h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Here is a Time Canada article on Canada's Indian Residential School history, with a section on the Indian Residential Schools Resolutions Office (beginning bottom of page 2) which is the agency for whom I work as a researcher.

http://www.timecanada.com/story.adp?storyid=1

I haven't read the article through yet to know how accurate it is in regards to the IRSR, but thought I would share it with you.

My take on it's "accuracy" is that we have a case of the same white government and churches. Just a different flag because it pretty much duplicates what was done in the United States.

It's interesting how the Catholics are claiming they have no central organization and therefore can't be held responsible for what affiliated organizations did. That would, ironically, be the argument advanced by First Nations too to defend themselves but I'm confident all First Nations were held responsible for whatever individual tribes or bands did or didn't do.

Likewise, the Canadian government apparently refuses to recognize the injury of loss of culture or language. I wonder how that would play in Quebec or Ottawa for that matter if the roles were reversed?

Imagine if Canadian children were forbidden to speak English or French or to read any books in those languages or to associate with their families. What would that be called? I think it has a name called "totalitarianism" or "dictatorship" or "oppression" or the like and the name is perjorative isn't it? Very much so. A very very bad thing unless it is imposed on First Nations people apparently. Then it's not even a tort.

And the government promises in lieu of compensation, programs. Very interesting how these people think almost the same as the jerks in Washington, DC. Always additional promises. Hardly ever substantial amends. Hardly ever delivering on previous promises.

And it has taken until the 1990s to even bring it before the national consciousness and then it must be forced through the courts. And the government seems more concerned with enriching lawyers and keeping church organizations solvent than compensating the victims.

What a pity for people who have claimed such self righteousness in the past, superior to their white brothers and sisters south of the international border.

I hate to say it but I think white racism respects no international borders. Nor does the oppression of the indigenous people which continues on and on just like the promises that are never kept but only replaced by more promises.

Maybe it's time to stop talking and just do something eh?

Now, thanks for bringing this to my attention. It puts a new perspective on the vision I had of Canada encouraged by certain Canadians at this site and elsewhere. It shows me that there is still much to do and few people willing to do it.

Of course, people of honor and integrity would see it as an opportunity whereas people of dishonor and prevarication would see it as a terrible imposition on their current status. We'll see how Canadians see it.

Thanks again, and if any of this has perhaps offended you personally, that was not my intention. If the boot fits eh? Otherwise, just blow it off. It's not your problem except to the extent that if such injustice can be done to any, it can be done to all, sooner or later. That's the common cause if there is any such thing.

My family will weep for these children surrounded by Canada as they have wept for their own children surrounded by the United States. It's too bad, but it's all in past, as soon it's done right?

What was lost was priceless. What was gained is questionable. But children are helpless until they have matured into true men and women.

Now what the churches sowed, they are going to reap as it says in the Bible. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Too bad the believers didn't believe that. Someone will weep for their children someday, maybe, then again, maybe not. Who will be left to weep after the greed has been fully indulged?

Thank God I wasn't born a white girl! Sorry for saying so, but there it is.

Hey, you haven't said anything that has offended, and it is all right on.

Seeing it from the perspective of working towards making sure the settlements get settled and the healing takes place, I know that things are better than 10 years ago, and that the loss of Language and Culture part, while very much behind, I believe will eventually be recognised.... I can't say much more than that on the subject.

This still will never make up for the terrible losses that so many generations suffered with, and so many more are suffering with. Sometimes while working with the documents, and reading some of the historical letters, there are times I wish I could go back and give some people a good swift kick in the backside.... trite, I know, but there you go.

My father-in-law grew up in the Mohawk Institute. He was taken when he was 4.... I cannot imagine what person could walk out of their home in the morning, leaving their children safe in their homes, and go to the office where they would rubber-stamp the removal of children no different, and no less loved into an institution with the firm belief that they were "doing the best for the Heathen".

It is beyond understanding.

Yeah, but THEY understand, don't THEY? Even if you and me don't? THEY understand perfectly, surpassing all wisdom that has ever gone before.

So is your wife Mohawk then? What's your affiliation? Do you have children? Are they beautiful like their father? Taking time to deal with stuff like this?

Lots of questions, huh? Well, how else do you get know somebody?

Sorry, I'm presuming you're a man. If you're not, I apologize for that. You're still beautiful though.

