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.

He haunts us still? New Macdonald bio at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography

This week, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography's weekly online publication of a new biography has been supplemented by the release of a revised biography: that of John A Macdonald, previously issued in 1990 and now extensively reworked. It deserves attention from students of historiography as well as of history. 

The basic Macdonald biography remains largely the work as published in 1990 and credited to Peter Waite and J. Keith Johnson (both now deceased), but it now has significant additions signed by J.R. Miller on Macdonald's Indigenous policies and by Patricia Roy on his policies and attitudes regarding Chinese people in Canada, plus a concluding assessment credited to DBC staff -- with new bibliographic notes for all of these. In the "Publication History" sidebar provided in the online DCB, the original 1990 text of Waite and Johnson remains available for comparison.

This practice -- is it new? -- of identifying and assigning authorship of revisions in DCB entries seems to me better than the silent rewrites that seem to have prevailed previously. (Again, the originals of those entries can still be found). Many older biographies have urgently needed revision, but how much rewriting of the work of now-deceased scholars can be made before it becomes necessary to wonder if the original authors would wish to have their names removed from the new texts attributed to them? In the Macdonald process, we can see the quality of Waite's and Johnson's scholarship as well as of that in which they had no part.

No doubt the new material will be closely scrutinized (perhaps even reviewed), given the controversies over Macdonald's actions and reputation that have roiled Canadian history in recent years. My own view on a first reading is that the DCB's revised Macdonald entry signals the impossibility of the project now being attempted by the Canadian Institute for Historical Education and its partisans: to restore all the Macdonald statues and honours and denounce all who bring forth new assessments of him, particularly with regard to indigenous matters. The standard view here has shifted, and the revised biography reflects and confirms that.

I might have a quibble or two still. 

The repeated invocation here of Macdonald's centrality in the making of confederation makes one think Donald Creighton managed to be a ghost author here.  

Also In particular, the respect given to the claim that Macdonald drafted fifty of the seventy-two clauses of the Quebec Resolutions of 1864 grates on at least one reader. Yes, D'Arcy McGee said it, but the setting matters: it was at a partisan tribute dinner in a Kingston tavern where hyperbolic praise was surely de rigueur and the sobriety of all involved was very much in question. There has always been abundant evidence of lively debate and multiple authorship of most of the Seventy Two Resolutions -- and of Macdonald's resistance or grudging assent to many of them.       

Book Notes: Dutil on Macdonald

Historian Patrice Dutil will be launching his Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year 1885 next Wednesday, November 20, at Yorkminster Park Speakers Series in Toronto.  He will be joined by novelists Gordon Henderson and Roy MacSkimming for a discussion hosted by Lynne Golding. The event is co-sponsored by the Canadian Institute for Historical Education.

Update, December 2: in The Globe, John Ibbitson likes it.

 

John A Macdonald and his band of 150

A recent CTV News story gives substantial, and I think balanced, coverage to Monday's open letter from 150 public figures and historians defending the record and reputation of John A Macdonald. 

The CTV story gives detailed treatment to the letter itself (published at the website of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute). CTV also contacted mostly Indigenous scholars to drive the response to the letter's claim about matters such as Macdonald's "documented concern for and friendship with the Indigenous Peoples of Canada." Much of the critique of the letter's claims for Macdonald is driven by indigenous professors Robert Alexander Innes, Omeasoo Wahpasiw, and Crystal Fraser (whom I suspect to be considerably younger than the mean age of the signatories, for what that is worth.)

In a nicely historical touch, the CTV story links both to Richard Gwyn's full throated 2015 endorsement of Macdonald (in the Toronto Star) and to Timothy Stanley's vigorous critique of Macdonald, also from 2015 (at Active History).

In its response to the recent revisions to Macdonald's reputation, the open letter reverts to a traditional Creightonesque view of Macdonald. In the letter he really is the man on the pedestal. Consider its bulleted list of claims about Macdonald, with my annotations. The letter declares that Macdonald:

• Re-imagined British North America as Canada and did so with courage, wisdom and integrity.  (Note the single-combat warrior image. Can Macdonaldians ever accept that confederation was the achievement of a broadbased, multi-party coalition, and that Macdonald was not an initiator of confederation and was notably late to the bandwagon?)
• Dissuaded aggressive American expansionism. Macdonald, with Cartier, stared down opponents of Confederation in Quebec and Nova Scotia.  (As did every other member of the confederation coalition, many at much greater risk than Macdonald.)
• Acquired territory that made Canada the second largest country in the world. (In the CTV story, indigenous scholar R. A. Innes points out acidly that "acquired" doesn't mention "how the land was taken.") 
• Persuaded Manitobans, British Columbians and Prince Edward Islanders to join Confederation. Brought economic stability, with a farsighted Bank Act and an economic National Policy. (Persuaded Manitobans?  Wasn't there a little war and conquest in there? And in point of fact, PEI joined confederation under a Liberal federal government. Again the letter's single-protagonist model runs up against historical evidence everywhere.)
• Spearheaded the building of a railway to the Pacific. (Again the letter glosses over Macdonald's long hesitations about the railroad project.)
• Championed unity between English and French, Protestant and Catholic. (Indeed --mostly; he always had the Orange Lodges to fall back on -- but hardly alone.)
• Promoted freedom of expression and the press. (As opposed by...?)
• Launched policies that failed, as happens to all national leaders. This is certainly the case with the establishment of a national policy on Indian Residential Schools. Even though widely supported at the time, the schools had a dark legacy that hangs over the country to this day. (It's alarming how this point sustains the notion that "reconciliation" is solved by apologies for residential schools, as if there is no need to address such fundamental matters as self-government, treaty rights, and title to land.)
• Made many other mistakes respecting Indigenous peoples and policies Canadians today strongly disapprove; we understand the frustrations of the descendants of those affected by these mistakes. (Surely this handwaving "many other mistakes" amounts to historical malpractice, made shameful by the cheerleading "but on the other hand" that makes up the extended remainer of this point.)  Macdonald’s failures must, however, be weighed against an impressive record of constitution and nation building, his reconciliation of contending cultures, languages and religions, his progressivism and his documented concern for and friendship with the Indigenous peoples of Canada.

