PROFESSOR CECILIA PROFESSOR MORGAN 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 Queen Victoria to protest certainly typifies that model, as he attempted the colonial government’s attempt to move to bring Christianity and some European his people from their homes to a more remote norms to the Mississauga. location in the colony of Upper Canada. 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 Methodism, 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 hunting 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 fur trade 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 British North America 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,