Canada's big lies

Canadians have a love-hate relationship with the U.S. As the mouse lying in bed next to the elephant, we live in fear that you migh roll over at the same time we're feeling like a girl who has downgraded on a date.

Here are a couple of myths that we circulate about Canada that allow us to feel morally superior to our cousins south of the border.

1) That Canada didn't have slavery.
2) That Canada's official policy toward Native peoples was one of neglect rather than genocide as was the American policy.

Neither of these statements is true.

On the first point, and one upon which I don't plan to dwell today, is that wherever the Brits were there was slavery. Slavery was a recognized government policy. As evidence I offer Mary-Josephe Angelique, the slave girl who was tortured into confessing that she started the Montreal Fire of 1734. She was hung and burned for her supposed guilt. (As an aside, last year, Angelique was honoured by Canada's Governor General Michaëlle Jean, an immigrant to Canada who descended from Haitian slaves.)

Canadian school kids are never taught about slavery in Canada. If we pretend it didn't happen, then maybe it didn't. Instead, we are taught about the Underground Railroad and our honourable role in offering sanctuary to escaped slaves. All the glory, none of the blame.

On the second point, I offer Lord Cornwallis who, in 1749, offered a bounty for Mi' kmaq scalps without censure from the British government.

Here's the relevant piece from Cornwallis' proclamation:

"For, those cause we by and with the advice and consent of His Majesty's Council, do hereby authorize and command all Officers Civil and Military, and all His Majesty's Subjects or others to annoy, distress, take or destroy the Savage commonly called Micmac, wherever they are found, and all as such as aiding and assisting them, give further by and with the consent and advice of His Majesty's Council, do promise a reward of ten Guineas for every Indian Micmac taken or killed, to be paid upon producing such Savage taken or his scalp (as in the custom of America) if killed to the Officer Commanding at Halifax, Annapolis Royal, or Minas." (Daniel Paul, We Were Not the Savages, p109)

(Not being familiar with British money or its worth in the 16th century, I found this for some comparison. The guinea was valued at just more than 1 pound. Almost 100 years after the proclamation, "In the 1850s and 60s [Charles] Dickens ... staff members were generally paid five guineas a week. " see attribution. A century earlier, 10 gns must have been a small fortune.)

The bounty continued for three years. There is no documentation of how much the British spent in honouring their proclamation, however, one group of hunters from Massachusetts found the returns lucrative enough to to spend two years here. There are other accounts of settlers using the bounty to supplement their incomes and still other accounts of scalps being traded by the bagful.

By 1838, there were only1,425 Mi' kmaq alive from a population of between 100,000 and 200,000 at the time of contact.

The decrease in population was not entirely due to bounty hunting, certainly. Starvation and disease took its toll. (Who can forget the heartwarming tale of giving the Mi' kmaq smallpox infected blankets?)

By 1853, William Chearnly, the Indian commissioner for Nova Scotia, convinced the government that the Mi' kmaq couldn't be saved and that it would be a waste of money to try. He argued that the government should give the First People of NS "a few blankets and greatcoats to help them in their final days." (Arthur Ray, I Have Lived Here Since the World Began, p 149.)

Perhaps, this is what we mean when we talk about our policy of neglect. I have a difficult time equating an approach of purposefully rounding people up and forcing them to live on uninhabitable lands, then refusing them food and shelter with simple neglect.

It sounds an awful lot like slaughter to me.

Colleen