BLOGGED:
Canada Military News: Queen
Victoria's Order of Nurses - #MealsOnWheels - CANADA'S #VON - nursing without
walls-God's Angels Among Us- Your meals on wheels saves etc saves us
elderly/disabled throwaways - from Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia with love -
most trusted in the world.... thx u for loving the old, weary, broken and the
throwaways of society-ur truly God's Angels among us- and a hug out 2
#CanadianRedCross as well and #firstresponders
----------------------
There are three general reasons why Victoria Day and the Queen’s Birthday were, and are, so important in the Canadian calendar – their role in Canadian history; heritage and values; the Canadian climate; and the special nature of a holiday paying tribute to a real person
The key point that needs to be made is that these celebrations reflected not the ideas and tastes of the governments of the day but the ideas and tastes of the people. And that is why the Queen’s Birthday has always been celebrated in such diverse and ordinary ways, as well as grand ways, across the country. If one may paraphrase our republican neighbours to the south, the Queen’s Birthday is a holiday of the people, by the people and for the people and their Queen.
Statement
by the Prime Minister of Canada on the occasion of Victoria Day
May 18, 2015
Ottawa, Ontario
“Today, Laureen and I join Canadians from across the country to officially celebrate the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada.
“This year marks an historic moment of tremendous significance for both our Queen and country. On September 9, Her Majesty’s reign will officially surpass that of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, making her the longest reigning Sovereign in the modern era of our country. In the entire history of Canada, only the reign of King Louis XIV was longer at 72 years.
“For over 63 years, Her Majesty has served Canada and Canadians with wisdom, dignity and dedication. It is for this reason that later this year we will commemorate her historic reign in a variety of visible and meaningful ways, including the awarding of the first Canadian Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Scholarship to students for international exchanges across the Commonwealth, the issuing of commemorative coins (Royal Canadian Mint), a stamp (Canada Post) and a $20 bank note (Bank of Canada). The Government of Canada will also broadly distribute a special edition of its educational booklet on the Canadian Crown – A Crown of Maples / La Couronne canadienne – including to individuals who become Canada’s newest citizens at citizenship court ceremonies.
“As we move closer to celebrating the 150th anniversary of Confederation in 2017, we are reminded of the many proud chapters of our history in which the Queen played a pivotal role, thus emphasizing the central role of the Crown in both the daily life and identity of our country.
“On this Victoria Day, let us reflect on Her Majesty’s enduring service based on a deep affection for and unwavering dedication to this country and all Canadians. We wish Her Majesty continued health and happiness in the years to come.”
-----------------
The Queen’s Birthday in Canada
by Garry Toffoli
“The Twenty-Fourth of May is the Queen’s Birthday.
If we don’t get a holiday, we’ll all run away.”
Many Canadians are familiar with that school yard jingle. It was certainly still in vogue in the 1950s and 1960s. It originated in the 19th Century with rumours that schools might not be closed for the holiday on the Queen’s Birthday. Monarchy is often claimed by its opponents to be the concern only of the elderly or the old fashioned. But there it was, Canada’s first student protest movement – formed to defend Canada’s royal heritage against the students’ elders. And it was a successful one at that – the students got their holiday! The memory of those young royal radicals was perpetuated throughout the 20th Century, when home fireworks were popular, with the ubiquitous “burning school house” being the highlight of the backyard display on Victoria Day.
Queen Victoria died in 1901. Why is Victoria Day still a hoiiday in Canada? A related question often asked is why do Canadians still celebrate Victoria Day when the people of the United Kingdom don’t anymore? The latter question, of course, betrays a colonial attitude in the mind of the asker. Why should Canadians even care if the British celebrate it or not in deciding what should be done in Canada. But the answer is even more emphatic.
The British no longer celebrate Victoria Day because they never did celebrate it. It is a uniquely Canadian holiday. The British do celebrate the Queen’s Official Birthday (i.e. Queen Elizabeth II’s) but the Canadian celebration of the Queen’s Official Birthday is also distinctly different from the British and is intimately tied up with Victoria Day.
There are three general reasons why Victoria Day and the Queen’s Birthday were, and are, so important in the Canadian calendar – their role in Canadian history; heritage and values; the Canadian climate; and the special nature of a holiday paying tribute to a real person.
First the history.
The Sovereign’s Birthday really began as a public celebration in London, England in 1785 when King George III, the first sovereign to reign over all of Canada, celebrated his birthday on 4th June with a Trooping the Colour ceremony by the Guards. The ceremony has been expanded, and the Household Cavalry was added in later years to the event, but the celebration has remained essentially the same in the United Kingdom ever since – that is a military one. The date has changed with different monarchs and Elizabeth II’s Official Birthday falls on a Saturday each year, usually the first or second in June. It is not a day off and there are few, if any, civic or public events as such other than the Trooping.
In Canada there was a different history. The King’s Birthday started with a military flavour as well. It was the occasion when the local militia, all the able-bodied men in a community, undertook their one day of compulsory training, if one could call it training. Basically they marched around for a couple of hours on the village square carrying their own muskets or rifles or pitchforks, then went for a beer at the local pub afterwards. The promotion of the Victoria Day weekend by a Canadian beer company in recent years as the “Two -Four” (a case of twenty-four bottles of beer) Weekend actually has historic roots therefore.
It was in the reigns of King George IV and King William IV that the idea of an “official” birthday emerged, as the two monarchs each decided to celebrate their birthdays from 1820 to 1837, not on the actual days they were born but on the day of their father, King George III’s, birthday (4th June), which had been the day of celebration for the six decades of that king’s long reign.
The observances were to change in Canada in Queen Victoria’s reign in a way that they never did in Britain.
Queen Victoria had a close relationship with Canada even though she never came here in person. Her father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, as a 23-year-old soldier, came to Canada to live in 1791 and stayed here until 1800, having risen to the position of Commander in Chief of British North America – one half of the position now held by the Governor General of Canada. Although the Duke died before Victoria was a year old, she knew the many Canadian friends of her father and was well aware of her Canadian heritage. She always took a special and personal interest in Canadian affairs, eventually sending all four of her sons and one of her daughters to visit, live in and work in Canada.- for example, Princess Louise as wife of the Governor General and the Duke of Connaught first as a soldier in his mother’s reign and later, returning in his nephew’s reign, as Governor General.
Queen Victoria came to the Throne in 1837. In 1840 the Province of Canada was created through the union of modern-day southern Ontario and southern Quebec. In 1845 the province, already feeling a special bond to the young Queen, made the Queen’s Birthday an official Canadian public holiday and it changed from a military event to a civilian one. It was still a relatively sedate celebration however. Then something happened.
The 1840s were a period of political turmoil which Canadians of the late 20th and early 21st centuries might not relate to – or perhaps they would. There was division between English and French, and battles over education – should there be separate schools, should the school systems be provincially controlled or locally controlled. A new populist political force, largely rural and western-based (the west in those days meant southwestern Ontario), had emerged to challenge the Toronto-Montreal eastern establishment. It was called the Reform Party. It eventually merged in an alliance with traditional eastern urban businessmen and became – the modern Liberal Party of Canada. And there was a separatist movement in the Quebec half of Canada. It was formed by Anglo-Montrealers who were upset by what they perceived as a pro-French bias in the government. In 1849 they burned down the parliament buildings, which were then in Montreal (and which is why they are not there now and why the capital of Canada ended up in Ottawa) and they issued the infamous Annexation Manifesto, calling for the separation of Canada from the British Empire and its annexation by the United States.
This was too much for the Anglo-Montrealers’ erstwhile allies and friends in English Ontario. Ontario conservatives formed the British America League, reaffirming loyalty to monarchical principles and the British Empire and advocating a different solution to the problems of Canada – a confederation of all the British provinces in North America. As part of this outpouring of loyalty and patriotism, the people of Toronto pulled out all the stops for the Queen’s Birthday and turned the next celebration into a day of demonstrating Canadian pride in their country and their Queen. Soon the Toronto-style celebration spread across the province and, after 1867, across the dominion.
The military parades were still an important part of the day, but there were public picnics and band concerts, sports events (the Queen’s Plate was originally run on the Queen’s Birthday), excursions, dinners, and eventually fireworks and the opening of cottages. And the Queen’s Birthday never looked back.
The key point that needs to be made is that these celebrations reflected not the ideas and tastes of the governments of the day but the ideas and tastes of the people. And that is why the Queen’s Birthday has always been celebrated in such diverse and ordinary ways, as well as grand ways, across the country. If one may paraphrase our republican neighbours to the south, the Queen’s Birthday is a holiday of the people, by the people and for the people and their Queen.
One could go out on a limb and say that Queen Victoria meant more to Canadians than she did to the British of the United Kingdom, because it was in Victoria’s reign that Canada was created and established its distinct identity. The idea thrown around carelessly today, that Canadians need to create their own identity, is nonsense. The did it well over a century ago and, as a result, Canada will always remain a Victorian country at heart, in the same way that the United States will always remain an 18th Century neo-classical country, because it was created in that era.
Victoria played an active role in Canadian development. For instance, she chose Ottawa as the new capital – the Westminster of the Wilderness, and named British Columbia, and she personally encouraged Confederation in 1867. But she was also the symbolic focus of Canadian unity. Sir John A. Macdonald, the Father of Confederation, said that the purpose of Confederation “was to declare in the most solemn and emphatic manner [Canadians'] resolve to be under the sovereignty of [Queen Victoria] and [her] family forever”. Victoria was truly the Mother of Confederation.
As a result, when Queen Victoria died in January 1901, the Canadian Parliament, independent of anything that was happening elsewhere in the Empire, created a memorial holiday “Victoria Day” on 24th May to remember the Queen’s birthday. That is the beginning of “Victoria Day” distinct from “The Queen’s Birthday” as a holiday. The new monarch, King Edward VII’s birthday was in November so Canadians decided to continue celebrating it officially on 24th May. King George V was born in June however so, in 1911, the King’s Birthday was celebrated in June and Victoria Day continued to be observed on 24th May. Except for two years, that remained the situation until Queen Elizabeth II came to the Throne in 1952.
1936 was the year of two King’s Birthdays in Canada. Canadians celebrated King Edward VIII’s official birthday on Victoria Day. But then he abdicated the Throne and his brother George VI became King on 11th December. The new King’s actual birthday, which was on 14th December, was also officially celebrated that year. The next year the official celebration was moved to June.
In 1939 King George VI and Queen Elizabeth came to Canada. The King was the first reigning monarch to do so. As part of that great tour the King’s Official Birthday in Canada was declared to be 20th May, when he was in Ottawa, and a Trooping the Colour was held on the lawn of Parliament Hill by the Canadian Brigade of Guards. It was the only year when a monarch had been in Canada for his or her official birthday until Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her official birthday in Edmonton on 22nd May, 2005.
In 1952 the official birthday of the new monarch, Queen Elizabeth II was celebrated in June in Canada as it was in the United Kingdom. But the next year it was moved to the Monday immediately preceding 25th May and Victoria Day was also moved from 24th May to that Monday. Victoria Day was so identified with the Monarchy, past and present, that the two celebrations were re-united. This was made permanent in 1957 by royal proclamation. And that is the situation today. The Official Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II and Victoria Day are two separate holidays but both are celebrated on the Monday that falls between 18th and 24th May inclusive.
