GEOG 420 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: James Mcgill, John William Dawson, Symbolic Capital
5 Jun 2018
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19. Monday February 12th: Indigenous Memory in North America
1. Erasing Memory: Toronto (Freeman)
- “This is a version of history where indians vanished like the morning mist...and nothing
remains to recall even their memory, except the well sounding name they invented for
this locality...Toronto” (Freeman)
- This event is a commemoration ceremony in 1884 celebrating Toronto’s 50th
anniversary
- Even this is contestable, 50 year mark was 50th anniversary was
toronto's incorporation as a city, however, the date of first european
settlements was 1783. European settlement or incorporation of city?
- Choice of 1884, of political leaders and social elites for the year of incorporation
as the year of founding rather than european settlement
- Freeman, argues that making the founding of the city that day, enabled european
settlers to portray toronto’s (and canada's) history as virtuous.
- Where there are no victims
- Wealthy metropolis that welcomes all newcomers
- One way to pull off this trick (toronto=virtuous) was defining history, solely by
written history
- Oral societies, like Indigenous societies that were in toronto, were deemed
prehistoric
- History starts after them
Parade of Floats
- Served to erase indigenous place in toronto memory
- The first float with indigenous presence came 3rd in sequence in parade
- Showed arrival of british settlers in 1781 and british survey of the area in 1791
first
- then** indigenous parade float comes
- Displays history of toronto in a sequence so that it seems like the British royalists
as first settlers
- “Wigwarm” float
- 3rd parade float and only parade float with indigenous people w/o europeans in it
- Other than this, indigenous appeared on floats but in ways that reinforced the
british as the first settlers of toronto.
- “Occupation by the british” float
- Young native woman kissing the hand of Britannia
- Other floats showed peaceful coexistence of europeans and indigenous, but after
the incorporation of toronto float, the indigenous people stop appearing on floats
- Symbolizes Indigenous groups don’t have a place in modern toronto
- 2 kinds of erasures:
- 1. No significant presence of indigenous groups after european settlement,
particularly after municipality incorporation
- 2. Indigenous people disappear completely after municipality incorporation to
politically erase them from memory
2. Contesting Memory
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Monday february 12th: indigenous memory in north america, erasing memory: toronto (freeman) This is a version of history where indians vanished like the morning mistand nothing remains to recall even their memory, except the well sounding name they invented for this localitytoronto (freeman) This event is a commemoration ceremony in 1884 celebrating toronto"s 50th anniversary. Even this is contestable, 50 year mark was 50th anniversary was toronto"s incorporation as a city, however, the date of first european settlements was 1783. Choice of 1884, of political leaders and social elites for the year of incorporation as the year of founding rather than european settlement. Freeman, argues that making the founding of the city that day, enabled european settlers to portray toronto"s (and canada"s) history as virtuous. One way to pull off this trick (toronto=virtuous) was defining history, solely by written history. Oral societies, like indigenous societies that were in toronto, were deemed prehistoric. Served to erase indigenous place in toronto memory.