Well, I went to your personal space and it looks like I should have done that before I shot off my big mouth and said things that make me feel silly now. Maybe I should do my homework sometimes don't you think?

So I guess you're no longer married eh? Neither am I except I've never been married, just shacked up once in awhile. So the only kids I know about are claimed by my sisters or cousins. That's plenty of course.

So are you Greek then? I noticed there's a reference to the mother's helper with a Greek name. Maybe I'm presuming again so maybe I should wait until you've had to chance to answer if you want.

My husband was Mohawk and Delaware and, no, unfortunately, no children. My ex inherited the Delaware "stubbiness", to quote him, instead of the Mohawk height.

My father-in-law, despite having a grade 6 education worked for many years at Indian and Northern Affairs, and was aide to Jean Chretien when he was Minister of Indian Affairs.

Nope... Canadian, Scot, American mutt..

My mother liked the name. She knew a Dutch lady with the same name. It is a fairly common European name. Pippi Longstocking's best friend is spelled the same way.

Well, I'm very pleased to meet you, probably more than you realize.

I don't meet many people with connections to the Haudenosaunee in this region so maybe you can keep me up to date on what's going on with them, especially in Canada, where last I heard they were blocking roads and getting into trouble with the police and other hired thugs.

That whole region is so vastly different from what I'm used to, especially the vegetation which comes with the water of course which there isn't much of in my homeland. So maybe it's important to get that perspective. Sometimes I think I maybe think too much in desert terms you know?

Well, the Oka crisis took time to resolve, though it ended rather less peacefully than one could have hoped. The protesters were a little roughed up, including the two daughters of a friend ofours (best man at our wedding), one of which was I think 3 at the time.

A shameful thing all-in-all. What particularily angered me was that I had read a report from one of the tabloid-style papers which usually takes a pretty right-wing view of most things, that extensive damage done to the homes on the disputed golf-course, which was blamed on the protesters was, in fact, caused by reporters, many of whom bragged to the reporter about stealing and destroying property.

Of course THAT didn't come out in the media, as it was the media who was to blame for most of the damage.

Lately things have been pretty quiet for the Ontario and Quebec Natives. The Mi’kmaq in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia have been in the news for asserting their traditional fishing rights.

As well, there has been an on-going Supreme Court case regarding Metis fishing rights in Ontario. The Canadian governemnt has long ignored the Metis people, mostly based on the "rule of thumb" of "were they here at Contact or not".

Since the Metis sprang up in the period between Contact and Settlement they are not considered to have been a traditional people. However, since they HAD been on the land and established traditional huinting and fishing grounds before the settlement of much of the country began, the government treated them as though they were Native when clearing the way for settlement. Also, quite clearly, the Metis people have a distinct culture, language, music, and way of life which clearly points to their being, in fact, Aboriginal or perhaps neo-Aboriginal people.

I haven't heard if there has been a decision in the Supreme Court case, but I anticipate that there will be an acknowledgement that Metis do have rights as an aboriginal people. This will have a significant impact on the Land-claims process and other matters involving compensation, especially if Language and Culture IS determined to be viable for litigation.

My personal opinion is that they are long overdue for recognition as a distinctl Aboriginal people.

Where are you from? I am assuming South West.

I was born in Allen Canyon, Utah which is near Blanding. Mostly I grew up in northern Nevada at Duck Valley and southwestern Colorado around Towoac as well as southern Utah and the Four Corners in general.

I guess you could say my homeland's pretty much defined by the Kaibab Plateau on the south, the Sierra Nevada on the west, the Snake River Plain on the north and southern Rockies on the east although I do have relatives further south too.

Not many people around, although there's evidence that there were more in the past when people were a little more sensible about how they utilized the available resources. Much has been destroyed by overgrazing and imprudent agricultural methods, not to mention pointless development.

Currently I'm going to college in Denver although I'm actually out for the summer until September. I've been studying history and literature mostly. My family mostly thinks I need to become a lawyer. I think I need to remain a storyteller. Oh well.

You need to do what you need to do!

The world just doesn't have enough storytellers, and it has way too many lawyers....

Well, you might be right about the lawyers except that's not why I'm kind of reluctant to spend more money and years trying to get a law degree. It's like so what?

Even if I win my cases, who's going to enforce the settlements? And what have they actually enforced in the past. The short answer is practically nothing. So you jump through all the legal hoops and you're still pretty much where you started.