A word should also be said about Empire Day. In some jurisdictions Empire Day was celebrated on 24th May, in England for example from 1904, and it is sometimes confused with Victoria Day. In Ontario Empire Day was the school day immediately prior to Victoria Day (i.e. 23rd May until 1953, unless that was a Saturday or a Sunday, in which case it would be the Friday before, and from 1953, always on the Friday before Victoria Day). Although it was an Empire and Commonwealth-wide celebratrion, it too was started in Canada – in Dundas, Ontario – by Clementina Trenholme Fessenden in 1898 (actually before Victoria Day was created from the Queen’s Birthday). In 1977 the date was changed to the second Monday in March and it was renamed Commonwealth Day (a name which it had been given in the United Kingdom in 1959). It was not made a public holiday however, remaining, as it began, as a school day for students to learn about the Commonwealth.
The second element in the success of Victoria Day is Canadian weather. In Britain spring comes in March, or even in February, as it does in much of Europe and the United States. In Canada spring doesn’t really come at all. We have what we call spring for a short period in April and May, but most of the world would say we go from winter to summer overnight (or over a few days) on some occasion within those two months. Either by coincidence or Divine intervention, reliably nice weather does not arrive in Canada until the Queen’s Birthday, giving real meaning to the term “Queen’s Weather”, even though it often rains on Victoria Day itself. As a result the Monarchy and summer weather became synonymous in Canada, and certain social customs developed around the day. One did not wear white before Victoria Day, gardens were not planted until then, cottage season did not begin until then. Since the short Canadian summer is so looked forward to by Canadians, the holiday gained added significance in their lives.
Finally, Victoria Day became a successful holiday because its focus is outward looking rather than inward looking for the celebrants. As important as Canada Day is, for example, it remains a holiday when government encourages us to tell ourselves how great we are. Deep down Canadians remain somewhat uncomfortable about that. It is like throwing a birthday party for yourself because you don’t think anyone else will. We are more comfortable when the United Nations says we are a good country than when we say it ourselves. Arguably the most successful Canada Day celebrations in Ottawa were those in 1959, 1967, 1990, 1992 and 2010 when the Queen was present or 2011 when the Duke of Cambridge attended. As our Sovereign and head of the national family, and our future Sovereign, the Queen and the Duke told Canadians that we, their people, were a good people they were proud of. That was natural and it felt good. On the Queen’s Birthday we are reciprocating by telling the Sovereign that she (or he, in the future) is a good monarch, whom we are proud of as the head of our national family.
In conclusion, the Queen’s Birthday and Victoria Day remain important joint holidays celebrated in Canada in the 21st Century because they were given life by the Canadian people. The celebrations are neither an imported tradition nor an artificial creation force-fed by government. Celebrating both a beloved monarch of our history and the reigning monarch of Canada ensures that the festivities are rooted in our history but will never be archaic or stale. Like the Monarchy itself, they are constantly being renewed in significance and style of celebration by the life and personality of the Sovereign of Canada to whom the tribute is given, and by the collective personality of the Canadian people by whom it is offered.
-----------------------
Queen Victoria, 1837-1901: Mother of Confederation
by Arthur Bousfield
Queen Victoria grew up knowing a lot about Canada. Her father, the Duke of Kent (Prince Edward, fourth son of King George III), had lived for nearly ten years in Quebec and the Maritimes in the last decade of the 18th Century and had travelled as far inland as Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario). As a young Princess, Victoria received the Bouchettes, the Quebec topographers, at Kensington Palace in 1832. The many well-known photographs of Victoria at the end of her life have stamped people’s minds with the image of her as an old lady, but it was as a charming young girl of 18 that she came to the Throne.
She inherited the Crown after a period of royal unpopularity, scandals and family discord. “I will be good”, she said at age 10, when she realised that she would likely become Queen; and she lived up to this resolve. A wave of enthusiasm greeted her accession and everyone was moved by the great presence and dignity shown by the short (barely five foot) blue-eyed, fair- haired monarch. Her accession coincided with the rebellions of 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada and her diaries reflect those unhappy events. For her coronation in 1838 an amnesty was granted to the Upper and Lower Canada rebels as part of the celebrations and the young Queen talked Lord Durham into accepting the post of Governor-in-Chief of Canada to study reforms for the provinces in the wake of the rebellion.
Just as her grandfather King George III will always be identified with the existence of Canadians as a separate people in North America, so Queen Victoria is forever linked with the birth of a unified Canadian state. Before Confederation came about the Queen made clear that she strongly favoured it. Her father after all had proposed a similar scheme as early as 1814. “I believe it will make [the provinces] great and prosperous”, she told Sir Charles Tupper, one of the principal fathers of Confederation.
It was on 1st July 1867 that Her Majesty proclaimed the Confederation of the first four provinces of Canada and at the same time summoned the first members of the Senate of the new Dominion. To underline the inseparable bond between Crown and Confederation, Sir John Alexander Macdonald, first Prime Minister of the new Canada, whom Queen Victoria received in audience on the eve of the great event, told her that the purpose of Confederation was “to declare in the most solemn and emphatic manner our resolve to be under the sovereignty of Your Majesty and your family forever”. Loyalty to the Crown was the keystone of Confederation, the only common bond that could overcome the strong sectional character and feelings of the provinces. Even the ship that carried the delegates from the Province of Canada to Prince Edward Island for the 1864 Charlottetown Conference that led to Confederation was named the Queen Victoria. Victoria has rightly been called the “Mother of Confederation”.
Queen Victoria twice chose Ottawa as the capital, first in 1857 for the Province of Canada and then again in 1867 for the Dominion of Canada. She named British Columbia in 1858 and the City of New Westminster in 1859, and chose the pitcher plant as the flower of Newfoundland in 1865. She also assigned the coats of arms of the provinces of Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick in 1868. She gave the royal charters of the universities of Laval in1852 and of Trinity in 1851. In 1879 she contributed money for the preservation of the historic walls of Quebec City and paid for the erection of the city’s Kent Gate in memory of her father. After the great fire of 1890 at the University of Toronto, Victoria made a personal donation towards the restoration. Regina and Victoria were named in her honour, and the Province of Alberta after her fourth daughter Princess Louise Alberta. More counties, districts, villages, streets, parks and schools are named after her than after any other individual in Canada. The main roads of inumerable Canadian communities, as large as the City of Toronto or as small as the Village of Neustadt, Ontario, are named “Queen Street”. As part of the Canadian reaction to the Annexation Manifesto of 1849 (a drive by some Montreal business leaders for union with the United States), the Queen’s Birthday became a major national holiday and is still celebrated each year on the Monday preceding the 25th May. (Victoria Day, as it became in 1901 in memory of the Queen, is also the celebration of the reigning monarch’s official birthday.) Schoolchildren once invented the chant: “The twenty-fourth of May is the Queen’s birthday. If we don’t get a holiday, we’ll all run away”.
When invited by unanimous resolution of the Parliament of the Province of Canada (modern Ontario and Quebec) in 1858 to tour the province, Queen Victoria declined but sent her eldest son, the Prince of Wales (Edward VII), instead. It was not fear of the ocean voyage, unwillingness to endure the fatigue of such a long tour or lack of interest that made her refuse, but rather the reluctance she felt about leaving Britain in the hands of the politicians for several months. Though never personally present in Canada, Canada was never far from her mind or she from the minds of Canadians. When the last spike was driven into the Canadian Pacific Railway joining Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific and the first train arrived in Vancouver from Montreal in 1886, the news was immediately telegraphed to Queen Victoria as “Canada linked!”
At various times the Queen sent four of her sons and one daughter to Canada. Queen Victoria was the patron of Canadian artists such as Madam Albani, Lucius O’Brien, Frederic Bell-Smith and Homer Watson. She honoured many Canadian statesmen and was involved with a host of other Canadian public figures. At her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 Canada’s gift to her was the establishment of the famous “Victorian Order of Nurses”, which has helped millions of Canadians through illness, convalescence or disability. In 1896 she established the Royal Victorian Order, an order of chivalry for personal service to the monarch to which Canadians continue to be appointed to this day.
Queen Victoria’s sixty-three year reign (second only to King Louis XIV of our monarchs) coincided with the zenith of the second British Empire. Her assumption of the title “Empress of India” in 1877 symbolised this fact. Development of Dominion status by Canada in 1867 provided a model for the peaceful transition of empires into independent states, that was adopted thoughout the world in the following century. When the Queen’s Golden Jubilee was celebrated in London in 1887, twenty years after Confederation, the Premiers of the ten self-governing overseas provinces in addition to Canada (the first of them) gathered there to hold what was, in effect, the first Commonwealth Conference.
Victoria was a liberal monarch in the very best sense of the word. She urged her government to be merciful to her Indian subjects following the Mutiny in 1858, as she had for the Canadian rebels in 1837. On another occasion she deplored “the violent abuse of the Catholic religion” that was then taking place in public. And when it came to the question of race, Victoria was truly colour blind. A black from Nova Scotia was the second Canadian to receive the Victoria Cross (the highest decoration for bravery under fire) only two years after the Queen established it in 1856. American slaves hoping to escape to freedom in Canada by the underground railway made up a song called Away to Canada with the verse: “I heard old Queen Victoria say if we would all forsake / Our native land of slavery and come across the lake, / That she was standing on the shore with arms extended wide / To give us all a peaceful home beyond the rolling tide”. When the Queen received Kahkehwahquonaby, the Ontario Mississauga Chief, at WindsorCastle in 1838 she allowed him to wear native dress instead of the usual court dress customary for such occasions. Towards the end of her reign she refused to part with an unpopular Indian servant because she felt people were prejudiced against him simply because of his colour.
In 1840 Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha. It was a love match and the couple had nine children. Victoria’s handsome German Prince was a man of considerable talent, a political philosopher who had an earned PhD, a musician and composer, an excellent administrator and an indefatigable worker. Prince Albert originated the highly successful Great Exhibition of 1851 that led to the erection of Crystal Palaces in many major Canadian cities. Even more important for Canada’s destiny, he helped avert a war with the United States in 1861. Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (represented in the Canadian Parliament for many years by the Prime Minister and great royalist John Diefenbaker) is named for him. The Prince became the Queen’s Private Secretary and was so efficient and influential that from 1840 to 1861 there was almost a joint monarchy.
During Victoria’s reign the modern practice of constitutional monarchy took shape and the Queen learned from her husband that to continue to exert royal influence she had to work hard and regularly. When the Prince Consort (as Queen Victoria created Albert) died in 1861, Victoria was heart broken and, in her grief, wore black clothes for the rest of her life and withdrew into seclusion, an action that made the Monarchy temporarily unpopular in the United Kingdom, though not in Canada. Gradually the Queen reappeared in public and one of her last public acts before her death in 1901 was to review Canadian troops returning from the South African War via London.
Once coming upon a courtier misbehaving in the Palace, Queen Victoria said: “We are not amused!” and passed on. This remark has led to her being labelled as humourless. Nothing could be further from the truth. She possessed a charming smile, laughed heartily, loved fun and had a great sense of humour. She had a passion for opera and the theatre and a real gift for drawing and painting. Mendelssohn said that she had the finest amateur singing voice he had ever heard. She spoke French, German and Italian as fluently as she did English and was the author of two books. Victoria’s prestige was so great internationally that the century in which she lived is known as the “Victorian Age”, even in republics like the United States.
John Diefenbaker described the day of her death in his memoirs: “When Queen Victoria died, Father regarded it as one of the most calamitous events of all time. Would the world ever be the same? I can see him now. When he came home to tell us the news, he broke down and cried.”
---------------
Victoria Day- CANADA
Victoria Day is a statutory
holiday remembered informally as "the twenty-fourth of May,” or “May
Two-Four.” Originally a celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday, the holiday
now marks Queen Elizabeth II's birthday as well. Victoria Day was established
as a holiday in the Province of Canada in 1845 and as a national holiday in
1901. It is observed on the first Monday before 25 May.
Victoria Day is a statutory
holiday in every province and territory except Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Prince Edward Island. The holiday was officially
renamed Journée nationale des Patriotes (National Patriotes Day) in Québec in 2002.
