What Do These Mean to Christians: First Nations’ Rights, White Guilt
These days, Canadians are finding it hard to attend any sort of public event – in a church, a sports arena, or shopping mall – without being told that, before things get underway, there will be an acknowledgement that all present are on Treaty territory, the traditional lands of some Indigenous tribe or other. This can seem a bit grating at times, prompting wonderment about what such a statement has to do with worship, ice hockey, or buying a Christmas present, but in our polite Canadian way we usually wait for it to be over so we can get on with our lives.
To those religious potentates, university presidents, or sports franchise owners who mandate this moment of compulsory historical memory, it may seem only a harmless bit of virtue signalling, a cheap way of apologizing for a century or more of bungled relations with the descendants of North America’s first settlers. To the Aboriginal Industry – that growing section of our economy that depends on a flow of government cash to native band chiefs and councils, lawyers, academics, activists, and civil servants – it means a chance to assert First Nations’ rights and to leverage white guilt for political purposes.
But what should it mean to a Christian? Aren’t we Canadians all guilty of imperialist violence and genocide and shouldn’t the truly religious take a moment to face up to this every time we go to church, watch the Winnipeg Jets, or attend a book launch?
Well, no.
First of all, each one of the eleven numbered treaties which are to command our attention contains an explicit transfer of land from native groups to the Canadian government. Treaty One, for example, which includes the territory on which the city of Winnipeg stands, states: “The Chippewa and Swampy Cree Tribes of Indians and all other the Indians inhabiting the district hereinafter described and defined do hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up to Her Majesty the Queen and successors forever all the lands included within the following limits . . .” This surrender was in return for reserved land, financial payments, and goods like clothing, trapping equipment, or a buggy. What was once native land is now Canada, the much-loved home of immigrant Mennonites, Ukrainians, Scots, Syrians, and Chinese, as well as Cree and Ojibwa.
Secondly, the “traditional lands” in question were not always owned by the native groups mentioned in the treaties. They had been fought over constantly and were subject to conquest and dispossession of the previous inhabitants, like every other piece of earth on our blood-soaked planet. The Chippewa (Anishinabe) of Manitoba were migrants, late-comers to this area who contested territory with Cree and Sioux peoples. The Iroquois of southern Ontario now live on lands that had once belonged to the Huron whom they slaughtered. Do the Mohawks, I wonder, begin each band meeting with an acknowledgement that they are on ancestral Wendat land and apologize for the Lachine massacre of 1689?
Thirdly – and most importantly for Christians – the continued ritual acknowledgement of native land claims is spiritually corrosive. It grants the descendants of the original tribal settlers an unwarranted ethical high ground, and robs them of moral agency. They need not acknowledge their culture’s many social dysfunctions as long as society treats them as perpetually wronged victims, and beneficiaries of a learned dependency. Moreover, especially when linked to the residential school trope, it imposes an unremitting Lent upon Canadian Christians, ignoring the enormous contribution made by generations of priests, missionaries, ministers, nuns, and teachers who brought civilization and order.
It would be best for all Canadians if this dreary formula were dropped from our public life and we started treating each other as equals, fellow humans in the eyes of God, government and church.
Gerry Bowler is a Winnipeg historian and a Senior Fellow of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
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