So then people start asking why I bother to go to college then. And I tell them maybe that I'm sort of curious about the dominant culture and how it got to be the way it is and what if anything you could do about it. Well, then, do I really need to go to college to figure that stuff out? Probably not actually.

But even assuming that a degree will somehow get my foot in the publishing door or get me recognized as a respected scholar or whatever, it's like so what again? I can entertain or offend or challenge or teach or whatever and people will still sit on their asses and do nothing.

I mean why should they do anything at all? Because I tell them it's the right thing to do? Because they're moved to tears? Well, hey they can cry all day and still be ready to go to country club for dinner so who cares?

And why don't I just marry some whiteboy entrepreneur brat and settle down to the easy life? It's not like I haven't had offers already although most of them have made me ill. Just don't mention my heritage around sales prospects right? We wouldn't want anybody to feel in the least bit uncomfortable.

Well I'm sorry I don't get a lot out of that or the conspicuous consumption that seems to go with the lifestyle, so I guess that leaves me with contemplating going back home and making babies and ranching and getting chased by BLM thugs in helicopters probably. And for that I hardly need a college degree. I already know how to do that stuff because I was raised with it.

Yet, I've learned a lot too about things that even some white people never learn about their heritage, and some of it is genuinely beautiful so that sort of gives me hope that there's something I can hook to that will let me get the message across sometime or other. They sometimes respond to things that must be deep seated and maybe that's where I can touch them in a fundamental enough way that they'll finally decide to do the right thing.

But I'm not sure I'm patient enough and frankly this whole college thing and living in town and stuff is starting to drive me insane I think if it hasn't already. So by the time I get through to people and get them to realize where they're at and maybe where they need to go, I might have lost myself.

My cousin died last year. We were very close too. She was 27. I'm 22, just recently turned that by the way. How much time do I even have? Five years maybe if I'm lucky?

Not that I'm necessarily going out like her but you never know and my family ain't famous for longevity. Granted the ones who make it past 40 usually are good for another 40 years or so but they're damn few and far between. Probably half the people in my tribe are 18 or less so what does that tell you?

It tells me I better get busy with the babies maybe or there's going to be some people missing in action who won't get replaced. And I'm not sure college is the best place to pursue or prepare for that career. What do you think?

Well, I think you can go far even without a degree. My father-in-law had a grade 6 education and has had a career in the government, was responsible for setting up the Canadian Indian pavillion at Expo '67, was aide to the Minister of UIndian Affairs, has done consulting work, edited a magazine, was the host of a national current affairs program dedicated to Indian concerns (and that was in the 60's), amongst other things.

I don't have a degree, though I have an Associate degree in Fine Art (sculpture) and a Diploma in Applied Arts (museum technology)... which don't exactly open dorrs for you. However, I have been able to get most of my jobs because I have a bit of knowledge in a lot of areas. Most of my employers have said that they hired me because I wasn't blind to everything but one area of expretise.

You have to do what make you happy, makes you feel fulfilled. I have friends who live their lives on Gandhian principals, using only what they need, adhering to non-violence, and doing what their conscience tells them. They don't preach what they do, but practice it.

Bonnie is probably one of the most dynamic people I know. She runs children's homes in India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Tibet. She travels there 4 times a year. She doesn't know the word "impossible". Just ask any Indian (from India) Government official who encounters her!

She and her husband adopted 19 children and had two of their own.

Fred is active in peace and human rights activities, and they have received recognition from UNESCO for their peace efforts, and the Order of Canada. However, it isn't the honors that keep them going, but the knowledge that they are doing what they have to do.

You just have to decide for yourself what matters to you, and do the best you can at whatever path you choose.

My only advice beyond that would be "Never settle for less than you deserve, and don't EVER underestimate what you deserve".

I look at some of the people whose stories I know from Residential School, people who grew up with everything against them and, yet, if only to spite the people who tried to beat it out of them, went on to do great things. You just have to say to hell with what everyone thinks. This is my life....

It has taken ME 46 years to finally realize that... don't let it be that long for you.

Thanks. I'll try to learn the lesson more rapidly. You're very wise and very indulgent. Anyways I shouldn't be whining to strangers.

So what else can you tell me about those people who the government thinks don't deserve anything because they got organized after "contact"? Don't you just love the euphemisms governments use? Are they like the Pequots then? Hybrid Africans? Those people get grief from both sides you know?