The Monarch’s
Birthday in Canada
While the king or queen’s birthday has been celebrated in
Canada for centuries, before Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, it was
more of a military occasion than a civilian holiday. In 18th-century British North America, the monarch’s birthday was
the day on which local militias engaged in compulsory annual training. The
able-bodied men of each community would march with their weapons in the town
square then toast the King at local taverns and alehouses. When members of the royal family visited, they would attend these reviews and
celebrations. During the 1790s, Queen Victoria’s father, Prince Edward, the
Duke of Kent, resided in British North America, attending military reviews each
spring.
Origins of Victoria
Day
In 1841, the parliaments of Upper and Lower Canada were replaced by a single
legislative assembly for the Province of Canada. The new assembly sought
opportunities to create common ground between English and French Canadians that
would transcend religious and cultural differences. A public holiday honouring
the young Queen Victoria’s birthday, 24 May, was an idea that
appealed to both English and French Canadians. At the time, loyalty to the Crown was a key cultural trait that distinguished
Canadians from Americans and the monarch (the king or queen) was considered a
guarantor of minority rights in the united province. In 1845, the legislative
assembly of the Province of Canada declared the Queen’s birthday an official
public holiday, transforming the monarch’s birthday from an exclusively
military occasion to a civilian holiday.
Celebrations
The new public holiday was
comparatively quiet during the 1840s, but the celebrations grew over the course
of the 19th century — Canadians, it seemed, embraced an occasion that combined
the prevailing loyalty to the Crown with the transition to warmer weather. On
Queen Victoria’s 35th birthday in 1854, 5,000 people
gathered outside Government House in Toronto to give cheers to the Queen. The effusive
Toronto celebrations set the tone for the rest of Canada. By the time of Confederation in 1867, communities in Québec and Ontario held all-day Victoria Day celebrations
that included parades, picnics, athletic competitions, military reviews and
fireworks displays. The official festivities spread across Canada as new
provinces joined Confederation. Victoria Day was not always part of a long
weekend, as the holiday took place on the day of the Queen’s birth, 24 May,
regardless of the day of the week.
The Sinking of the
Victoria on the Thames
In 1881, on Queen Victoria’s 62nd birthday, the festivities in London, Ontario, ended in tragedy. The riverboat Victoria
carrying hundreds of people back to downtown London from celebrations at
Springbank Park capsized, drowning at least 182 of its passengers. The
steamboat wasdesigned for a maximum capacity of 400, but wascarrying 650
people. When passengers sighted a rowing club race near Cove Bridge, they
gathered on the right side of the ship to watch. The weight capsized the ship
and collapsed the top deck. The passengers who died, mostly women and children,
drowned less than 10 m from the shore. The sinking is one of the worst marine disasters in Canadian history.
Victoria Day after
Victoria
When Queen Victoria died in 1901, and was succeeded by her
son, Edward VII, Victoria Day remained a public holiday on 24 May. While other
parts of the English-speaking world celebrated 24 May as Empire Day, Canada honoured Queen Victoria as a
“Mother of Confederation” who encouraged Canadian unity and self-government and
selected Ottawa as “the Westminster of the wilderness.”
From the death of King Edward VII in 1910 until the second year of Queen
Elizabeth II’s reign (1953), the monarch’s birthday was separate from Victoria
Day, which honoured Queen Victoria’s unique contribution to Confederation.
The Modern Holiday
In 1939, Victoria Day was treated
as King George VI’s official birthday in Canada because the holiday took place
when he and Queen Elizabeth were touring Canada — George VI’s
actual birthday was 14 December (see 1939 Royal Tour). With the ascension of Queen Elizabeth II in 1952, Victoria Day became the
Queen’s official birthday in Canada (actual date of birth 21 April 1926) and
was fixed on the Monday before 25 May of each year, creating the modern long
weekend. As in the 19th century, Victoria Day marked a transition to warmer
weather. The modern holiday has become associated with the opening of seasonal
getaways (cottages, cabins, chalets), barbecues and outdoor festivals. It is
referred to, informally, in this context as “May long weekend” and the
“Victoria Day long weekend,” but also “May Two-Four” in some parts of Canada.
While Québec officially celebrated the holiday as
Victoria Day, the celebration also became unofficially known as the fête de
Dollard (after Adam Dollard des Ormeaux, a colonist and soldier
of New France) during the 1920s. The Québec holiday
was officially renamed Journée nationale des patriotes (National
Patriotes Day) by the provincial government in 2002. This holiday highlights
the Patriotes’ struggle for political freedom and for
the development of a democratic system of government during the Rebellions of 1837–38.
In
2013, an online petition circulated to rename the holiday Victoria and First
Peoples Day. While the initiative attracted the support of certain well-known
Canadians such as Margaret Atwood, the petition only attracted
1,500 signatures and the holiday remained unchanged. Canada’s Victoria Day has
few parallels around the world. In parts of Scotland, schools close on the
Monday before 25 May to honour Queen Victoria’s contributions to Scottish society, but
Victoria Day is not a national bank holiday. Belize celebrates Commonwealth
Day, the successor of Empire Day, on 24 May. Only in Canada, however,
does Queen Victoria’s birthday remain a national holiday.
-----------------
May 5, 2015
CANADA MILITARY NEWS:
May5/15 O CANADA -TODAY IN HISTORY:
May 5- In 1900 , Pte. Richard R.Thompson of Ottawa was awarded the Queen’s scarf for gallantry during the Boer War. Knitted by Queen Victoria, the scarf was awarded only seven times.
Queen Victoria crocheted five Scarves of Honour during the war in South Africa for presentation to “soldiers in Forces of her Overseas Dominions." Thompson, who died in 1908, served with the 2nd Special Service Battalion. His scarf is on permanent loan to the National War Museum.
May 5- In 1900 , Pte. Richard R.Thompson of Ottawa was awarded the Queen’s scarf for gallantry during the Boer War. Knitted by Queen Victoria, the scarf was awarded only seven times.
Queen Victoria crocheted five Scarves of Honour during the war in South Africa for presentation to “soldiers in Forces of her Overseas Dominions." Thompson, who died in 1908, served with the 2nd Special Service Battalion. His scarf is on permanent loan to the National War Museum.
Canada Boer War
-----------------------
QUEEN VICTORIA’S SCARVES
In
a simpler time, when soldiers wore scratchy-wool battledress, a
number of uniquely military legends circulated freely through the
ranks. Like urban legends of giant alligators lurking in sewers and
hook-handed psychopaths haunting lovers’ lanes, the origins of
these legends were lost in time. Again like the urban legends, most of
these legends, such as that of Queen’s Corporals who could not be
rebuked by anyone short of Her Majesty, were little but sheer
fantasy.1.
Unfortunately, the story of Queen Victoria’s scarves has become a
Canadian military legend in its own right. As the story goes,
Private Richard Rowland Thompson of the 2nd
Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, was recommended for the
Victoria Cross once or, by some accounts, twice, but received one of
the khaki-wool scarves crafted by Queen Victoria instead.
Furthermore, some authoritative sources have suggested this award
may even rank above the VC.2.
Even such highly respected Canadian historians as Jack
Granatstein, David Bercuson and Carmen Miller have perpetuated the
myth in recently-published works.3.
A sub-set to the legend has that Thompson was a medical assistant
or perhaps a stretcher bearer; as a consequence the Canadian Forces
Medical Service laid claim to his legacy and named a building after
him. While researching my book on the Canadians in the South African
War4.,
I realized that much of what I had accepted as gospel about the
scarves was suspect. With the manuscript safely in the hands of my
publisher and fuelled with the righteous zeal of the newly-converted,
I decided to do some digging to separate facts from fiction. My aim
is to share the information I gathered over some four years from
sources in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United
Kingdom, and the United States.Queen Victoria’s concern for her army was exemplified by her gift of a box of chocolate to every soldier serving in South Africa at the end of 1899. The boxes, which measure approximately 7″ by 3″ by 1″, featured an embossed portrait of the Queen, flanked by the royal cypher VRI surmounted by a crown and “South Africa 1900,” above, in her hand, the signed message “I wish you a happy New Year.“5. For Her Majesty to further express her feelings by presenting scarves crocheted by her own hand to her army was very much in character. It was clearly impossible for the elderly monarch to crochet a scarf for everyone, so she may have decided to symbolically recognize the contribution of all by rewarding a select few.
It would be most unfortunate if her visit to Netley hospital a few days after the battle of Paardeberg influenced her decision. During the visit the only wounded Canadian patient, Private A.E. Cole of B Company, 2 RCR, was presented to her. In response to her inquiry, he replied that he had been wounded during the action at Sunnyside on 1 January 1900. The Queen then “expressed sympathy with Cole’s suffering and showed a kind appreciation of the loyalty displayed by his comrades and himself in volunteering for active service.” The encounter received extensive press coverage in both the United Kingdom and Canada. In fact, Cole had shot himself in the foot while loading his rifle in camp on 16 January 1900, and had lied to avoid embarrassing himself, his regiment and his country. Whether the encounter with Cole resulted in her decision to craft the scarves is doubtful. As the first four scarves were shipped to South Africa in April 1900, she may have been already crocheting the scarves at the time of her visit to the hospital. The meeting with Cole may have done nothing more than increase her resolve.6.
Most likely, we will never know, but I lean towards the theory that the Queen was already working on the scarves before her visit to Netley Hospital.7.
How
many scarves did the Queen crochet? The number of scarves has been
authoritatively (and wrongly) stated as four, five, six, and seven.
As we shall see, the actual number produced probably was the result
of an appreciation for the sensibilities and feelings of her
subjects around the world. At the time the contribution of the
self-governing “colonies” was very much in the public eye. Therefore,
a scarf should go to each of the Canadian, Australian, New Zealand,
and South African contingents. However, the presentation of
scarves to the colonial contingents could be seen as a slight to the
regular army, which was bearing the brunt of the fighting. This
would seem to lead to the conclusion that a minimum of four scarves
was required for the regulars. In fact, this is what the Queen decided
upon. In the last year of her long life, Queen Victoria crocheted
eight khaki Berlin wool scarves8.,
each approximately five feet long by eight inches wide. Her Majesty
had sent four to Field Marshal Roberts, the Commander-in-Chief of the
South African Field Force, for “distribution to the four most
distinguished private soldiers” in the Canadian, Australian, New
Zealand and South African forces9.
and, somewhat later, four more scarves to her grandson, Major Prince
Christian Victor, for presentation to members of the British
regular army.10.Rather than attempt to select the four most deserving regular soldiers from the ranks of the army — a task that was fraught with pitfalls — the Prince, who was then serving in the headquarters of the 5th Division in Natal, forwarded a scarf to each of the four battalions of the 2nd Brigade, the formation he had served with prior to his posting to the 5th Division’s headquarters.
The 2nd, or English, Brigade was made up of four home-based battalions and had been ordered to South Africa as part of the army corps mobilized on 7 October 1900. By the time the brigade arrived at Cape Town in November, the situation in Natal had deteriorated badly. As a result General Sir Redvers Buller, the Corps Commander, decided to break-up the corps and diverted the 2nd Brigade to Durban. In effect, this led to two separate armies. Field Marshal Roberts, who had been ordered to South Africa to take command of the forces in South Africa in December 1899 after the shock of “Black Week,” also led the South African Field Force facing the Boers astride the western and central railway lines. Buller commanded the Natal Field Force attempting to relieve the siege of Ladysmith and drive the Boers from Natal. The 2nd Brigade, led until April by Major-General H.J.T. Hildyard, had fought at Willow Grange, Colenso, Spion Kop, and the relief of Ladysmith.11. By mid-1900 the brigade had entered the southern Transvaal and taken up positions guarding the railway in the Standerton area.12 Based on the Natal Field Force’s status as a quasi-independent command, it is possible that Roberts was not aware of the existence of these scarves at the time or after the event.
