The Politics of Education in Moose Factory, Ontario
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The Politics of Education In Moose Factory, Ontario JOHN S. LONG Moose Factory, Ontario This study1 study examines the politics of education at the com munity level in the predominantly Native community of Moose Fac tory, Ontario, during a debate over the site of a new elementary school. Two-thirds of the community's elementary school children live on an Indian reserve, but an integrated school system has pro vided for their education on federal land off-reserve since 1957. Since few of the non-Natives living in the community today have school-age children,2that educational system served to integrate children from the reserve with other Native children living off-reserve — members 'This discussion focuses only on elementary school education. My understand ing of community politics has been obtained through observation and through nu merous informal conversations in Moose Factory since 1972. I am grateful to sev eral effective teachers: Norman Wesley and Mervin Cheechoo have explained the Moose Band's viewpoint, while Fred Moore, Ruby McLeod and Herbert McLeod have suggested the changing social position of the Metis. Pat Chilton, who was Business Administrator and, later, Board Chairman during many of these de velopments, also shared his insights and clarified several points. Gilbert Faries provided essential information on the early history of the Board. Bob Mitchell, Supervisory Officer with the Ontario Ministry of Education, explained the Min istry's viewpoint. Professors Richard J. Preston and Stephen B. Lawton made helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 2 When the hospital first opened, there were few Native employees and the largely transient non-Natives had enough children of school age to demand their own school (see page 11). By the 1970s this situation had changed, so that there were fewer non-Natives and thus fewer children of school age. 183 184 JOHN S. WNG of other Indian bands from eastern and western J ames Bay, non- 'I status Indians and Metis. A 5.4 million dollar school was planned to be built off-reserve, with the provincial government contributing two million dollars on behalf of off-reserve residents, and the federal government providing the Moose Band's three million dollar share. After the community school board had awarded a contract to build the school, contro versy erupted publicly over the tradition of integrated education in a school located off-reserve. Some Moose Band members favoured a new school on their reserve, but they did not necessarily want a seg regated school. Under existing provincial law, however, such a school could only have served their children, since the province was unable to build on federal (reserve) land. At issue was the question of who should control education in the community- a board representing the entire island community, or a dual system with Moose Band and the off-reserve residents managing separate operations. The resulting conflict revealed an apparent, but much misunder stood, discontinuity- a seeming split in the community; in fact, the basis for this division had existed for decades. Historical and Social Background From the early 19th century, there were two groups of Native people in the James Bay region: a minority of mixed European and Native ancestry who resided at the posts, and a majority who hunted and trapped for the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1905, with the sign ing of Treaty No. 9 in northern Onta1:o, this dual division of the Native population was selectively emphasized. After 1905, we can speak of an lndian-Metis split at Moose Factory but not at nearby Fort Albany on western James Bay (Long 1985). Moose Factory declined in importance following the completion of the Timiskaming and Northern Ontario (later the Ontario North land) Railway in 1931 and the growth of the mainland village of Moosonee, first established as a Revillon Freres trading post. The island community was not completely eclipsed, however, for the rail head was near enough that the island remained an administrative headquarters for the Anglican Church, which operated a residential and day school there, as well as a small hospital. In addition, the federal government maintained regional offices on the island for the POLITICS OF EDUCATION 185 Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Indian Affairs Department. For the Moose Factory Metis, exclusion from Treaty No. 9 had little impact for several years. The Indians received their $4 per per son treaty money annually, but a Metis like William McLeod earned a yearly salary of $235 by working as a Hudson's Bay Company carpenter in 1909, plus food rations and housing (Judd 1983). In ad dition to their economic advantage, some Metis prided themselves on their social status. This became clear when the century-old distinc tion between Metis HBC servants and Indian hunter-trappers began to break down, a change which distressed at least some of the Metis. William McLeod's daughter-in-law, Ruby McLeod (nee Carey), born in 1900, recalls the early years of this century: Everybody was religious around here. They used to go to church with all their children. And they had an Indian service, Cree service, in the afternoon. And the white people, all the halfbreeds would go to church before dinner. And they all had their own pews in church, each family. That's what they done. And the Indians didn't mix up with the morning service; it was only for the halfbreeds. And then they used to have an Indian service after dinner. (R. McLeod 1985) Ruby blames the Reverend J.T. Griffin, an Anglican missionary stationed at Moose Factory from 1921 to 1926, for changing this orderly system: So, I don't know, some fellow didn't like that, some minister. Mr. Griffin they called him. My father-in-law went to church and he stood at the door. "What's the matter with you?" Mr. Griffin told him. "Well," he said, "my seat is just full of Indians. Kids," he says. "Oh," he says, "there's a lot of seats in church. You don't have to have [that] one for a seat," he told him. "There's a lot of seats." "But I'm not going to walk all over the church if I come to church. I like my old pew," he says, "for all my family". "Oh," he says, "there's no [reserved] pews. They're all free," he said. "For anybody." That was Griffin. That's what he thought. It's him what put a stop to that. And so they were sitting all over the church. Now today they sit anyplace. And people used to be fine when everybody had their own pews, you know. There was the Moores and the McLeods and the Careys and MacDonalds. All of them. They all had their own seats. It used to be nice like that. The whole family would go, you see. To church. And he come and 186 JOHN S. LONG changed it, of course. He told them to sit where they like. "The seats are not paid for," he says, [laughs] That [was] Griffin. (R. McLeod 1985) Statements about the Indians and Metis being "one big family" at Moose Factory a few decades ago must be critically examined. They may reflect a longing for the old days when everybody had a de fined social status. The social stratification of the fur trade provided satisfaction for Indians and Metis alike. When Metis HBC servants like Herbert McLeod visited Indians on their trapping grounds, they were "treated as guests of honour": When we arrived, we did not have to do anything! Our dogs were taken care of by the boys, and all the loads were taken in and opened up. They had a very fine tent for us to stay in with nice, clean brush, and the part where we were to sleep had some canvas which was taken from an old canoe, but was very clean. We did not have to cook for ourselves, also wood and water was all taken in for us. (H. McLeod 1978:16) Back in the settlement, the Metis served as bilingual cultural bro kers (Paine 1971). William McLeod was John Cooper's interpreter and Ruby McLeod served the same function for Regina Flannery in the early 1930s. As long as the Indians spent most of the year hunting and trapping, they were their own bosses, and visitors to their traplines were their guests. Griffin recognized that this system was already breaking down in the 1920s, as more and more Indian children attended school and learned to speak English, and as some Indians began to work year-round for the HBC, Revillon Freres or the Anglican mission (see also Blythe ti al 1985:31ff). The Metis' social space was being violated not only in the settle ment but also in the mud flats of James Bay. Fred Moore, a Metis born in 1914, recalls the hunting restrictions that resulted as the Canada-US Migratory Birds Convention was enforced: "That law never come in here 'til the Mounties come in [1929]. That's the only fellas we had here, and they were getting pretty strict. That was just about the time the railway come through." Speaking of earlier conditions, he stated, "You could go out like an Indian, and go and hunt geese wherever you felt like it, Metis or halfbreed or whatever you want to call it. Everybody was together. You'd go and sit in a blind with a treaty guy" (Moore 1985). The selective enforcement of hunting, trapping or fishing restrictions reinforced the notion of the POLITICS OF EDUCATION 187 Metis as a people apart and, now, a group with few if any advantages over the Indians.