PROFESSOR CECILIA MORGANPROFESSOR CECILIA

Metropolitan missions

Professor Cecilia Morgan, a social and cultural historian, discusses her latest research which argues that the travels of indigenous Canadian people abroad in the 19th Century reflect both the continuity of heritage and resistance to the changes brought about by the expansion of the British Empire

who appeared before to protest certainly typifies that model, as he attempted the colonial government’s attempt to move to bring and some European his people from their homes to a more remote norms to the Mississauga. location in the colony of . In 1860, Catherine Sutton/Nahnebahwequa, who was To what extent did the cultures of Peter Jones’ niece, also appeared before Queen indigenous people change over time? Victoria to protest the colonial Government’s confiscation of her land. Individuals such as Those who lived in Upper Canada/Ontario saw Jones, who had converted to , also a number of significant changes over the 19th travelled to Britain on fundraising tours for Century: increasing numbers of settlers put colonial missions. Indigenous people who had more pressure on indigenous communities’ taken up performance – staging traditional lands and traditional territories; dances, songs and delivering lectures about more people were exposed to Christianity; their communities’ histories – travelled overseas the colonial and then Dominion governments to ‘educate’ British and European audiences. attempted to exercise more control over People also travelled for academia: a number of indigenous peoples’ lives. People from the Six mixed-race children of the were sent to Nations and the Mississauga felt those changes attend school in England and Scotland by their most acutely. Yet I think the other part of the British fathers. I think, too, that many of these story – that of indigenous peoples’ persistence Could you discuss what led to your research people were curious about other places. in retaining their cultural beliefs and practices, into the travels of indigenous people maintaining family and kinship ties, negotiating between 1775 and 1920? How did these people shape the communities and, at times, resisting settler and imperial they helped to create? power, and refusing to be marginalised – is While scholars had looked at indigenous remarkable. I see overseas travel as forming an peoples’ movements overseas for the early In the case of the fur trade children, some important part of that persistence, negotiation modern period (1500 to 1800), particularly for contributed to the creation of middle-class and refusal. diplomatic reasons, their research usually ends society in England and Scotland; in one with the founding of the US. I wanted to see the family, a daughter married a bank president in What are the broader implications of extent to which indigenous people continued Nairn, while a son went on to found the local your research, particularly with respect to to travel in the 19th and early 20th centuries, agricultural society. Others were part of even indigenous people? as their own geographic mobility was limited larger-scale migrations. There were also some by the formation of new settler societies in that returned to Canada; Matilda Davis, who The broader implications concern indigenous and then the Dominion was taken to London in the early 1820s when peoples’ ability to remain mobile and have a of Canada. very young, used her education and training as public presence in the context of 19th Century a governess to set up a very successful school in imperial expansion. I think another fundamental What motivated indigenous people to travel? Red River (present-day Winnipeg). factor to the study of history, is the ways in which they coped with changes that, at one There were a range of motivations, but it’s For other travellers, the results are mixed since level, they didn’t set in motion or couldn’t possible to single out some central issues. some led lives marked by constant movement. control. Ultimately, what I see are people who An important factor was disputes over land, In these cases, the communities they helped were creative and resourceful in dealing with territory and space and the question of to create were ones of transatlantic larger political and social forces. Meanwhile, the indigenous sovereignty or control. This primarily movement, rather than ‘settled’ places. Others, other part of this story involves the uprooting accounted for John Norton’s travel in 1804 and though, clearly brought their experiences to of children, whose letters home are some of the for the 1837 trip of Peter Jones/Kahkewaqonaby, bear on their home communities. Peter Jones most poignant I have read in my career. WWW.RESEARCHMEDIA.EU 105 PROFESSOR CECILIA MORGAN Engagements with empire Research at the University of Toronto into patterns of international travel undertaken by indigenous Canadians against the backdrop of expanding colonial incursion reveals multiple layers of interlinked stories