Each of the battalions presented its scarf to a colour sergeant, the senior non-commissioned officer in a rifle company, although this may have been more by coincidence than design. The four recipients were Colour Sergeants Frank Kingsley, 2nd Battalion the West Yorkshire Regiment; Thomas William Colclough, 2nd Battalion the Devonshire Regiment; Henry Clay, 2nd Battalion the East Surrey Regiment; and F.F. Ferret, 2nd Battalion the Royal West Surrey Regiment. The commanding officer of the West Yorks wrote that Kingsley “has been in every engagement with the Regiment and at Spion Kop he distinguished himself by the way he commanded his company when his Captain was killed and the other officer of his company wounded. He is a most deserving man in every way and a brave soldier.” One can safely assume that the other three NCOs were equally deserving.13
While the four colour sergeants were good soldiers and brave men, the Prince’s actions were arbitrary and perhaps did not do justice to Her Majesty’s intentions. However, the Queen apparently had left the details of the distribution to him and one can only hope, perhaps futilely, that he was not engaging in a bit of military nepotism or taking the path of least resistance. Whatever his reasons, the Prince’s actions served to lessen the status of the scarves as a recognition of gallantry in action.
The four “colonial” scarves were distributed in a more formal and systematic manner. In his despatch of 1 March 1902 Lord Roberts wrote that In April 1900, her late Majesty Queen Victoria was graciously pleased to send him four woollen scarves worked by herself, for distribution to the four most distinguished private soldiers in the Colonial Forces of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, then serving under his command. The selection for these gifts of honour was made by the officers commanding the contingents concerned, it being understood that gallant conduct in the field was to be considered the primary qualification.14
The Canadian recipient was, of course, Private Richard Rowland Thompson, of D Company, 2nd (Special Service) Battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry. He was selected in early July 1900 “after considerable discussion” by a committee made up of his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel William Dillon Otter, the battalion staff, and the company commanders. At the time the battalion was based at Springs on a railway branch line south-east of Johannesburg after having marched and fought its way from Paardeberg to Pretoria. The actual instruction to nominate a soldier had been sent to Otter on 21 April 1900 by Colonel Neville Chamberlain, the private secretary to Lord Roberts, shortly before Otter was wounded at Israel’s Poort on 25 April., which probably accounted for the delay in completing the selection. In the instruction Colonel Chamberlain wrote:
Her Majesty the Queen has forwarded four woollen scarves, worked by herself, to be distributed to the most distinguished soldier of the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and Cape Colony Forces under Lord Roberts’s Command.
His Lordship desires me to ask you to nominate the
private soldier whom you consider has performed the most
distinguished service in the Royal Canadian Regiment of Infantry.15
|
In 1908, following Thompson’s premature death, the Canadian Department of Militia and Defence presented his family with a scroll that included the following citation:
The particular acts upon which Private Thompson was selected were as under:
| First, Having on the night of the Eighteenth-Nineteenth February 1900,
kept Private Bradshaw, who was left dangerously wounded at
Paardeberg, alive by the care and attention bestowed upon him, until
he could be properly attended to. Second, Having twice left the trenches on the morning of the capture of the Boer Laager at Paardeberg, the Twenty-Seventh February, 1900, at the imminent risk of his own life, for the purpose of assisting wounded comrades, lying some distance in front of the trenches. |
| Dear Dicky – I am just off to Wynberg and England. I’ve had a devil of a time and my recovery has been a complete surprise to everyone here, myself included. An operation, which would have taken place had I been fit, will have to be performed in the future. My heart’s gone all wrong and also my eyesight. Had it not been for you and Bull,ii I would have been a beautiful corpse long ere this. I really don’t know how to thank you sufficiently. words seem so cold and barren, and I hope when you visit Canada, you will give me a chance of proving my gratitude. You can always hear of me by writing the Standard Bank of Canada, Picton, Ontario. I hope you will never be placed in the same position as I am at present, and with best wishes for your safe conduct through what I am afraid is going to be a long, long war. Believe me,
Yours very sincerely,
James L.H. Bradshaw16 |
 The only known picture of Private Richard Rowland Thompson |
Pte. R.R. Thompson is well known to many Ottawans as he spent the greater part of last summer in this city visiting friends. He was an Irish medical student from Dublin university, whether he had gone from Cork, his home. At the time that the first Canadian contingent was organized he was in Buffalo with a brother, but took the first train to Toronto, where he enlisted under Col. Otter. Subsequently he asked to be transferred to the Ottawa company, as he knew many of the boys belonging to it and this was done. Pte. Thompson has seen considerable of the world and had been connected with Dr. Jameson in his famous raid. He was well acquainted with that part of Africa in which the Canadians were engaged. When attending university he had been invited by an officer of the Rhodesian Horse to visit Rhodesia and he spent six or eight months in that country.“20
Another newspaper report, written at the time of his enlistment in October 1899, stated… The recruit Thompson is a medical student from Buffalo. He came recently from England and has spent several years in Natal, being acquainted with the country.
Yet another article on the same page detailed the results of an interview with Thompson, where he predicted the war would last about four months. The paper provided the following sketch, Mr R.R. Thompson, one of the members of the Ottawa detachment, came from Buffalo to enlist at Toronto, from which city he was sent by Lt.-Col. Otter. Thompson, who is a native of Cork, Ireland, is 22 years of age. He was engaged in business in Natal for the greater part of 1898.21
Thompson was not serving with the battalion at the time of his selection. At sometime between Paardeberg and the fall of Pretoria, one source says at Bloemfontein, he had fallen victim to sunstroke and was evacuated. Like Bradshaw, he was invalided to the United Kingdom22 and then returned to Canada. Dick Thompson was discharged at Quebec on 15 October 1900.
From the sketchy evidence it seems that Thompson then made his way to Buffalo, with a stop in Ottawa that was reported in that city’s press at the time. By this time, he knew that he had been selected to receive a Queen’s Scarf, as it had been reported in Canadian newspapers in August 1900.23 In early 1901 he was commissioned a lieutenant in the South African Constabulary and sailed to South Africa in April. Thompson served at Bloemfontein until he resigned his commission to take up employment with the DeBeers Corporation. In April 1904 he married Miss Bertha Alexander of Gatineau, Quebec (a small town a few miles north of Ottawa) in Bloemfontein. They returned to Buffalo shortly after, where he died of appendicitis on 6 April 1908. His widow accompanied his corpse to Ottawa and Thompson was interred in a small private cemetery near Chelsea, Quebec. Mrs Thompson eventually remarried but chose to be buried beside her first husband.
Capt Cybulski lays a wreath for 1 RCR at Grave of Pte RR Thompson, 11 Nov 2013, Chelsea Que
The other colonial recipients of scarves were Private Alfred Henry Dufrayer of C Squadron, the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, Private Henry David Coutts of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, and Trooper Leonard Chadwick of Roberts’ Horse, a South African irregular mounted unit.25 After an Australian patrol was lured into an ambush near Karree Siding on 11 April 1900, Dufrayer had ridden back and rescued an unhorsed comrade who lay dazed and helpless within point-blank range of a party of Boers in a farmhouse.26 Both Coutts and Chadwick apparently won their scarves during the debacle at Sannah’s Post on 31 March 1900. Preoccupied by Boers actively pressing the rear guard, and moving on a “safe” route, the commander of a British column failed to deploy an advanced guard. As a result, the column’s transport and artillery blundered into an ambush set by the brilliant Boer leader, Christian De Wet, at a ford over Koornspruit. Roberts’ Horse, which was escorting the guns, lost at least a quarter of its strength in a matter of minutes. While Chadwick was not mentioned in the original despatch on Sannah’s Post, Roberts wrote that Chadwick had been selected by a unanimous vote of his comrades.27 The New Zealanders also saw a great deal of hard fighting as the disorganized column had to change its axis of withdrawal ninety degrees and retire along the river bank until it could reach another crossing place, all the time under heavy fire from two sides. During the withdrawal Coutts rode back under heavy fire to rescue a badly-wounded British mounted infantryman.28
It is significant that all four scarves were awarded for acts in February, March or April, although the army saw a great deal of fighting after that date, and that all went to members of the South African Field Force. This was in accordance with Roberts’s despatch cited above that, “in April 1900, her late Majesty Queen Victoria was graciously pleased to send him four woollen scarves worked by herself, for distribution to the four most distinguished private soldiers in the Colonial Forces of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa, then serving under his command.”
Why did Thompson or any of the others not receive the VC? There is a simple answer — they were not recommended for the award. In later life Colclough claimed that the scarf could only be awarded to men who had been recommended for the Victoria Cross, while Dufrayer stated that he had won the VC, but was given the choice of accepting an immediate award of the Scarf instead. However, there is no record that any of the scarf recipients was ever recommended for the Victoria Cross — other than a unsuccessful recommendation for Thompson submitted by Otter after he had already received his scarf. As for Dufrayer’s claim, there is no such thing as a guaranteed award of the Victoria Cross. Either he was misled or he resorted to selective recollection in his life-long quest to gain VC status, and the accompanying pension, for his scarf. Three of the four colour sergeants, Colclough being the exception, were awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal. There are no indications that the medals awarded to the British colour sergeants were directly related to the scarves, and in fact, Clay won his medal while serving as the Regimental Sergeant Major of his battalion. Colour Sergeants Clay, Ferret, and Kingsley, Trooper Chadwickiii, a 21-year old American who had won the Medal of Honor at Cienfuegos, Cuba on 11 May 1898 during the Spanish-American War and Private Thompson were Mentioned in Despatches. Colclough, Coutts, and Dufrayer received no formal recognition. Considering that the majority of VCs awarded during the first year of the war were for rescuing comrades under fire, if a recommendation for a VC for Thompson, Dufrayer or Coutts had been submitted, it may well have been successful.29
The press had, and continues to have, a field day with the scarves. For example, at the time of the formal presentation of the scarf to Dufrayer by the Duke of York in Australia in 1901, wildly fanciful, and completely false, claims were made by the Australian press. Sixty years later, Canadian public affairs staff attempted to reconstruct the story of Thompson and his scarf. Unfortunately, some errors were made at the time because of a combination of enthusiasm and inadequate research. The passage of time has elevated these errors to the status of dogma. To quote an example, a Department of National Defence press release of 9 September 1964 claimed that: Conditions for the award were of the highest order. Soldiers nominated for the award must have entered the war or Army as “rankers,” and they had to be first recommended for the Victoria Cross, with subsequent recommendations for bravery in the field. The award was to run equally with the Victoria Cross, and was to be awarded by a vote of comrades in the field. Individuals winning the award who were later commissioned were to carry their rank for life.