The more I read the letter, the more I think the Macdonald defence has two problems. The first, its blinkered denial of the indigenous critique, is the most combatative and most distressing. But the second, in some ways deeper, one is the insistence on a Macdonald-is-Canada, Canada-is-Macdonald, one-man-made-us, put-up-more-statues vision of Canada. It is both bad history and useless as a vision for modern Canadians to build from. 

Pointing out that Macdonald was not the lone and sole creator of the Canadian nation no doubt invites the Macdonaldians' rejoinder, see, they all did it, why blame Macdonald? And that may be a valid and accurate statement, but not one that coheres with the Put Out More Statues ideology that prevails here.

I should say I have (and hope to retain) a fair number of friends and people I admire on the list of signatories to the Macdonald-Laurier letter. (The "Friends of Canadian History" is also credited, but when I Googled that organization, nothing came up except Canadian Quakers.) Friends, I'm okay with you not having approached me for a signature.  

Update, same day:  Jerry Bannister writes

Enjoying your blog, as always, and just wanted to point out that the list of signatories includes only a handful (perhaps less than a handful, depending on how one counts) of non-retired academic historians. There is a crucial difference, I think, between retirees who devote themselves fully to their own research and those of us who balance research with teaching, supervision, and administrative work. The list of signatories includes plenty of people who research and write about Canadian history but few people who actually teach, supervise, and mentor students.

 Thanks, Jerry.  Hmmm. I'm one who does not "actually teach, supervise, and mentor students." And while I don't doubt your stats, I have to say I incline to the view that anyone can and should develop views on historical questions, and be responsible for them. That's a quality of citizenship and culture, I like to think, not one's profession or employment status.  

 

 

 

 

 

History of the Macdonald anniversary

Monday, January 11, marks the 206th birthday of John A. Macdonald. It's not the event it was a few years ago, that's for sure. The National Post is marking it with a series of essays, mostly on the themes, it seems, of, well, he was not as bad as people are saying, and presentism is dangerous. 

An impressive roster of historians has contributed already: Pierre Anctil, Frédéric Bastien, Patrice Dutil, Barbara Messamore, J.R. Miller, Donald B. Smith. I have not read far in them, but you may find them worth grappling with.

 

Moore speaks: on Statues and Citizenships

In July I participated in a discussion of controversial statues and what to do with them, held at McMaster University in Hamilton and moderated by Toronto journalist Steve Paikin, under the sponsorship of the Wilson Institute and the Socrates Institute there.

If I had been keeping up with the Wilson Institute blog like I oughta, I would have known that they have put the film of the whole event up right here.  You can watch James Dashuk, Vanessa Watts and me go into it with Steve and a lively audience of several hundred.  Props to historical philanthropist Lynton "Red" Wilson, McMaster's ex-chancellor and major donor, for making it possible.

Meanwhile, I'm discussing this topic again soon.

On September 17, at McArthur Hall at Queen's University west campus [UPDATE: now moved to] the Grand Theatre on Princess Street in Kingston, I will be participating in another discussion on this issue, a public meeting organized by the Heritage office of the City of Kingston.

It is laudable that the city is engaging its citizens in discussion of this matter. Kingston has Macdonald memorabilia like no other place in Canada. It has the John A. Parkway (and the Macdonald Cartier freeway close by), the Macdonald gravesite, Macdonald walking tours, and many Macdonald homes, sites, statues, and associations. Decisions by the City of Kingston about its honours to John A. would obviously have an impact on the state of this debate nationwide. For details and ticket info for this event, featuring Bob Watts, Charlotte Gray and Lee Maracle as well as me, look here.

Smith on John A.

Smith:  If Wilfrid Laurier University is going to take down this statue, should it have to change its own name too?

It's becoming one of those things where you may have to take a stand: John A. Macdonald, hero or villain?

Donald Smith weighs in with a nuanced consideration in last week's Toronto Star.

Image:  Annie Sakkab/KW Record via The Star.

Mercy Coles and John A. Macdonald ...

The Quebec conference is still on, though almost finished. They will leave for Montreal on Thursday, October 27 at 4:00.

“Wednesday [October 26^th, 1864]

            We went for a drive today. We went through the Lower Town to see where the rock fell and crushed the people to death [on Friday Oct. 14 – see the earlier post]. ...

            I went to dinner in the evening. John A. [Macdonald] sat along side of me. What an old Humbug he is. He brought me my dessert into the Drawing Room. The conundrum.”

Oh the fun of speculation and reading between the lines.