A similar tribe inhabits the coast of Belize and Honduras. They were shipwrecked on an island off Venezuela in the 17th century. They intermarried with the Caribs and then got evicted by the Brits. That's how they came to Belize. Now the tourist corporations are trying to evict them again because they inhabit that wonderful beachfront property those corporations covet.

Seems like the crap never ends.

Well, in the case of the Metis, on one hand the government sort of "unofficially" recognise them and on the other doesn't. Then again, who can fathom the "governmental mind"?????

Ironically, the Metis are the product of the very earliest fur-trade relationship between Europeans and the Indiginous peoples. Their history really begins with the very first North American contact in 1500, through successive waves of European incursions, Spanish, Dutch, French, English, and Scot.

Without giving you an entire history of the fur trade in North America, I can tell you a little of how the Metis came about.

When the Europeans began to develop the fur trade, first the French and then the English, Scots, and Irish, they relied on the Native people to keep them alive. The most valuable association the early traders could make was with a woman. Not only did they know how to cook and provide food for the traders, they knew how to make clothes and all the various items that made life possible in the unfamiliar terrain.

When thinking about the fur trade, most people think of the Beaver. Certainly, the Beaver was the big money-maker, as it was the big-ticket pelt to the European market. What people don't realize is that the bulk of the fur market was small animal pelts such as Fisher, Mink, Stoat, rabbit, and the like. While it was the men who trapped the Beaver and hunted larger animals, the smaller animals were generally caught by the women.

Men were able to travel out from the camps to catch the larger animals, but the women, because of the need for them to look after children, stayed close to home and were able to tend their own small trap-lines around the camps. Therefor, they caught a LOT of the small animals which were the money-makers for them.

If you look at the ledgers for the trading posts, you see the proof. Larger animals were traded for items such as guns, powder, lead, and tobacco. Small animals were traded for kettles, pots, combs, beads, cloth, knives, mirrors, etc., all things women would purchase.

Aside from their value as cooks and home-makers, the women also provided the needed ... ummmm ... comforts to the European traders. What they also provided was a valuable connection to the tribal group to which the woman belonged, but also, as women often intermarried between tribes, they often spoke several languages and had family connections to several tribal groups.

This was an important thing, as it made trade much easier, and enabled negotiations between the various tribes and the traders.

Most of the relationships between the traders and the Native women were, in essence, marriages. While there were no priests or missionaries available, marriages did take place, and the women were called "country wives". Many traders, when forced to leave their wives and families at the end of their contract had a hard choice to make. Some took their wives and families back to Europe with them, a few chose to stay, but as the Hudson's Bay Company (and the Northwest Company before them) forbade liaisons between native women and their factors, most were forced to leave their wives and families behind.

Most of them took great care in ensuring that there was someone to look after them. They usually arranged for them to be remarried to another trader that they would be certain would take care of them.

Their children, raised in and around the trading posts and forts became part of the Company, had status in the Company community, and eventually the need for traders from Europe dwindled as the Canadian-born families rose in the Company heirarchy. They also began to move out into the vast Canadian landscape, establishing their own communities, hunting and trapping grounds, alongside their Native brothers.

For quite a long period of time in the history of Canada, the offspring of the Native women and European traders were regarded as equals with their white counterparts.

However, in the mid-1800s, there began a move to remove the mixed-blood employees and replace them Orkneymen and English. Thus began the decline of the mixed-blood or Metis in status.

The first of many blows came when, in 1829, George Simpson, Chief Factor, who had a "Country Wife" and was not in favor of white women coming out to the west, went home to England for a visit. While there, he married his young cousin and returned with her to Canada. His "Country Wife", Margaret Taylor, then pregnant with his second child, was unaware of this, and was waiting on the landing when he arrived home with his new bride. He walked right by her and never acknowledged her.

This was looked on by his fellow factors as an outrage, but it signalled the end of the "County Wife", and the end of the status of the Metis in the West.

From that moment on, the Metis were systematically deprived of their land, status, and employment. They were now labelled as "half-breeds" and as such reduced to a status below not only the white, but the Native inhabitants.