According to Australian Army orders, the Queen’s Scarf of Honour ranked equally with the Victoria Cross, but other authorities regarded it as of even higher honour and value. This was due to the fact that Trooper A.H. Dufrayer, New South Wales Mounted Infantry, was recommended for the Victoria Cross and Bar, but was awarded the “Queen’s Scarf of Honour” instead.30
The public affairs staff failed to explain the relevance of an Australian Army order to the Canadian Army, or how someone could be recommended for the Victoria Cross and Bar. I have been unable to locate a copy of the order, which is a mystery to the Australians as well. The reference to a Victoria Cross and Bar has led to the totally unsubstantiated claim that Thompson was recommended for the VC twice. It is interesting to contrast the breathless and rather unprofessional tone of the Canadian press release with a New Zealand Army letter of 21 July 1964 that answered a media query with: Contemporary papers described the Queen’s Scarf as a gallantry award ranking next to the Victoria Cross but it was never officially recognized as a decoration in the Army list. There is nothing to indicate that Trooper [sic] Coutts was ever recommended for the VC or other gallantry award.31
This leads to the question of the status of the scarves. We have already seen the New Zealand position above. Thompson’s name did not appear in the list of Canadians decorated in the war published in the 1903 edition of the Canadian Almanac and Miscellaneous Directory, although the name of Squadron Sergeant Major G.F. Routh of Strathcona’s Horse, whose medal appeared in the London Gazette after Roberts’s despatch announcing the distribution of the scarves, was included. Both Dufrayer and, following his death, his son pressed the British authorities for three decades to recognize the award of the scarf as the equivalent of the Victoria Cross. The British have consistently maintained that the scarves, while a unique honour in their own right, do not rank with the Victoria Cross and have no official standing as gallantry awards. There is ample justification to support this position. While space does not permit a detailed explanation, note that Field Marshal Roberts referred to the scarves as gifts to be distributed and that gallant conduct was to be the primary, not the only, qualification. It is also significant that selection of the recipients was delegated to the contingent commanders. The award of the Victoria Cross (and the Distinguished Conduct Medal) required the approval of the sovereign. If the scarves ranked with the VC, selection surely would not have been delegated. Last, a note in the Royal Archives in Windsor Castle prepared at the time of the centenary of the Victoria Cross, recognized that “in a certain sense the Scarves may be regarded as a greater honour, stitched as they were by the hands of the Queen herself, and strictly limited in number. But whatever their relative status, they can hardly be treated as the precise equivalent of the VC.” The note also observed that the scarves were awarded on a different basis from the VC, and correctly, if somewhat haughtily, added that just because someone is the bravest private soldier in a particular contingent that is not, of itself, sufficient qualification for the award of a VC.32
In an era where movies such as Saving Private Ryan and U-571 have led to resentment by British and Canadian veterans and others over American “horn blowing” over their role in single handedly defeating the Nazis in World War Two, it is perhaps fortunate that the Americans have not noticed that Chadwick was an American citizen and Thompson was residing in the great republic on the outbreak of the war. (It seems that Thompson spent only a few months of his life in Canada — remember Bradshaw’s plea, “I hope when you visit Canada, you will give me a chance of proving my gratitude.”) The thought of Tom Hanks saving Private Bradshaw boggles the mind.
Finally, a few words about the current state of the scarves. The scarves awarded to Colour Sergeants Ferret and Clay are in museums in Guildford and Dover, respectively, in the United Kingdom. Dick Thompson’s scarf is in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, while Dufrayer’s scarf is displayed in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. In 1913, following the deaths of his wife and only child, Coutts presented his scarf to his country. While this scarf was originally displayed in the Parliament building in Wellington, it is now in the Queen Elizabeth II Army Memorial Museum at Waiouru. The fate of the other three scarves is unknown. Colour Sergeant Colclough emigrated to Canada after he left the British army, earned a commission in the 106th Winnipeg Light Infantry in early 1914, and served overseas as a major during the First World War. After the war he resumed his militia service, rising to command the Winnipeg Light Infantry. Colclough died in 1955. A picture of Colclough’s son holding the scarf appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail in April 1965. The son, who was living in Banff at the time, had also contacted the Canadian office of Time magazine. His scarf is believed to be in the possession of his family in western Canada. Kingsley died in the Royal Hospital, Chelsea in 1952 while Chadwick passed away in Boston, Massachusetts in 1940. The trail of their scarves is very cold, and it is possible that they have not survived.33
While the story of the Queen’s Scarves is not exactly what we have been led to believe, one thing remains as true today as it was nearly a century ago — Thompson and his comrades rank among the very bravest in an army of very brave men.
NOTES
ii. This probably is a reference to Private E.W. Bull of Cobourg, Ontario, a fellow member of D Company and the only member of the battalion with that surname. His role in the affair is unknown, but it was noteworthy enough to earn a mention by Bradshaw.
iii. Leonard Chadwick should not be confused with Trooper J. Mckinty Chadwick, also of Roberts’ Horse, who received the DCM based on a recommendation dated 3 August 1901, nearly six months after Leonard Chadwick had left South Africa.
1. A British publication, Soldier magazine, recently reviewed the issue of King’s Corporals. There is some archival evidence to support the existence of the rank, such as the 1885 report that Lord Wolseley had promoted Lance Corporal A.A. Edwards to the rank of Queen’s Corporal for gallantry weathering a storm in the garrison boat at Harwich. However, in a Parliamentary answer in October 1944 the War Minister, Sir John Grigg, said there was no factual basis for any such rank. It appears that King’s, or Queen’s, Corporals may have been an appointment, rather than a rank, and therefore local or transitory. It would have been a very brave, or foolish, soldier who attempted to invoke special privilege as a defence. “New slant on ‘myth’ of King’s Corporal” in undated extract from Soldier provided by Les Peart of Ottawa.
2. See the stories in the OttawaCitizen of 24 Apr 95 and the Globe and Mail of 25 Apr 95. On 5 May 97 the Globe and Mail stated that Thompson had been recommended for a VC, but received a scarf instead.
3. Granatstein, J.L. and D.J. Bercuson. War and Peacekeeping: From South Africa to the Gulf — Canada’s Limited Wars, Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1991 p 58; Miller, Carmen. Painting the Map Red: Canada and the South African War, 1899 – 1902. Montreal: Canadian War Museum and McGill-Queen’s, 1993, p 108
4. Our Little Army in the Field, The Canadians in South Africa 1899 – 1902. St. Catherine’s: Vanwell Publishing Limited, 1996
5. The description is taken from a box in my possession. The boxes were discussed in Soldiers of the Queen, Issue 75, Dec 93
6. Cole’s file in the National Archives, and the diary of Private Floyd, another member of B Company, confirm that Cole was accidently wounded on 16 Jan 1900. Birch, James H., Jr. and Henry David Northrop. History of the War in South Africa. London, Ont.: McDermid & Logan, 1900 p 529
7. The Duchess of York, the future Queen Mary, remarked during a tour of Australia that she had helped the aged monarch “when she had dropped stitches whilst working the scarves.” One may question how much time Queen Victoria could have devoted to the scarves each day, given the state of her health and the demands of official and family obligations on the octogenarian monarch. Alan Hardfield, “Queen Victoria’s Scarves,” The Journal of the Orders and Medals Research Society, November 16, 1998 Vol. 32, No. 2, 1993, p 157
8. Berlin wool was the term used for crochet wool.
9. Roberts, Frederick Sleigh. ‘Final Despatch’ South African War Honours and Awards 1899 – 1902 London: Army and Navy Gazette, 1902, republished by Arms and Armour Press 1971, p 106
10. Creswicke, Louis. South Africa and the Transvaal War Vol 6 Toronto: The Publishers’ Syndicate, 1901 pp 123 – 4; Riall, Nicholas. ‘Queen Victoria’s Scarves’ in Soldiers of the Queen, The Journal of the Victorian Military Society Issue 80, March 1995 p 10
11. The Natal Field Force finally linked up with the South African Field Force in July 1900, but continued to exist as a separate formation until October when Sir Redvers Buller left South Africa. Major-General Henry John Thornton Hildyard (1846−1916) entered the Royal Navy in 1859, but transferred to the army in 1864. He had seen active service in the Egyptian expedition of 1882, commanded the staff college 1893 – 8, and commanded a brigade at Aldershot 1898 – 9. In April he was promoted Lieutenant-General and given command of a division. Amery, L.S. (gen. ed.) The Times History of the War in South Africa 1899 – 1902 Vol 2. London: Simpson, Low, Marston and Company Ltd, 1902 pp 113, 283 – 4
12. The battalions had suffered fairly heavy casualties in nine months fighting, especially at Colenso.
13. Riall, p 12, op cit.
14. Roberts, p 106, op cit.
15. Letter, Chamberlain to Otter, 21 Apr 1900, copy in my possession
16. Letter Bradshaw to Miss Kemp quoted in the Picton Gazette 10 Apr 1900, n.d. but probably early March; Letter Bradshaw to Thompson 16 Apr 1900 in Thompson file NAC
17. Militia Order 186 13 Aug 1900
18. This information is taken from a parchment scroll dated 24 Dec 1908 and signed by the Adjutant-General, Colonel F.L. Lessard that was presented to the Thompson family. A photo of the scroll is held by Mr. Douglas Cowden, a nephew of Private Thompson’s widow, who kindly allowed me to transcribe the details.
19. Address delivered by Mr. S.F. Thompson — Queen’s Scarf Ceremony 24 May 65
20. Another member of D Company, and one of the last Canadian survivors of the war, provided a taped interview to the CBC, probably during the early 1960’s. He stated that Thompson was living in Detroit when the war broke out and confirmed the details of Thompson’s actions on the 27th. CBC Radio “Ideas” transcript “Patriots, Scallywags and Saturday Night Soldiers” 25 Sep 91 p.8; Clipping from an unknown Ottawa newspaper dated 21 Feb 1900. The RCR Museum 14 – 401-1900-F
21. Newspaper clipping from Ottawa paper circa 19 Oct in NAC: Hare papers MG 29 E 25 reel M301.
22. Militia Order 203 15 Sep 1900
23. A short report of his visit, which describes him as ‘winner of the QS, ’ can be found in the Hare papers. For an example of a report of his selection see the Toronto Globe 25 Aug 1900.
24. This information appeared without citing a source in an article that appeared several years ago in a military collector’s newsletter. In the article the letter from Otter to Thompson is undated. In 1904 the Minister of Militia and Defence commented unfavourably to Otter that The RCR was the only Canadian fighting unit that served in the war that did not have a least one non-commissioned member receive a Victoria Cross or a Distinguished Conduct Medal. At the time non-commissioned members could be awarded either the Victoria Cross or the Distinguished Conduct Medal, or be mentioned in despatches. Not only did the medals, especially the VC, confer much more prestige than a mention in despatches, but recipients were eligible for an annuity. No such payment accompanied a mention in despatches … or the Queen’s Scarf, for that matter.