EXTENDED EUROPEAN CONTACT in the 17th researched the incidence of travel abroad by the Crown; they then often formed relationships and 18th centuries, largely as a result of the fur indigenous Canadians in the 19th Century and and networks which resulted in further travel. trade, and a wave of immigration in the era of early 20th Century to establish whether it was 19th Century imperialism not only encroached a widespread phenomenon or if such ventures In the 19th Century, humanitarian concerns upon the territorial freedoms of the indigenous were exceptional. With support from the Social about the plight of indigenous or enslaved peoples of Canada – the First Nations, the Métis Sciences and Humanities Research Council of peoples within the British Empire gave way as and the Inuit – but also eroded their numbers Canada, Morgan project has explored not only attitudes on race hardened. Interracial intimacy as they were exposed to unfamiliar diseases. what motivated such people to travel, but also was frowned upon by the British state and drew Europeans asserted that indigenous peoples’ what effects their travels had on them, their negative attention in the press, disapproval from way of life was dying out and considered their home communities and ensuing generations. family and racist curiosity, but as a consequence cultures and religious beliefs inferior. Indigenous “The question of mobility interests me – how of the fur trade, increasing immigration and also peoples were increasingly placed under pressure could they move across borders and boundaries, travel, intimate relationships between men and to abandon their native belief systems and and why did they do so?” Morgan reflects. “I was women of different heritages formed. allegiances and assimilate into the new Canadian interested in examining the meanings of travel society: to be Canadian meant to subscribe to the to these people as individuals: how did it shape Morgan has found that these mixed relationships European – specifically English or French – way of their identities and lives?” cannot be neatly classified, as each story has its life and to be subject to imperial rule. own timbre, outcomes and ending; however, the literacy of at least one partner in English and INTERACTIONS WITH COLONIAL POWER Although now largely forgotten by the Canadian the resulting ability to translate between the public, in the 19th Century indigenous Canadians In the course of her research, Morgan has explored imperialist and native cultures was an important such as E Pauline Johnson, Peter Edmund Jones of a number of themes – such as gender, theatre benefit. For example, the Methodist religion drew the Mississauga Ojibwa (born Kahkewaquonaby) and performance, public and intimate relations, some mixed couples together, and their fluency and John Brant-Sero (born Ojijatekha) were and networks of interconnection – linking the in English allowed them to broker and interpret very well known. Yet, while the lives of these travel of indigenous men, women and children. religious teachings for native communities. people followed very different paths – E Pauline Her main foci were the reasons they travelled, Literacy in English was also fundamental for Johnson was a half-Mohawk, half-British poet the networks with organisations and individuals negotiations with British authorities or for and performance artist, Peter Jones was half that they formed, whether those networks relaying critiques of imperialist society couched British, a Mississauga Ojibwa chief and Methodist were instrumental in prompting their travel in terms (metaphors and symbols) that both missionary, and John Brant-Sero was a Mohawk or resulted from their travels, and the impact indigenous and British people could understand. performer, writer and lecturer – they all travelled of their travels. For this, Morgan has analysed This enabled these travellers to demonstrate repeatedly to Britain in the 19th Century. In written media such as newspapers, travelogues, that, far from being part of a ‘dying race’, as their careers, Johnson and Brant-Sero played to government records, missionary society reports, was widely believed, they could adapt and that the European fascination with ‘exotic natives’; letters and diaries, and pictorial media such as their history was a continuing one. Moreover, far Brant-Sero, on the other hand, found his native posters, sketches and photographs. The results from forgetting their own heritage, Morgan has background thwarted his efforts to join a British will soon be published in a book, which relates established that the travellers often worked hard military campaign. the stories of many people, most of whom to preserve their own languages and histories. travelled between Canada and Britain. Brant- Prompted by their stories, Professor Cecilia Sero, Johnson and Jones were part of a well- A SENSE OF HOME Morgan at the University of Toronto has established and general flow of people between the British centre of empire and British colonies The children who travelled to Britain from who primarily travelled for practical purposes Canada at the time were mainly the offspring such as work, education or to represent a case to of mixed marriages between fur traders and

Indigenous peoples’ travel abroad was undertaken with the motivation of both engaging with and confronting imperialistic and colonial assumptions

