Copway and Traill in a Conversation That Never Took Place Daniel Coleman Mcmaster University
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Grappling with Respect: Copway and Traill in a Conversation that Never Took Place Daniel Coleman McMaster University s to ghosts or spirits they appear totally banished from Canada,” Awrote Catharine Parr Traill in what has become one of Canadian litera- ture’s most infamous statements. Here there are no historical associations, no legendary tales of those that come before us. Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous food to keep her alive in the backwoods…. No Druid claims our oaks; and instead of poring with mysteri- ous awe among our curious limestone rocks, that are often singularly grouped together, we refer them to the geologist to exercise his skill in accounting for their appearance; instead of investing them with the solemn characters of ancient temples or heathen altars, we look upon them with the curious eye of natural philosophy alone. (128) This statement from Traill’s The Backwoods of Canada, an epistolary account of traveling to and clearing a farm in the 1830s near what is now Lakefield, Ontario, is an archetypal passage in one of the most reprinted books in the canon of early Canadian literature. This passage is a classic statement by a new arrival of how difficult it will be for an immigrant populace to forge a literature in a new land. The colony’s first English writ- ESC 39.2–3 (June/September 2013): 63–88 ers must start from zero, from scratch, since they do not have access to a pre-existing local tradition. In the absence of already existing myth and history, they must build a foundation based upon unsuperstitious reason Daniel Coleman and scientific observation. teaches and carries out The great irony in Traill’s words is also archetypal because, of course, research in Canadian there are historical associations and legendary tales that are well known literary cultures at to the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg inhabitants of the Pamashkodeyong- McMaster University. He Nogojiwanong region where Traill and her husband have come to home- has published Masculine stead.1 Indeed there exists a remarkable opportunity for her to learn about Migrations (1998), The them when she passes through Pamashkodeyong (Rice Lake) in 1832. Scent of Eucalyptus “[B]eyond the Indian village,” writes Traill, (2003), White Civility The missionaries have a school for the education and instruc- (2006), and In Bed tion of the Indian children. Many of them can both read and With the Word (2009). write fluently, and are greatly improved in their moral and Of his nine co-edited religious conduct. They are well and comfortably clothed, volumes of literary and have houses to live in. But they are too much attached and cultural criticism, to their wandering habits to become good and industrious the most recent are settlers. During certain seasons they leave the village, and Retooling the Humanities encamp themselves in the woods along the borders of those (2011) and Countering lakes and rivers that present the most advantageous hunting Displacements (2012). and fishing-grounds…. Certain it is that the introduction of the Most recently, he has Christian religion is the first greatest step towards civilization published articles and and improvement; its very tendency being to break down the strong-holds of prejudice and ignorance, and unite mankind produced the YouTube in one bond of social brotherhood. (59–60) video series of interviews on different systems of knowing between 1 In Dancing on Our Turtle’s Back, Leanne Simpson, Nishnaabe historian and pro- indigenous, diasporic, fessor at Trent University, writes, “Nishnaabeg is translated as ‘the people’ and refers to the Ojibwe, Odawa (Ottawa), Potawatomi, Michi Saagiig (Mississauga), and Western cultures. Saulteaux, Chippewa and Omámíwinini (Algonquin) people. Nishnaabeg people are also known as Nishinaabeg, Anishinaabeg, Anishinaabek, and Anishinabek, reflecting different spelling systems and differing dialects” (25 n1). Deriving her discussion of these and many other Nishnaabeg terms from discussions with various elders, whom she carefully credits throughout her book, she explains further that “Michi Saagiig or ‘Mizhi-zaugeek’ ” people live at the eastern door- way of the Nishnaabeg nation, located in what is now known as eastern Ontario. According to [Michi Saagiig Nishnaabe elder] Doug Williams, “the word ‘Mis- sissauga’ is an anglicized version of Michi Saagiig or Mizhi-zaugeek” (26 n2). She also identifies the following place names: Pamashkodeyong (Rice Lake) and Nogojiwanong (Peterborough, the place at the foot of the rapids) (93 n131; 99 n132). Whenever possible, I will refer to Nishnaabe (singular) or Nishnaabeg (plural) in this essay. Copway uses the term “Ojibway” to describe his tribal group, and the term is still commonly used today by Nishnaabeg writers such as Basil Johnston and Scott Lyons. 