25. Roberts, p 106, op cit.
26. Fitchett, Ian. “The Queen’s Scarf,” in Sabretache, Journal of the Military History Society of Australia, Volume XVI, No 1 January 1974, pp 6 – 8. Wallace, R.L. The Australians at the Boer War. Canberra: The Australian War Memorial and The Australian Government Publishing Service, 1976
27. G.E. Buckle, ed., The Collected Letters of Queen Victoria, 3rd Series, Vol. III, 1896 – 1901. London: John Murray, 1932. p 582
28. My first hint that Chadwick was an American was provided by Douglas Cowden, whose file of Queen’s Scarf memorabilia included a note that Chadwick had helped cut the cable at Cienfuegos. The South African National Museum of Military History provided a copy of an article on Chadwick in Home Front magazine and a resume of Queen’s Scarf data compiled by Private Dufrayer’s son. The United States Navy archives sent me a copy of Chadwick’s citation for the Medal of Honor and a brief account of the battle. A more complete account of the action at Cienfuegos may be found in the June 1993 edition of Military History magazine. Stowers, Richard. Kiwi versus Boer, The First New Zealand Mounted Rifles in the Anglo-Boer War 1899 – 1902. Hamilton, NZ: privately published, 1992 p 79; NZ Army Secretary. Letter Army SA.96 21 July 1964 to Soldier magazine; Biographical Sketch Henry David Coutts 11 December 1968; Abbott, P.E. Recipients of the Distinguished Conduct Medal 1855 – 1909 London: J.B. Hayward and Son, 1975 p 43; Harfield, Alan. ‘Queen Victoria’s Scarves” in Military Collector & Historian Vol XLII No 3 Fall 1990 pp 104 – 7; Gallagher, Gerald J. ‘Hero of Eagle and Crown’ in Home Front, The MOTH Magazine, November 1985 p 4; Dufrayer, A.G.H. DISTRIBUTION OF THE QUEEN’S SCARF OF HONOUR, 1974; Anglesey, The Marques of. A History of the British Cavalry 1816 – 1919, Volume 4: 1899 – 1913. London: Leo Cooper, pp 156 – 161
29. Fitchett pp 5 – 6 op cit.; NZ Army Secretary op cit.; Honours and Awards pp 13, 24, 42, 43, 47, 82 – 7, 96, 99, 122 op cit.; Anon. Medal of Honor 1861 – 1949. Washington: Department of the Navy, n.d. p 73
30. The Summer 1964 edition of The Canadian Military Journal published a story about Thompson and his scarf which included the same information as the press release as well as a statement that the scarf ranked equally with the Victoria Cross. I believe, because of the wording, that the information for the article was provided by DND public affairs. The first reference to the alleged Australian Army Order was in “The World’s Rarest Award for Valour: Queen Victoria’s Scarf” in The Illustrated London News 23 Jun 56. Some authorities have suggested that the order originated with the Dufrayer family who have waged a decades-long campaign to have the scarves formally recognized as equivalent to the Victoria Cross. I have been unable to locate any material that would support or refute this assumption. Fitchett p 8 op cit.; Anon. ‘The Queen’s Scarf of Honour’ The Canadian Military Journal Vol. XXX No. 7−8−9, Summer 1964 p 29; Canadian Forces Press Release 9 Sep 64 pp 1 – 2
31. Fitchett p 6 op cit; NZ Army Secretary op cit.
32. Anon. The Canadian Almanac and Miscellaneous Directory for the Year 1903. Toronto: Copp, Clark Company, Limited. p 162. NZ Army Secretary op cit.; Fitchett pp 8 – 11 op cit.; Home Front p 4 op cit.
33. Riall p 12 op cit.; Fitchett pp 4, 6 op cit; NZ Army Secretary op cit; South African National Museum of Military History MUS 402÷3÷2 7 Jun 95
----------------------
William Hall, VC
William Hall was the first Black person, the first Nova Scotian and one of the first Canadians to receive the British Empire’s highest award for bravery, the Victoria Cross.The son of former American slaves, Hall was born in 1827 at Horton, Nova Scotia, where he also attended school. He grew up during the age of wooden ships, when many boys dreamed of travelling the world in sailing vessels. As a young man, Hall worked in shipyards at Hantsport for several years, building wooden ships for the merchant marine. He then joined the crew of a trading vessel and, before he was eighteen, had visited most of the world’s important ports.
Perhaps a search for adventure caused young William Hall to leave a career in the American merchant navy and enlist in the Royal Navy in Liverpool, England, in 1852. His first service, as Able Seaman with HMS Rodney, included two years in the Crimean War. Hall was a member of the naval brigade that landed from the fleet to assist ground forces manning heavy gun batteries, and he received British and Turkish medals for his work during this campaign.
After the Crimean War, Hall was assigned to the receiving ship HMS Victory at Portsmouth, England. He then joined the crew of HMS Shannon as Captain of the Foretop. It was his service with Shannon that led to the Victoria Cross.
Shannon, under Captain William Peel, was escorting troops to China, in readiness for expected conflict there, when mutiny broke out among the sepoys in India. Lord Elgin, former Governor General of Upper Canada and then Envoy Extrodinary to China, was asked to send troops to India. The rebel sepoy army had taken Delhi and Cawnpore, and a small British garrison at Lucknow was under siege. Elgin diverted troops to Calcutta and, as the situation in India worsened, Admiral Seymour also dispatched Shannon, Pearl and Sanspareil from Hong Kong to Calcutta. Captain Peel, several officers, and about 400 seamen and marines including William Hall, travelled by barge and on foot from Calcutta to Cawnpore, dragging eight-inch guns and twenty-four-pound howitzers.
Progress was slow with fighting all along the way. At Cawnpore the Shannon crew joined another relief force under Sir Colin Campbell (later to become Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia) and began the historic march to Lucknow.
The key to Lucknow was the Shah Najaf mosque, a walled structure itself enclosed by yet another wall. The outer wall was breached by the 93rd Highlanders at mid-day, and the Shannon brigade dragged its guns to within 400 yards (366 m) of the inner wall. William Hall volunteered to replace a missing man in the crew of a twentyfour- pounder. The walls were thick, and by late afternoon the 30,000 sepoy defenders had inflicted heavy casualties from their protected positions. The bombardment guns from Shannon were dragged still closer to the walls and a bayonet attack was ordered, but to little effect. Captain Peel ordered two guns to within 20 yards (18 m) of the wall. The enemy concentrated its fire on these gun crews until one was totally annihilated. Of the Shannon crew, only Hall and one officer, Lieutenant Thomas Young, were left standing.
Young was badly injured, but he and Hall continued working the gun, firing, reloading, and firing again until they finally triggered the charge that opened the walls. “I remember,” Hall is quoted as saying, “that after each round we ran our gun forward, until at last my gun’s crew were actually in danger of being hurt by splinters of brick and stone torn by the round shot from the walls we were bombarding.”
Captain Peel recommended William Hall and Thomas Young for the Victoria Cross, in recognition of their “gallant conduct at a twenty-four-pounder gun... at Lucknow on the 16th November 1857”.
Hall received his Victoria Cross aboard HMS Donegal in Queenstown Harbour, Ireland, on October 28, 1859. His naval career continued aboard many ships, among them Bellerophon, Hero, Impregnable, Petrel and Royal Adelaide, until he retired in 1876 as Quartermaster.
Hall moved back to Nova Scotia to live with his sisters, Rachel Robinson and Mary Hall, on a farm in Avonport overlooking the Minas Basin. A modest man, he lived and farmed without recognition until 1901, when HRH the Duke of Cornwall and York (later King George V) visited Nova Scotia. A parade of British veterans was held, and Hall wore his Victoria Cross and three other service medals. The Duke inquired about the medals and drew attention to Hall’s service.
Three years later, William Hall died at home, of paralysis, and was buried without military honours in an unmarked grave. In 1937, a local campaign was launched to have Hall’s valour recognized by the Canadian Legion, but it was eight more years before his body was reburied in the grounds of the Hantsport Baptist Church. The monument erected there bears an enlarged replica of the Victoria Cross and a plaque that describes Hall’s courage and devotion to duty.
Subsequently, a branch of the Canadian Legion in Halifax was renamed in his honour. A gymnasium in Cornwallis, the DaCosta-Hall Educational Program for Black students in Montreal, and the annual gun run of the International Tattoo in Halifax also perpetuate his name.
In 1967, William Hall’s medals were returned to Canada from England to be shown at Expo ‘67 in Montreal. As property of the Province of Nova Scotia, they were later transferred to the Nova Scotia Museum.
References:
Blakeley, Phyllis R., “William Hall, Canada’s First Naval VC”, in The Dalhousie Review (Halifax), vol. XXXVII, no. 3, autumn 1957
Clowes, William Laird, Th e Royal Navy, London, 1903
Creagh, O’Moore, The VC and DSO, London, 1924
Fergusson, C. Bruce, “William Hall, VC”, in The Journal of Education
(Halifax), vol. 17, no.2, December 1967
Pachai, Bridglal, “William Hall”, in Th e Dictionary of Canadian Biography,
vol. XIII, 1994 (also available online at www.biographi.ca)
States, David W., “William Hall, VC, of Horton Bluff , Nova Scotia:
Nineteenth-Century Naval Hero”, in Collections of the Royal Nova Scotia
Historical Society, vol. 44, 1996
-------------
Queen Victoria's Scarves
At one time even the number of scarves was in doubt, but it has been confirmed that a total of eight were awarded, four to British servicemen.
The recipients were required to be chosen by a vote of the NCOs and men of each unit, and approved by the Commanding Officer. The four scarves awarded to the British Army went to men of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, under the command of Sir Henry Hildyard. These were:
Quartermaster Sergeant Henry George Clay, DCM, 2nd Bn The East Surrey Regiment.
Colour Sergeant William Colclough, 2nd Bn, The Devonshire Regiment.
Colour Sergeant Thomas Ferrett, DCM, 2nd Bn The Queen's (Royal West Surrey) Regiment.
Colour Sergeant Frank Kingsley, DCM, 2nd Bn The West Yorkshire Regiment.
Questions
have been raised as to whether Queen Victoria had crocheted the scarves
herself but it was reported that, during the presentation of the scarf
to Dufrayer (a Colonel recipient) in Australia by HRH The Duke of York
(later King George V), the Duchess of York (later Queen Mary) had
informed one recipient that she had helped the eighty-two year old Queen
when she had dropped stitches whilst making the scarves.There has been much speculation as to the exact degree of honour that the award of the scarf carried. It was at one time believed to be equivalent to the Victoria Cross but this is not the case. During 1902 the New Zealand Government requested that the title 'Queen's Scarf' be used in the Army List and other offficial documents but, in a reply dated 4 June 1902, the Secretary of State refused to grant permission. The question of precedence has continued over the years and, even as late as 1956, it was raised again, when a descendent of one of the holders reqested permission to attend the VC Centenary Celebrations. The official reply stated '...while the Queen's Scarf is regarded as a unique and most distinguished award, relatives of those who received it are not being included in the present ceremony as it does not carry equal status with the Victoria Cross....'.
 |
Scarf Crocheted by Queen Victoria for
|
|
||
| Worn by the wife of Colour-Sergent Ferrett |
Acknowledgement The London Illusrated News | |||
--------------------
How 2 crochet it yourself.... the pattern... thx 4 the share... and always links from the sources...
The Queen Victoria Crochet Scarf Pattern
One of the Original Scarves made by Queen Victoria.
The
Queen's Scarf of Honour
One of eight
scarves Queen Victoria crocheted for presentation to members of her forces
fighting in South Africa. This is the scarf awarded to Private R.R. Thompson on
display at the Canadian War Museum.
In the last year of her long life, Queen Victoria crocheted eight scarves for presentation to members of her forces fighting in South Africa. Four were earmarked for members of colonial units, with one each going to "the most distinguished private soldier" serving in the forces of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The other four went to members of the British regular army. The Canadian scarf was awarded to Private R.R. Thompson for his actions in going to the aid of wounded comrades at Paardeberg on 18 and 27 February 1900.
With the passage of time, awareness of the scarf faded from Canadian memory. In 1964 Bombardier Kenneth Richardson, of the Royal Canadian Artillery, located the scarf with Thompson's family in Ireland. It was returned to Canada by Thompson's nephew in 1965, and has been on display at the Canadian War Museum ever since.
For further information click here.
This is my version of the scarf – albeit minus the tassels and in my mind a more appealing colour. I decided to create and document this pattern as it doesn’t seem to be documented elsewhere on the internet and could be a valuable educational resource for encouraging children to learn crochet :-)
Skill Level: Easy
Materials: 100g DK or worsted weight wool, 6mm crochet hook and darning needle.
Measurements: 8.25” x 54” approx.
Pattern:
ch 27 sts + 2
Row 1: work three dc into 5th ch from hook, *sk 3 ch, work a dc three times into next ch*, ** rep to end.
Row 2: ch 3, *work 3 dc under next sp between triple dc cluster*, rep to end
Repeat row 2 until 82 rows are complete.
If adding tassels then on the original Queen Victoria crochet scarf they were 4” in length.
To Finish: darn all ends in.
