel, at least the history Booker, you might say.  I've been tempted into reading one or two winners from previous years, and they've been impressive: history of Christianity, history of China, suitably enormous topics.

If you have a yen to get into an enormous and erudite tome on some historical world you never contemplated before, the shortlist may be just what you need.  And 2015's is announced:

• Sven Beckert, Empire of Cotton: A Global History (Alfred A. Knopf)
• Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford University Press)
• Claudio Saunt, West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 (W.W. Norton & Company)
• Stuart B. Schwartz, Sea of Storms: A History of Hurricanes in the Greater Caribbean from Columbus to Katrina (Princeton University Press)
• Bettina Stangneth, Eichmann Before Jerusalem: The Unexamined Life of a Mass Murderer (Bodley Head)
• Nikolaus Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (Little, Brown/Hachette)

This year I've actually read one of them! Beckert's Empire of Cotton was one of my "books of 2014," in fact.  The other nominees will have to be pretty strong to keep up with that one.

Jury this year is historian Chad Gaffield, gadfly David Frum, publisher/writer Anna Porter, plus Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff and Brit diplomat Anthony Cary

Borealia, blog on early Canada

The restaurant: they do a thing with mussels in a steamy globe that is historic

Daniel Francis draws my attention to Borealia, a new group blog dedicated to the proposition that Canadian history pre-confederation really is worthy of (more) attention.  Word!

Google Borealia, and despite the difference in spelling, so far the blog is getting killed in the rankings by Boralia, the very hip, very wonderful, and rather expensive small restaurant on Ossington Street in Toronto dedicated to eating Canada. They do a tasting menu that offers high-chef allusions to pemmican, maple syrup, Red Fife wheat, Winnipeg goldeye, Malpeque oysters, cedar-planked salmon, and generally whatever seems indigenous and terrific in Canadian diets of the past.  (I was going to factcheck some Louisbourg reference in the menu, but the staff was busy and now I've forgotten anyway.)  They ought to cater every CanHist event ever held.

Meanwhile, link and push Borealia the blog up the rankings a bit!

Museum notes

Okay, maybe we should look to Buzzfeed for history links. Like this one, the story of the retirement party the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic held in Halifax for the rodent control officer who is retiring after seventeen years aboard its historic vessel CSS Acadia.  (But we're not doing no cat videos!)

Also tonight the Royal Ontario in Toronto notes 400 years of francophone activity in Ontario with a Champlain night: Patrice Dutil of the Champlain Society hosts Jose Brandao, Douglas Hunter, and Kirby Whiteduck.

Photo: Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, via Buzzfeed.

What might happen on October 20 (no, not a constitutional crisis)

John Courtney, longtime observer of Canadian politics at the University of Saskatchewan, sorts out what's likely to happen if no party has solid command of the House seats on the morning after the election.

An important point that politicians, the press and the public often overlook: Voters elect MPs and MLAs, not governments. It is the elected members in the House who decide who governs.

Hat tip: Accidental Deliberations

New Franklin mystery -- pushback

Russell Potter, a Rhode Island professor who describes himself as "not a journalist, nor a partisan (I'm not Canadian and have no horse in the electoral race there), just someone who has spent 25 years studying and researching the Franklin story" is unconvinced by the Paul Watson critique of how last year's discovery of the Erebus was handled. (See my post of yesterday here or directly below this post.) In a long post called "The Politics of Exploration" at his blog Visions of the North, Potter argues that:

While Watson's article certainly shows that there was a fair amount of squabbling and bitterness among some of the parties involved in the 2014 search, and that some details were, at first, imperfectly conveyed to the public (understandable in the great excitement of the moment), the evidence for any deliberate deceit -- especially on the part of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society's John Geiger -- is simply nonexistent.

Potter notes he was lead historical consultant on several international versions of a documentary on the Franklin discoveries, pointed to by Watson as one of the venues in which the RCGS's role in the discovery was inflated.

