Canadian Encyclopedia expands its Macdonald/Indigenous content.

Following the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the Canadian Encyclopedia is the latest standard reference work to reflect on and revise its coverage of John A. Macdonald and indigenous relations as part of the general rethinking of Macdonald that has been taking place in Canadian life and letters..  

TCE has acted cautiously. At the end of January it posted two "editorials," one an essay by Sean Carleton and Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair, entitled "John A Macdonald was no Friend to Indigenous Peoples" and the other "A Few Facts Everyone Should Know about Sir John A Macdonald" by Greg Piasetzki. (The sir/no sir usage alone is indicative of the mindsets behind each.) 

I can accept this both-sidesing of the question, though surely an encyclopedia usually canvasses the best sources and makes up its mind, doesn't it? Let there be debate as we move toward a new historiography as part of the slow process called Reconciliation, and I am confident which viewpoint will have the strongest arguments and ultimately the most credibility. The Carleton/Sinclair text seems likely to become the received standard before long, anyway.

Carleton and Niigaanwewidam are both professors at the University of Manitoba. Carleton's doctorate is in history, Niigaanwewidam's in Literature, and both are prolific writers and activists on indigenous and reconcilation matters widely published on matters of public policy, history, and indigenous rights and titles.  

Piasetzki is a private practice lawyer in Toronto, whose public statements seem to have mostly been defences of Macdonald and and anti-woke declarations.  

I was fact-checking Piasetzki's "A Few Facts" by the second paragraph. ("He is widely considered to have written a majority of the terms of Confederation." suggests the low standard of what is "widely considered" about the drafting of confederation, but it is surely not a fact.)  

But read both essays and see which seems more credible and substantial to you.

History of what sells

On TwitteX, Mark Bourrie expresses disappointment in his recent history Crosses in the Sky being less successful than he had hoped and partly blames himself.  

I've never had much talent for seeing what might or might not make a best-settling Canadian history book.  (1867: How the Fathers Made a Deal -- a confederation book in the wake of Meech and Charlottetown  -- was one occasion I did maybe get in time with the zeitgeist.) 

Stories of heroic white men in rugged settings still hold surprising appeal for CanHist book buyers, so I would not have been surprised to see Crosses in the Sky, a retelling of the Brebeuf and the Huron story.

But I wonder if the moment is not right for white authors using white sources to present indigenous history. Bourrie's sympathies are entirely with the Huron, not with the Jesuits and the French colonizers behind them, for sure. But he tells the same story that has been circulating among Europeans for four hundred years, based almost on the Jesuit Relations' knowledge of the Huron.

The wars that destroyed the Huron nation in the mid 1600s were the largest and bloodiest ever fought in what is now Canada, I would guess.  In less than a century, across much of the territory that is now southern Ontario, one empire was destroyed by another and then the second one was displaced by a third, with great loss of life, dispersion, and dispossession thoroughout. I'm not talking of the French empire, still less of the English.  It was Huron-Wendat, then Haudenosaunee, then Anishnabeg, military, economic, and diplomatic power that drove these events.

That is still an almost entirely untold story, one in which Brebeuf and the other Jesuits would be very much marginal. It needs to be told from Indigenous sources -- Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and Anishnabeg.  And I assume only an indigenous scholar will be able to access and interpret those sources.  

I wish Mark Bourrie were happier with the sales of Crosses in the Sky, because I like to see books about Canadian history succeed.  But I think CanHist readers might be thinking that when it comes to Indigenous history, the time is right for indigenous historians. 

Solstice, and National Indigenous Peoples Day

Happy solstice --tho' technically it arrived yesterday afternoon, this being a leap year. Enjoy the daylight. 

It is also National Indigenous Day which falls on the solstice every year  And of course it's been National Indigenous History month throughout June.

The Toronto Star has an article this morning entitled "Liberals lose steam on reconciliation."  It might be about how the Star, and indeed the country, have lost steam on reconciliation. As reconciliation priorities, the story lists federal action to end boil-water advisories in reserve communities, and action on missing and murdered women and on residential schools issues. 

Worthwhile goals, sure, but there is no awareness here that reconciliation is about more than such things as local waterworks. As long as the Minister of Indigenous Affairs has to be the waterworks manager for every reserve in the country, and also the director of the local school board, and the manager of the local clinic and.... there is going to be little progress either on these specific concerns or on the larger matter of reconciliation.

Reconciliation has to come from treaty implementation,* and treaty implementation means adequate indigenous self-government and a secure source of revenues (presumably from adequate indigenous ownership and control of land and resources) so that indigenous communities can run their own water systems and school systems and medical services and cultural activities -- as every other community in the country does.  

The story does quote indigenous leaders arguing there has been more progress in the last nine years "than we have ever had in our history." and fear of "going backwards" under a new government. But we have a long way to go -- even to get started, it sometimes seems.

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* By treaty implementation, I mean not the "cede, yield, surrender" texts filed in Ottawa, but the treaties as they were actually settled between the parties on the land, as agreements to share the land.  Surely it is one of the great achievements of Canadian historical research in recent decades to have established pretty conclusively the real intent of treaties-as-sharing-agreements when they were being negotiated. But the message has not travelled very far.