64 | Coleman It is too bad that, pressed as they are to complete their long journey from England to their homestead, the Traills do not have time to stop in and actually visit the children in the Rice Lake School. Had she met the stu- dents there, perhaps direct contact with them may have modified her certainty that the benefits of civilization and religion would constitute a one-way transfer from the settlers to the Nishnaabeg. She could then have encountered one of the students named Kahgegagahbowh, who, under the English name George Copway, went on to publish several books detailing the history, tales, and spiritual traditions whose absence Traill laments.2 Among the first indigenous people in North America to produce books in English, Copway was Nishnaabe from the very Michi Saagiig region that Traill details in her writings, and it is tempting to speculate about whether she might have met the young Kahgegagahbowh, if not in 1832 when she did not stop at the Rice Lake School, then in 1834 when she describes two visits to the winter and summer camps of the Nishnaabe hunter Peter Nogan and his family.3 Perhaps Kahgegagahbowh, sixteen 2 It would be tempting to hope that Traill made her infamous statement about the lack of history or legend in the district in a moment when she simply wasn’t thinking about indigenous people, but she then quotes an unnamed female poet friend who names indigenous people even as she denies their relevance: “It is the most unpoetical of all lands; there is no scope for imagination; here all is new—the very soil seems newly formed; there is no hoary ancient grandeur in these woods; no recollections of former deeds connected with the country. The only beings in which I take any interest are the Indians, and they want the warlike character and intelligence that I had pictured to myself they would pos- sess” (128). To add yet another layer of irony to this passage, Traill then breaks from these comments on Upper Canada’s lack of poetic inspiration and Natives’ lack of intelligence to describe the making of maple sugar, a process incoming settlers would have learned from indigenous people. (See Simpson 74–81 for a retelling of the traditional story of how Nanabozho or Elder Brother learned to make maple syrup.) Regarding Copway’s writerly output, between 1847 and 1851 he published The Life, History and Travels of Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh (George Copway), a Young Indian Chief of the Ojebwa Nation … (Albany: Weed and Parsons, 1847; Phila- delphia: Harmstead, 1847), The Ojibway Conquest: A Tale of the Northwest. By Kah-ge-ga-gah-bowh, or G. Copway, Chief of the Ojibway Nation (New York: G.P. Putnam, 1850), Organization of the New Indian Territory, East of the Mis- souri River … (New York: Benedict, 1850), Running Sketches of Men and Places, in England, France, Germany, Belgium, and Scotland (New York: Riker, 1851), and The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation (London: Gilpin, 1850). He also edited the weekly newspaper Copway’s American Indian for four months, July to October 1851. 3 Traill refers only to “Peter” by his first name in The Backwoods of Canada, some- times adding “the old hunter” or “the Chief.” But he appears also in her sister Susanna Moodie’s Roughing It in the Bush and is identified as “Peter Nogan (see Grappling with Respect | 65 years old that year, was one of the young men practising tomahawk throws on the warm Sunday afternoon in June when she and her husband visited Peter’s family—or better yet, perhaps he was one of the people she notices lying on blankets in the shade and reading (Backwoods 231). Neither of them ever writes about having met the other, but, whether or not the two met in person, Kahgegagahbowh’s family was well known to settlers in the Pamashkodeyong district. Indeed, for a time the Copways had a settler named Lewis staying in their home, while Kahgegagahbowh was growing up. His father, a Christianized 1812 War veteran who went by the name of John Copway, was also a renowned medicine maker widely respected for his knowledge of Nishnaabeg history and tradition. The boy himself was a bright star at the Methodist mission where his aptitude as a student caused the teacher to recommend him as a translator and apprentice at the Lake Superior Mission of the American Methodist Church, a move which evolved into three years of schooling at Ebenezer Manual Labor School in Illinois and a position as missionary with the Methodist church.4 So here is the gist of my essay: George Copway’s presence in the neigh- bourhood flies in the face of Traill’s denial of history, legend, and literacy in the Pamashkodeyong district. He and his family demonstrate not only that there is history, but that the people who know that history are literate, not just in their own Nishnaabemowin language but also in English.