Clearly this debate will have legs. Note the discussion in the comments to Potter's post.

New Franklin mystery?

After the discovery of the Erebus late in the exploration season last year, it seemed reasonable to have high expectations for the 2015 season's investigation of the Franklin ships.  Maybe not the discovery of HMS Terror but at least some news about ongoing inspection of Erebus might have been expected

Parks Canada has just posted an update on "what's in the water this year" as part of its weekly Mission Update series -- and again it's just a listing of the nifty tech they are using. (Update: a few dive photos here.)  Whatever has been done or found this year is evidently being kept under wraps. Just no progress? Or is another prime ministerial media event looming -- closer to October 19, maybe?

We don't much link to Buzzfeed here -- can't we generate our own stupid stuff! -- but a couple of days ago it was to Buzzfeed that journalist Paul Watson took his long, detailed expose of how the discovery of Erebus last year and the credit for it, were manipulated and distorted. See the story here.

Those who actually found the wreck, along with others who spent years on the search, seethed in anger as they watched what they saw as a historic moment being misrepresented to the public.

Photo: CCGS Wilfrid Laurier by Jonathan Moore (no relation) from Buzzfeed.

Basil Johnston, Anishnaabe historian, 1929-2015 RIP

Basil Johnston, longtime ethnologist at the Royal Ontario Museum and pioneer writer of Anishnaabe history and lore, died September 8.

Johnston's best known work may be the memoir Indian School Days (1988), but he was a prolific scholar of indigenous languages and cultures, widely published in the Anishnaubae language as well as in English and bilingually. Quill and Quire has an obit here

Prize Watch: Berton Award to Lawrence Hill

Canada's History Society has announced that the Pierre Berton Award for 2015 is awarded to novelist Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes and other works. Now also known, a little confusingly, as "the Governor General's History Award for Popular Media," the Pierre Berton Award will be presented to Hill in Ottawa this fall. Previous honorees include the CBC series Canada: A People's History, author Charlotte Gray, and actor and filmmaker Paul Gross.

Hill, btw, has a new novel out: The Illegal, just published.

Parliamentary democracy takes down one of the world's most unpleasant democratically elected leaders

Smiling all the way to the gallows.

The caucus of the Australian Liberal (i.e., conservative) Party removed Prime Minister Tony Abbott from the leadership and selected cabinet member Malcolm Turnbull to succeed him, effective immediately. No election is planned, as the Liberal government commands a majority in Parliament and its internal changes do not change the Parliamentary situation.  BBC News online seems to have the best summary of events.

I'm loving it not just because Tony Abbott seemed from this distance a truly repellent leader, as well as being wrong on economic policy (austerian), foreign policy (militaristic) climate change (denial), gay marriage (opposed), and even the monarchy (pro).

Mostly it's because it gives the world, and Canada more than most places, another illustration of how parliamentary democracy can work. We elect MPs who are accountable to us, and a majority of the MPs then select a leader or leaders to form a government.  That government remains accountable to the MPs on a daily basis, and when it screws up so badly as to offend the caucus that put it in power and/or endanger the MPs' reelection prospects, they decide whether or not to make the leadership change the country is asking for.  Voila.

Mr Abbott's successor as prime minister is reported to be less hostile to gay rights and at least less fervent in his denial of climate change.   Good all around.

Let me just emphasize that if, say, the Canadian Conservative caucus of MPs held a similar meeting today, they would have every right and every power necessary to remove Mr. Harper from the leadership, effective immediately, and to select a replacement.  Right now, they might have a problem finding a new leader in their ranks -- but that's not a legal or constitutional problem.

Update:  Twitter suggests many Canadian high foreheads are pondering how Michael Chong's Reform Act would affect a Canadian move resembling the Abbottouting. Short answer: not at all.  A parliamentary act does not override the accountability principle fundamental to our parliamentary democracy, and if anyone could find a Reform Act clause that seemed to, the MPs could safely ignore it as inapplicable.