106 INTERNATIONAL INNOVATION indigenous women. Though the state classed INTELLIGENCE them as indigenous, their British fathers wished them to receive a British education and COLONY AND METROPOLE: they were sent into new networks of schools NATIVE PEOPLE AND TRAVEL, and kin – their fathers’ families. Notions of BRITISH NORTH AMERICA TO home and kin for both these children and the BRITAIN, 1775-1920 adult travellers, however, remained primarily OBJECTIVES represented by their ancestral heritage, families and communities, whichever side • To determine when and why indigenous of the Atlantic they inhabited or community people undertook transatlantic and events they attended might be. However, imperial travel; the kinds of experiences social, religious, economic and political such mobility brought them; and the forces increasingly impacted on traditional Nahnebahwequa. Image courtesy of the The Grey Roots ways of life for indigenous people; and British Archival Collection, Owen Sound effects of traveling on the travellers attitudes to race meant that legal, political and themselves and their communities economic authority was progressively asserted MOVING FORWARDS • To explore the kinds of networks, local more strongly over native people as the 19th and imperial, that facilitated movement Century unfolded. As a result indigenous people Morgan is keen to showcase the extent of across oceans and borders ultimately became wards of the state: “Home her research through a variety of media and and domesticity, the intimate and familial, were has published her results in a number of • To understand how gender relations concepts and places that became increasingly papers, journals, keynote addresses, and has shaped indigenous peoples’ travel in the subject to the intrusion and regulation of given workshop presentations nationally and 19th Century British Empire colonial governments and nation-states,” internationally. Furthermore, she has recently muses Morgan. initiated a new project, examining the histories FUNDING of English-Canadian actresses on transnational Despite the fact that Queen Victoria was the and imperial stages between the 1860s and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research head of the British state, the male-dominated 1940s: “This group is different, but many of the Council Insight Grant – award no. imperial structure (or system) also made same themes – forging networks and moving INSERT410-2007-0220 assumptions about gender: that indigenous across borders, in particular – resonate,” she men were the leaders and spokespersons concludes, highlighting the broad scope of her CONTACT for their communities and that the head of continuing research in this field. Professor Cecilia Louise Morgan a household, however configured, would Principal Investigator be male. For Morgan, the ways in which Frances Minnehaha Copway, c. 1870s. Frances was the women such as Catherine Bunch Sutton (born daughter of the Mississauga Methodist missionary, writ- Ontario Institute for Studies in Education Nahnebahwequa), who presented a case er, and traveler George Copway/Kahgegagabowh and the University of Toronto on Ojibwa land rights to the Queen, and E English Elizabeth Howell Copway. Image courtesy of the Eva Brook Donly Museum and Archives, Simcoe 252 Bloor Street West Pauline Johnson, handled the British notions Toronto of authority is particularly fascinating. “They Ontario M5S 1V6 both cooperated with and challenged imperial Canada and colonial power. Nahnebahwequa was pregnant when she travelled overseas and gave T +1 416 978 1209 birth just after her audience with the Queen!” E [email protected] she explains. In fact, consistently, Morgan has found that indigenous peoples’ travel abroad CECILIA MORGAN earned a BA (1987) was undertaken with the motivation of both engaging with and confronting imperialistic and in History/Women’s Studies and MA colonial assumptions. (1988) and PhD (1994) in History, all from the University of Toronto. As a social Peter Jones, Engraving made during his and cultural historian, Morgan’s research 1837-38 tour of Britain. Peter Jones interests are in the areas of gender, Collection. Courtesy of Victoria University colonialism, and imperialism in the British

Eliza Field Jones, Portrait, April 1832. Archives, Toronto Empire; the writing of Canadian history Peter Jones Collection. Courtesy of Victoria at a popular level in 19th and 20th Century University Archives Ontario; and the links between gender, culture, and national identities.

Morgan’s last book was A Happy Holiday: English-Canadians and Transatlantic Tourism, 1870-1930 (University of Toronto Press, 2008), which explores tourism’s relationship to gender, modernity, and transnational and imperial identities. She has just completed two book manuscripts on the history of commemoration and memory in Canada. Morgan’s publications have won a number of awards. She has also served on various scholarly committees and editorial boards.

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