This pattern is offered and made available for personal use only. If you wish to reproduce this in any way please contact me or make sure that reference is made to the original author’s blog http://www.goodtimesithinkso.blogspot.com/ Thank you
Crochet Conversion Chart US/UK
International Yarn Weight Conversion Chart
I hope you enjoy using this pattern and if you are looking for other free patterns please visit Crochet Pattern Central
For other exclusive patterns and my handmade creations please click here.
In the last year of her long life, Queen Victoria crocheted eight scarves for presentation to members of her forces fighting in South Africa. Four were earmarked for members of colonial units, with one each going to "the most distinguished private soldier" serving in the forces of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The other four went to members of the British regular army. The Canadian scarf was awarded to Private R.R. Thompson for his actions in going to the aid of wounded comrades at Paardeberg on 18 and 27 February 1900.
With the passage of time, awareness of the scarf faded from Canadian memory. In 1964 Bombardier Kenneth Richardson, of the Royal Canadian Artillery, located the scarf with Thompson's family in Ireland. It was returned to Canada by Thompson's nephew in 1965, and has been on display at the Canadian War Museum ever since.
For further information click here.
This is my version of the scarf – albeit minus the tassels and in my mind a more appealing colour. I decided to create and document this pattern as it doesn’t seem to be documented elsewhere on the internet and could be a valuable educational resource for encouraging children to learn crochet :-)
Skill Level: Easy
Materials: 100g DK or worsted weight wool, 6mm crochet hook and darning needle.
Measurements: 8.25” x 54” approx.
Pattern:
ch 27 sts + 2
Row 1: work three dc into 5th ch from hook, *sk 3 ch, work a dc three times into next ch*, ** rep to end.
Row 2: ch 3, *work 3 dc under next sp between triple dc cluster*, rep to end
Repeat row 2 until 82 rows are complete.
If adding tassels then on the original Queen Victoria crochet scarf they were 4” in length.
To Finish: darn all ends in.
This pattern is offered and made available for personal use only. If you wish to reproduce this in any way please contact me or make sure that reference is made to the original author’s blog http://www.goodtimesithinkso.blogspot.com/ Thank you
Crochet Conversion Chart US/UK
International Yarn Weight Conversion Chart
I hope you enjoy using this pattern and if you are looking for other free patterns please visit Crochet Pattern Central
For other exclusive patterns and my handmade creations please click here.
The Sunroom 
---------------
Victoria Cross - Crimea War-
-----------------
THE CRIMEAN WAR
Able-Seaman William Neilson Edward Hall
William Neilson Edward Hall was born in Horton's Bluff, Nova Scotia, on April 28, 1827, the son of free Black slaves, rescued from slavery by a British frigate during the War of 1812. Hall attended the local school, then worked in the shipyards of Hantsport for several years, involved in the construction of wooden ships for the merchant marine. Before he was even eighteen years old, he had already been to some of the most important ports in the world, having joined the crew of a trading vessel.
In 1852, he left a promising career in the American merchant navy to enlist in the British Royal Navy. He served as Able Seaman on board HMS Rodney during the Crimean War, and was awarded the Turkish Crimea medal, as well as the British Crimea medal with the "Sevastopol" and "Inkerman" clasps. He was a member of the Naval Brigade, and assisted the ground forces by manning heavy guns.
Before the Indian Mutiny of 1857-8, he was appointed to "Captain of the Foretop" on board HMS Shannon. As the ship was on its way to China, in anticipation of a Chinese insurrection, it received orders to turn around and head to Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. Hall and a brigade of soldiers were to head for Lucknow, to relieve the British garrison which was under siege.
“Lieutenant (now Commander) Young, late Gunnery Officer of Her Majesty's ship 'Shannon,' and William Hall, 'Captain of the Foretop,' of that Vessel, were recommended by the late Captain Peel for the Victoria Cross, for their gallant conduct at a 24-Pounder Gun, brought up to the angle of the Shah Nujjiff, at Lucknow, on the 16th of November, 1857.”Hall was a member of one of four gun crews. He and his colleagues were attempting to breach the walls of the Shah Najaf mosque as rebels shot at them. The enemy concentrated its fire on the gun crews until Hall and an officer, Lieutenant James Young, were the only ones left. They continued to load and fire the last gun until the wall was breached, giving the soldiers of the British garrison enough room to scramble through.
- Victoria Cross citation, The London Gazette, 1 February 1859.
Hall was the first Nova Scotian, and the first Black person, to receive the Victoria Cross. He retired from the service in 1876 with the rank of Petty Officer, First Class. He moved back to Nova Scotia and lived with his sisters on a farm in Avonport, overlooking the Minas Basin.
Hall lived in relative obscurity until 1901, when His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cornwall and York, the future King George V, visited Nova Scotia to unveil a monument. A parade was held in his honour, and Hall was in attendance, with his Victoria Cross and other service medals pinned to his chest. The Duke noticed this and enquired about the medals, opening a conversation between the two men.
William Neilson Edward Hall died in Hantsport on August 25, 1904, of paralysis. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Lockhart, without military honours. In 1937, a campaign was launched to have William Hall recognized by the Royal Canadian Legion, and it was not until 1954 that his remains were reinterred in the grounds of the Hantsport Baptist Church. A cairn was erected in his honour two years later by the Hantsport Branch of the Legion, which includes an enlarged bronze replica of his Victoria Cross and a plaque describing his actions and devotion to duty.
In 1967, Hall's medals were returned to Canada from England to be shown at Expo '67, in Montreal. For a number of years, his Victoria Cross and other medals were lent to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Today, his medals are on display at the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax.
Hall's Victoria Cross was worn on a blue ribbon, to represent the Royal Navy, as it was awarded with such a ribbon colour since its inception in 1856, whereas the Victoria Cross with crimson ribbon was awarded to members of the armed forces. Since 1918, however, all Victoria Crosses are worn on the crimson ribbon.
---------------
(Victoria Cross -- Naval Service, William Hall, A.B.). Collection of Typescript Letters, with Associated Documentation. Oversize three-ring binder containing a substantial portion of the three -year correspondence of Rear Admiral H. L. Pullen relating to his efforts to restore to prominence the nameof William Hall, V.C. (1829-1904), a Canadian hero of the Relief of Luckno w, and to secure the repatriation from England of Hall's Victoria Cross medal group to the Province of Nova Scotia. The content of the binder comprises 27 carbon copies of letters addressed by Pullen; 28 original letters addressed to Pullen; transcriptions, photostats and xeroxes of articles on Hallspanning 1901 to 1968; Pullen's handwritten and typed notes on Hall's nava l service, along with the handwritten and xeroxed copies of the British Public Records Office documents on the basis of which Pullen was able to piecetogether Hall's British naval service; and a miscellany of other written a nd printed materials including two letters neither addressed by nor to RearAdmiral Pullen but which have their place in the chronology. William Hall, V.C. was the first British serviceman of African descent to be awarded the Victoria Cross, also being the third Canadian to have merited this award. Hall was, for the greater part of the century following his death, little known outside the African-Canadian community of Nova Scotia, members of a few Royal Canadian Legion branches in the province, and among historically-minded individuals living close by in Hantsport and Hortonville, NS where Hall's memory was still kept alive. Beginning around January, 1966 Rear Admiral Pullen undertook to determine the whereabouts of Hall's Campaign Medals. Later, following the discovery of the medals in the Wardroom Officer's Mess, Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth, England, Pullen negotiated for the loanof Hall's medals to the Atlantic Provinces Pavilion at the International E xposition at Montreal to be held in 1967. Having secured the loan of the medals, Pullen then simultaneously directed his efforts toward negotiating the permanent return of Hall's medals to the Province of Nova Scotia and the documenting of Hall's British naval service. Pullen's research began with the obtaining of transcripts of the earliest provincial newspaper records ofHall, dating from 1901 and 1904, and supplied him by Dr. W. P. Oliver, a p rominent educator in the Nova Scotia African community. From this beginningon those particularly instrumental in assisting Pullen in achieving his se veral goals include Lieutenant-Colonel Thornton, Ministry of Defense, Stanmore, Middlesex, England, Registrar of Holders of the Victoria Cross; Commander R. E. de M. Leathes, Office of the Commodore, Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth, England; Spink and Son, Ltd, London; E. K. Timings, Public RecordsOffice, London; one Margaret Franklin of London (professional researcher?) who supplied Pullen the handwritten transcripts relating to Hall's naval s ervice from nine Public Records Office Admiralty documents examined by her;Commander W. B. Rowbotham, author of The Naval Brigades in the Indian Muti ny; and the Honourable Robert L. Stanfield, who as Premier of Nova Scotia enabled Pullen to negotiate for the purchase Hall's medals. The concise account which follows is from a paper read before the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society in 1996, "Before his burial in 1904, Hall's medals were removedfrom his suit. In 1925 they turned up in the Wardroom, Royal Naval Barrack s, Portsmouth, England. The medals were lent for display in the Atlantic Provinces Pavilion at "Expo '67" in Montreal. The government of Nova Scotia showed an interest in purchasing Hall's Victoria Cross. After learning that John Sullivan's Victoria Cross, who had also served in the Royal navy, was available for purchase, the Nova Scotia Government obtained this medal. In December 1967, it presented the Victoria Cross of John Sullivan to the wardroom of the Royal Naval Barracks, in exchange for the Cross of William Hall." -- David W. States. "William Hall, V.C. of Horton Bluff, Nova Scotia Nineteenth-Century Naval Hero." in Collections of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society. Vol. 44, 1996, pp. 71-81. The Royal Naval Barracks of Portsmouth bought Hall's Victoria Cross medal group from Spink and Son, London for£70 in 1925, fulfilling their wish to preserve a naval service Victorian C ross for display in their wardroom. And it was in 1967 that Spink and Son expressly informed Pullen of their obtaining Boatswain's Mate John Sullivan's medal group, as Pullen had confidentially queried Spink earlier as to theprospects of locating a naval service Victoria Cross medal group suitable as an offering to the Royal Naval Barracks in exchange for the desired medals of William Hall. Interestingly, as late as 1967 Spink was asking the sumof only $3400.00 for Sullivan's medals, among which was also the medal awa rded for Conspicuous Gallantry. Also see DCB XIII:433-434 on Hall. For the collection. 2,500.00
------------------------
Manitoba History: “Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea”: Prairie
First Nations, the British Monarchy and the Vice Regal Connection to 1900
by Sarah Carter
History Department, University of Calgary
Number 48, Autumn/Winter 2004-2005
This article was published originally in Manitoba History by the
Manitoba Historical Society on the above date. We make it available here as a
free, public service.
Please direct all inquiries to webmaster@mhs.mb.ca.
Governor-General Adrienne
Clarkson is presented with flowers by Jasmine Fontaine at a ceremony at Lower
Fort Garry in August of 2000 marking the anniversary of the making of Treaty
One at the fort in 1871. Clarkson’s visit followed a long tradition of
vice-regal visits to the West that have underscored the special relationship
between First Nations and the British Crown.