History of the World; the one percent at sea

I'm home now from my luxurious wanderings. Back to standard CanHist blogging, I expect.

For some background on my hosts since August 31, see the website of The World -- not a cruise ship, they like to say, but a residential condominium, one that happens also to be a ship, moving constantly about the planet, wherever its owner-residents chose to go.

Who knew "The World" exists, really?  But it does. I've been a visitor there.

History of Immigration

I sometimes say that as I am a first generation Canadian, my interest in Canadian history is not driven by roots, not shaped by identification with the heroic struggles my ancestors yeah, yeah, yeah. I am shameless about appropriating the vast Canadian ancestry of my children and wife to illustrate historical events and trends whenever convenient, while claiming a detached cerebral understanding at the same time.

As we sailed up the St. Lawrence Gulf and River in recent days, I gave a talk about immigration and nation-building, with a lot of emphasis on the restrictive preferences of the pre-1970s era and the opening to the world by which Canada has been transformed since.

And I illustrated it with the picture above. The little British boys there are perfect illustrations of the British-immigrant preference that Canada maintained in 1954. No barriers, no quotas, no immigrant point scores, they just came. Their family was coming by Canadian Pacific ship from Liverpool, up the St. Lawrence to disembark at Montreal. There they transferred to the Canadian Pacific rail and headed west to settle.

But my claim to cerebral dispassion was wobbling a bit. The small boy in the foreground is me.

I don't remember that voyage at all; I was too young. But the last couple of days I have made the voyage for the second time, on deck as much as possible, following the spectacular route up the slowly narrowing river, then following the passage as it twists south of the Ile d'Orléans, and finally into the Bassin de Quebec, to dock at the Lower Town cruise-ship centre this morning.

I do identify after all.  I've become an historical example myself.  Sail on, you lucky kid.

History of the Strait of Belle Ile

Always had a yen to sail through the Strait of Belle Ile, the bleak narrow one between Newfoundland and Labrador; I'm mappish that way. Seen by Maritime Archaic, Dorsets, Thule, Beothuk, Norse, Cabot, Basque whalers, Cartier, and any number of others.

Does it still count if you went through in thick o' fog and dark of night, drinking dry martinis in the lounge instead of rapt at the bow rail?  Not quite so much, I fear.

History of The Rooms

Rooms to the left, Basilica to the right.  What do you think?

When I got off the ship in St John's just to walk around a while, I had not contacted any of my local friends. I was thinking it's probably a chore when people say "Hey, I'm just in on a cruise ship -- entertain me." This way I got to follow my own inclinations, and go to places like Devon House,the gallery and shop of the Newfoundland and Labrador Craft Council on Duckworth Street (not to be missed), and the Jumping Bean Coffee Company, where the coffee is "ground on the rock" and the wifi is reliable and free.


At the dock, a "St John's ambassador" asked where I was from. She was a bit nonplussed when I said Toronto, as we have a very non-Canadian contingent aboard. I explained I was here to give some talks on Canadian history.

"Did'ye give one on Newfoundland?" she asked instantly, and I admitted that, Come From Away that I am, I had indeed.

'I'd like to have heard that one!" she said. I've had warmer welcomes, you might say! But I'm giving a talk on "French Quebec" tomorrow (with some Quebecois aboard), and have no shame.

What I wanted to talk about was The Rooms.  What a terrific museum and gallery of Newfoundland The Rooms is -- both for its historical exhibits and for its gallery shows.  I was gratified later when people aboard told me they had gone to The Rooms (as I had recommended) and found it addressed and amplified things I had tried to say aboard about the uniqueness of Newfoundland.

I wish we had a museum in Toronto half so committed to local culture and history as they have in St. John's.The Edward Procunier collection of Canadian art currently on display is something quite special.

I did, I confess, tell the joke about people who say The Rooms looks like the box the Basilica came in.  Even if that's true, the inside is something special.

