INDG 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Bear River Massacre, James Mcgill, John William Dawson
9 Jun 2018
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Lecture 14, Indigenous Memory
I. Erasing memory
A. Toronto
II. Contesting Memory
A. The Bear Massacre River
III. Reimaging Memory
A. Hochelaga Rock
ERASING MEMORY: TORONTO
“Indians…vanished like the morning mist…and nothing remains to recall even their memory, but
the well sounding name they invented for his locality…Toronto” Freeman
Freeman is highly critical of this kind of history
one of her goals is to critique statements like that
the event she is analyzing is a commemoration ceremony in 1884 to celebrate Toronto’s 50th
anniversary
the 50 year mark is the anniversary of the integration of Toronto as a city
1783 was the ate of first settlement in Toronto
what date do u choose for the anniversary?
choice of 1884 represents choice by political leader
it’s significant in term of indigenous memory in Toronto
there is a political dimension
making the funding o the city that ay enable settlers to portray Toronto’s history as virtuous
way to portray history as if there was no indigenous history
as if the city was born as a multi cultural center w no skeleton in the closet
one way this trick was accomplished was by define history solely as written history
the only kind of history u can talk about is that which is written down and that is history of
modern european states
indigenous groups were made pre-historical
history starts after they’ve gone away
freeman argues that design of float serves to erase indigenous presence from Toronto’s history
and especially the missasauga people
it was a matter of how this characters were portrayed
the 1st float depicting indigenous presence came third in the parade
the first 2 floats who the arrival of settlers in 83
but chronological order would have been the most logical one
her argument is that order helps portray history of Toronto as the united empire royalist
(american colonists supporting the British)
The 3rd float is the first to show indigenous people without European
in includes misrepresentations, fiction
ironically, indigenous people appear on other floats but it reinforces the european character of
Toronto, on other floats they represent symbolic purposes (as kissing the representation of Queen
Victoria for example)
other floats show "amicable coexistence of natives and settlers"
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