Here is an excellent chronological history of the Metis people: http://www.telusplanet.net/public/dgarneau/metis.htm

And here is an excellent biography of Louis Riel, the Metis martyr of the North West Rebellion (aka the Riel Rebellion): http://www.shsb.mb.ca/Riel/indexenglish.htm

Thanks again. This is very pertinent stuff and probably very little known outside Canada. It's important too because it shows a pattern which has also been seen in the United States. As I said originally, same white government, different flags. They have an alarming tendency to operate alike.

Here's something you might find interesting regarding sovereignty issues that might allow some "fathoming" of the governmental mind assuming there is such a thing.

http://www.nativeweb.org/pages/legal/sovereignty.html

Maybe a little aside? Sauvage: some French people say this word actually means something different from taking up savage ways. It's more like doing your own thing, independent of the community. So for example, Parisians might call Provencals sauvage because the latter don't do things like the Parisians. I wonder if that's also true in Canada?

Regarding the artile on Sovereignty... I just skimmed it and will do a full read later. There are som interesting points that caught my eye. The part about the Papal bull being a prominant part of how the US deals with legal issues... I wasn't aware of that. Of course, we forget that the US legal system has a different basis from Canadian and British law.

With the exception of the Province of Quebec, our legal system is based on British Common Law and often when dealing with the courts, one can go back to very old British legal materials to base a case upon, and to present a legal argument. Of course, contemporary Constitutional law, Supreme Court decisions, and precedents set also factor into the equation. In dealing with Land Claim issues and other issues dealing with Sovereignty, the French and British treaties come into play, as well as those entered into under the Dominion Government, and post Confederation (1867), as well as Constitutional, Supreme Court, and other decisions.

Quebec civil law, on the other hand, is based on Napoleonic Code (as is civil law in California ans Louisiana). Napoleonic Code also incorporated Roman law.

An interesting side note: The Jay Treaty which was signed with Britain after the Revolutionary War (1794) (amongst other issues) recognises the right of Native people born either on the US or Canadian side of the border to cross freely.

"EXPLANATORY ARTICLE TO THE THIRD ARTICLE OF THE TREATY OF NOVEMBER 19, 1794, RESPECTING THE LIBERTY TO PASS AND REPASS THE BORDERS AND TO CARRY ON TRADE AND COMMERCE.

Concluded May 4, 1796; Ratification advised by Senate May 9, 1796.

Whereas by the third article of the treaty of amity, commerce and navigation, concluded at London on the nineteenth day of November, one thousand seven hundred and ninetyfour, between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, it was agreed that is should at all times be free to His Majesty's subjects and to the citizens of the United States, and also to the Indians dwelling on either side of the boundary line, assigned by the treaty of peace to the United States, freely to pass and repass, by land or inland navigation, into the respective territories and countries of the two contracting parties, on the continent of America, (the country within the limits of the Hudson's Bay Company only excepted,) and to navigate all the lakes, rivers, and waters thereof, and freely to carry on trade and commerce with each other, subject to the provisions and limitations contained in the said article: And whereas by the eighth article of the treaty of peace and friendship concluded at Greenville on the third day of August, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-five, between the United States and the nations or tribes of Indians called the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanoes, Ottawas, Chippewas, Putawatimies, Miamis, Eel River, Weeas, Kickapoos, Piankashaws, and Kaskaskias, it was stipulated that no person should be permitted to reside at any of the towns or the hunting camps of the said Indian tribes, as a trader, who is not furnished with a licence for that purpose under the authority of the United States..."

This enables Canadian Native people to live and work in the United States without having to obtain a "green card" or to apply for visas. The United States recognises the Jay Treaty while Canada does not, claiming the agreement was amde with Great Britain and not Canada. Not knowing enough about the basis of that argument, I cannot comment. It does mean that American Indians do not have the right to live and work in Canada, while Canadian Indians have the right to do so in the United States.

http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/D/1776-1800/foreignpolicy/jay.htm

In regards to the term "Sauvage": We heard that term a lot during the Oka Crisis. It was used both in the derrogatory and in the descriptive sense (like "Indian"). However, the more proper French term now used is Autochtone (Native) or Premiers Peuples (First Peoples).

From the Canadian Museum of Civilization, this is the section dealing with First Peoples. The First Peoples Hall has been in the works since before 1989 when I worked at the Museum. Most of the work was done by committees composed of Native People from all areas of expertise, including my ex. who still works there.

I haven't been to see it yet, as I have "issues" with seeing my ex's new fiance who also works there.....