How dumb is Stephen Harper? Not as dumb as he sounds, maybe. (Updated)

Scholar and patriot Denis Smith has sent me an essay he has offered the Globe and Mail, excoriating Prime Minister Harper for declaring, to Mansbridge at CBC, that we do not elect parliaments, we elect leaders, so if he does not win the most seats on October 19, he will no longer be prime minister.

"We don't, you know, elect a bunch of parties who then, as in some countries, get together and decide who will govern. We ask people to make a choice of a government," Harper said. "And so I think that the party that wins the most seats should form the government."

Denis rightly declares this is nonsense.

History of waves: force 8 to Canada

On second thought, maybe I do feel a little queasy

We sortied from the placid, sheltered fiords of south Greenland in the late afternoon of September 5 feeling slightly apprehensive. We had a two day crossing of the Labrador Sea before reaching Canadian shores, and there was a substantial storm developing pretty much right across our path.  We were starting to roll and sway even before it was dark.

In the morning the seas were wild and the plunge of the ship dramatic, but I found it exhilarating rather than sick-making. It was hard to walk a straight line down a corridor, but beyond that it did not seem a particularly substantial storm.

What do I know?  The captain on the PA explained he had shifted course substantially, but that we were nevertheless amid six-meter seas and wind gusting above 50 knots:  Force 8 going to Force 9, he said. Serious weather indeed.

This ship is enormous. We were rising majestically up the equivalent of several stories with each swell and dropping down just as calmly as great seas rose up on either side.  But the stabilizers must be immense, because our roll was minimal, and I found the steady rising and falling almost hypnotic.

Not everyone felt that way. Lots of Gravol and such was being consumed, and quite a few passengers took to their beds and skipped meals.  I've been seasick before and don't know why it comes on or doesn't, but I wasn't, so I was happy to join the little groups who gathered at the windows just to watch.

The course shift took us away from the storm path, and on the second morning of the crossing, the sea was much calmer.  I lectured to a substantial audience on the North Atlantic approaches to Canada. I had a section about the corvette navy and the Battle of the Atlantic, fought in these waters in all weathers and seasons. One of my slides noted that corvettes, 200 feet long for a crew that could exceed 100, weighed 1000 tons.

I mentioned  -- I had thought to check -- that our ship is 40,000 tons. 

It was a nice moment for a lecturer: to pause just for a moment, and feel the collective shiver that went through the whole audience.   

New Material at the DCB

Recently added (or at least recently noted) at the Dictionaryof Canadian Biography: 

One: there is now a "Acadians" category, a substantial (anonymous) creation introducing and contextualizing all the Acadian-relevant biographies that were already available.

Two: the "Introductory Essays" that the DBC published in its original hardcover editions from 1966 to 1985, are now provided online as well.  The DBC, in moving to online publication, had originally decided that these essays were "outdated." It now acknowledges the arguments of professors who have insisted on the continuing value of the essays, and now they are available in online form from the website.  This is useful.  I rarely write much about the Seven Years War without going back to the Eccles and Stacey essays on, respectively, the French and British forces.

The DCB, however, continues its policy of ah, cultural sensitivity.

While attempting to produce versions that are close to the originals, the editors have nevertheless made necessary changes: correcting misprints, spelling mistakes, some sentences that were difficult to understand, and a few factual errors. They have also modified the names of certain individuals and added or removed asterisks to conform with the content of the DCB/DBC. Additionally, unless they are part of a quotation or title, offensive terms have been replaced by terms that are currently more appropriate out of respect for those men and women to whom the terms referred.

Flesh pots of Greenland

There is a hot springs pool in Greenland.  I have been in the hot springs pool in Greenland.  Note the icebergs.

Note the ship also. As you will have guessed, I'm doing one of those shipboard lecturer gigs.  And I know zip about Greenland, except where the forest is and the hot spring is.  But tonight we sail toward Canada and I will start earning my way.  First, however, there is a deep low pressure between us and our destination.  We may rock and roll tonight.

History of the Forests of Greenland

Kenneth Hoegh, the original tree hugger

When I had a little time to kill at Narsarsuaq airport the other day, I was surprised to find trees -- real stand up trees, growing at the edge of the granite hillside just behind the airport terminal.  I thought this was Greenland!

It turned out I was within a few feet of the Greenland Arboreteum.  Which is not a joke, which is a real thing, which has planted about 120,000 trees over a hundred hectares or so in the last several decades.  Today I got to hike through the Arboreteum with one of its founders, Kenneth Hoegh.  Here he is with a lone specimen imported years ago from Banff National Park, one of many from Canada, but in some areas we stood among glades of trees many metres tall, alive with chirruping red polls -- and little biting flies too.

It is always a pleasure to see a man who loves his work. Kenneth Hoegh seems to know every tree in the arboreteum by name, by origin, and by date of planting, and would stroke them when he came to them. "I love this tree," he would say, and explain why.

Most of this Greenland forest consists of plantings of trees imported from Siberia, Yukon, Alaska or the uplands of the major mountain ranges around the world. Native shrubs such as the arctic willow, which at least grows to bush-like size in favoured locations, and centimetre-tall dwarf trees like juniper, grow all around, but in this forest all the trees we might think of as trees have been introduced. There really had not been a serious forest in Greenland for 150,000 years until the arboreteum was developed.

But Greenland is warming. the arboretum is finding which introduced species tolerated the older conditions and which will thrive in the new ones.  Substantial chunks of South Greenland may have significant forests, possibly even a timber industry in, say, oh, maybe a century or two. Kenneth loves trees, so he's a patient man.  He's willing to wait.

Historical note:  Narsarsauq has just about the best micro-climate anywhere in Greenland for growing things. And directly across the fiord from the Arboreum lies Brattahlid, the place where Eric the Red established his Greenland settlement in 986 CE, and where farming continued for some 400 years. Greenland's major sheep farm is right there today. Those old Norse knew what they were doing when they reconnoitred for land.

Photo credit: me, actually.

 

Free access to Ancestry records on Labour Day Weekend

Ancestry.ca announces that its 21 million strong collection of Canadian immigration records, usually by subscription only, will be generally available over the Labour Day weekend.

Just another day in Qaqortok

Hvalsey Church, abandoned c1408 -- been there!

After the Norse starved/fled/died/got better offers in Scandinavia in the 15th century, European interest in Greenlandic settlement started again in the 1780s, when one Anders Jensen tried a settlement based on sheep-rearing on the west coast near the southern tip of Greenland.  Some years later he moved to Qaqortok, (Julianthab to him) and is regarded as the founder of the town, some of whose buildings, including a nice little museum date to c1800.


But wifi is buggy as hell here tonight, so that's it for now.  Hope to continue travel notes plus regular blogging, but that somewhat depends on events tomorrow, when some explanations should be forthcoming.

Hilsen fra Groenland.

A little like a very small St John's

Suck it up, monkeys.  You're at home, probably preparing for school.  And I'm in Qaqortok, Greenland.

How do you get to Greenland?  Practise history, practise history, practise history.  But today it actually involved flying Toronto-Amsterdam-Copenhagen, then taking Air Greenland from Copenhagen to Nurnarsuaq Narsarsuaq,* and then riding the AG helicopter down the fjord to Qaqortok.  23 hours total, 10,000 k, more or less.

History of Oaqortok.  The name may mean "white thing," more or less, and may be named for Hvalsey Church, the most substantial Norse sight in Greenland, which is a few k away up the fjord. The stone walls of the ruined church and other buildings were originally plastered in mortar made from local seashells, hence blazing white in the heyday. That heyday ended c1408, the last record of Norse occupation.

More to come.

* Hardly anyone speaks more than restaurant-waiter English - which is kinda charming if you have visited hyperlingual northern Europe lately -- and Greenlandic ain't easy to spell, let alone say.