Source: Parks Canada
In the summer of 2000, at Lower Fort Garry, Governor General Adrienne
Clarkson attended a ceremony commemorating Treaty One, made in 1871 between Her
Majesty Queen Victoria, and the Cree and Saulteaux. “This treaty,”Clarkson has
written, “established a relationship to last ‘as long as the sun shines, grass
grows and rivers flow.” [1] At this, and at other ceremonies with First Nations
people she was addressed as “Mother.” Clarkson was following in a lengthy
tradition of vice-regal visits to the West during which firm assurances were
given First Nations of the sanctity of their treaties, and of their special, familial
relationship with the British Crown. While this relationship was codified in
the treaties, knowledge of, and an association with the British Crown began
much earlier than the “numbered” treaties of the 1870s with prairie First
Nations. Fur traders introduced the concept of a just, paternal monarch to
“guide and animate their exertions,” to inspire loyalty and promote peaceful
relations. [2] Aboriginal spokespersons developed an oratorical tradition that
incorporated references to the British monarchy in kinship terms that confirmed
themselves as the equals of the Europeans, and called on the monarch’s
representatives to act with honour and integrity. Treaty commissioners of the
1870s were well aware of the First Nations’ knowledge of the monarchy; in their
negotiating tactics they drew on what lieutenant-governor and treaty
commissioner Alexander Morris described as their “abiding confidence in the
Government of the Queen, or the Great Mother as they style her.” [3]
The partnership of First Nations and the British Crown was firmly
affixed in the 1870s treaties and it was confirmed and ratified in the years
that followed through the audiences and ceremonies held with the Queen’s
representatives, the governors-general of Canada. With particular focus on the
1881 vice-regal tour of the Marquis of Lorne, this article demonstrates how
First Nations used these visits to restate and recommit the equal parties to
the treaties, and to remind their treaty partner of their commitments and
obligations. From a First Nations perspective these visits ratified and
confirmed their relationship with the Crown, and served as tangible
recognitions of their status as sovereign nations who had entered into nation
to nation treaties. Aboriginal protocol and ceremonies attended the vice-regal
visits, including pipe ceremonies, an exchange of gifts, oratory and displays
of dancing.
The purpose of vice-regal visits from the perspective of the
governors-general of the nineteenth century was to promote settlement of the
West and establish a sense of imperial rule. But while the addresses that
successive governors-general delivered to First Nations, replete with
references to the Great Mother (Queen Victoria) and her “red children,” spoke
of inequality rather than equality from the perspective of the vice-regal
visitor, this was not how they were received by First Nations who heard
powerful affirmations of their familial relationship. And while as members of
the colonial elite, governors-general did not see themselves as the equals of Aboriginal
Canadians, many displayed concern about their welfare and a fascination with
their cultures. They continually promised that government obligations would be
met, that assistance would continue and even be enhanced, and they sometimes
acted as advocates for First Nations. By the beginning of the twentieth century
there was little concrete evidence of substance to the rhetoric of the Crown’s
representatives as promises remained unfulfilled. Yet because the treaties were
the foundation for their rights and their future, First Nations continued to
welcome and honour vice-regal and royal visitors and each visit further served
to confirm their long partnership.
An English royal interest and presence was established in Western
Canada with the founding in 1670 through royal charter, of the Hudson’s Bay
Company (HBC). The HBC charter purported to assert jurisdiction over a virtual
subcontinent of all the land that drained into Hudson Bay, 1.5 million square
miles, or the equivalent of 40% of modern Canada. [4] The vast territory that
the HBC purported to claim was named after Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I
and cousin of Charles II, who was the Company’s first governor. The royal
connection continued after Rupert’s death with the appointment in 1683 of the
second governor of the Company, H.R.H. James, Duke of York. He resigned this
post on accession to the throne as King of England, James II, in 1685.
As in other realms of English involvement the HBC set about naming many
places in Western Canada for kings, queens, princes, and aristocratic
shareholders, conveying a sense of the royal presence throughout their empire.
Places such as Fort Prince of Wales, York Factory, and Rupert House appeared in
a tradition that would continue and gain momentum in the nineteenth century
with settlements called Regina, Victoria and Prince Albert. It is unlikely that
this royal presence made much of an impact on the majority of the Aboriginal
residents of Western Canada who retained their own names for fur trade posts
and settlements.
The use of a medal to introduce the concept of the British monarch to
their Aboriginal business partners dates from the late eighteenth century. In
1776, Thomas Hutchins, chief factor at Albany suggested to the Governor and
Committee in London that a medal bearing Charles III’s head on one side, and
the Company coat-of-arms on the other, would be desirable for presentation to
chiefs, as marks of distinction and to bind them to the Company in the face of
competition. Aboriginal trading partners at this time were clearly already
aware of the concept of a British monarch as opposed to the French, or such a
medal would have had no effect. Hutchins wrote that:
... medals also are much
esteemed amongst them if large, and if presented with ceremony when the Calimut
is smoaked, will be not only deemed a mark of of distinction but perhaps be a
means of binding the Leaders more securely in your Interest. These medals may
have the Kings Portrait on one side (I saw a French one at York Fort) and on
the reverse the Company’s Coat of Arms, or Deer, Bears, Buffalo, Beaver, or the
like, I have specified the size, I imagine most agreeable to the Indians, in
the Indent, In order to render both Medals and Pipes more valuable and
acceptable, perhaps Your Honours will judge it necessary not to put them upon
Trade; for whilst any common Indian can obtain them for his Furrs, they cease
to be an incitement to emulation, or regarded as a Token of Approbation, and
Badge of Eminence. [5]
Taking up Hutchins’ suggestion, medals were shipped to Hudson Bay
beginning in 1777. [6] The chiefs who wore these received particular honour and
recognition at HBC posts. In 1793 the post master at the Company’s
Escabitchewan post recorded in his journal that a great “war” chief, wearing a
huge silver medal had arrived in a flotilla of eight canoes. He wrote that “It
is customary among the Traders when ever they see one of these meadels to
honour his Majesty’s armes with a new Silk Ribband by good luck I had as much
my own propperty as did this to my satisfaction.” [7]
While George Simpson was in charge of the HBC Athabasca District,
medals were shipped to posts with the instructions that they were to be
presented to the principal chief “with an appropriate speech in full state.”
[8] At Fort St. Mary in April 1821 Simpson himself presented a medal to a chief
“...with a great deal of Formality and the medal deliverd with a suitable
harangue on the occasion.” [9] The Fort Chipewyan journal entry for 4
September, 1823, kept by post master James Keith, indicates how medals were
distributed or earned at one post, and how the concept of the British monarch
was conveyed and manipulated by the HBC. At a meeting with the Chipewyan Keith
told them that:
... a mark or Prize will be
set before you to guide & animate your exertions, & the distinction
between good & bad Hunters will only be made in spring after the Hunts are
closed, when Presents will be awarded to the deserving also a distinctive Badge
to the best Hunter, bearing the likeness of our Soveriegn (exhibited on a new
H.B. medal) whose handwriting (producing one of our Commissions & the
Companys common Seal) attends the Identity of the Representation & grant of
the Country, would be suspended & worn about his neck during his stay at
the Fort in spring, Sr be left on his departure as the distinctive Badge for
similar exertions another year ... [10]
The practice of distributing silver medals to prominent Aboriginal
males as signs of friendship, allegiance and loyalty was established early on
in the colonial encounter by the British, French and Spanish, and it was a
practice that the United States inherited. [11] Medals played a significant
role in the efforts of imperial powers to gain, maintain and express gratitude
for the military support of First Nations. A chief would signify a change of
allegiance by formally turning in a medal and accepting that of another nation.
According to historian Francis Paul Prucha “As the years passed, these medals
flooded the frontier, especially after the War of 1812, when they played a
significant part in the campaign to gain the loyalty of the Indians in the
Great Lakes region and on the upper Mississippi and Missouri.” [12] These
medals are clearly visible in many portraits both painted and later photographs
of prominent First Nations men. The display of these medals was not a
phenomenon that was at all unique to First Nations. As historian David
Cannadine has written, the soldiers and proconsuls of the British Empire were
“... veritable walking Christmas trees of stars and collars, medals and sashes,
ermine robes and coronets.” [13]
These medals were handed down through generations of Aboriginal
recipients, with oral history records maintained of who distributed them and
why, and what reciprocal commitments and promises were made. The Dakota provide
a vivid example of this. They were allies of the British in the Seven Years
War, in the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. In 1844 English artist
George Catlin found that many Dakota who lived entirely in the U.S. and several
hundred miles south of British territory cherished the memory of this alliance.
Catlin was shown many large silver medals with the portrait of George III in
bold relief. Catlin told one chief with such a medal that George III had died,
and that the present chief of the English was “a young and very beautiful
woman.” The man expressed incredulity, and after consultation with others told
Catlin to ‘Tell my Great Mother, that you saw our Great Father and that we keep
his face bright!’” [14] In 1860 the Dakota displayed George III medals during
talks with the Saulteaux in the Red River settlement, and they wore them to
greet the Marquis of Lorne in 1881. [15] But the Dakota were not alone. In 1870
British soldier and adventurer William Butler, commissioned by Canada to
investigate conditions in Western Canada recommended that “medals, such as
those given to the Indian chiefs of Canada and Lake Superior many years ago, be
distributed among the leading men of the Plain Tribes.” Butler continued that
“It is astonishing with what religious veneration these large silver medals
have been preserved by their owners through all the vicissitudes of war and
time, and with what pride the well-polished effigy is still pointed out, and
the words ‘King George’ shouted by the Indian, who has yet a firm belief in the
present existence of that monarch.” [16]
During the era of intense and sometimes violent competition between the
North West Company (NWC) and the HBC (that ended with the amalgamation of the
two firms in 1821), the HBC entered into diplomatic talks with the chiefs of
the Red River settlement area and invoked the concept of the British Sovereign
to inspire loyalty and to promote peaceful relations. Speaking to an assembly
led by Saulteaux chiefs Peguis and Yellow Legs in June 1815, HBC surveyor Peter
Fidler referred to the King as the “Great Father of us all,” encouraging them
to believe that the British monarch had a special interest in their welfare.
[17] Fidler told them that the Governor of the HBC had gone overseas, and had
taken the Cree and Saulteaux’s pipe stems with him “... in order that he may
talk to our Great Father, that he may be charitable to you and your Friends—and
we expect that when you see your Pipe stems again, you will be proud from
having been the Friend to his Children in his Absence...”
A welcome for
Governor-General Lord Lorne, Rat Portage, 30 July 1881. Sketch by Sidney Hall,
London Graphic, 22 October 1881, page 428.
Chief Peguis, who was on good terms with the HBC and had assisted the
Scottish (Selkirk) settlers who arrived in 1812, is the first Aboriginal
spokesperson in Western Canada whose words have been translated and recorded,
to incorporate and manipulate the imagery of the Great Father. But while he
used the term “Great Father,” it is clear that at times he referred, not to the
British sovereign, but to the Creator, Great Spirit, or “our Great Father” as
the true owner of all of their lands. In this way he pointed out the
presumption of any person, including the British Great Father, to claim to own
the land, and the presumption of any living person to claim to be the “Father
of us all.” In his speech Peguis laid out a belief system distinct from
Fidler’s, putting the British King into perspective under the power of the
Great Spirit. He contested and challenged British claims of superiority. He
also made it clear he was aware that the British Great Father was not just the ally
of the HBC, but was sovereign over both warring factions of the HBC and the
NWC. In this speech in reply to Peter Fidler, Peguis promised to work toward
procuring peace between the two Houses or companies:
... It seems our Great Father
has two children, and perhaps he loves one better than the other—he certainly
did not tell one Brother to make war upon the other—for my part I have always
loved the white people, and have always taught my young men to be kind to them
The people of the other House are always breaking my Ears with complaints and
telling stories about my Lands; but these are not my Lands - they belong to our
Great Father for it is he only that gives us the means of existence, for what
would become of us if he left us to ourselves -we would wither like the Grass
in Plains was the Sun to withdraw his animating beams ... [18]
This invocation of the authority and concern of the British monarch
continued with the 1817 Selkirk Treaty, concluded between the Saulteaux and
Cree of Red River with Thomas Douglas, the fifth earl of Selkirk, which
provided for the establishment of the first European agricultural colony in
western Canada on lands adjacent to the Red and Assiniboine rivers. First
Nations were told that Selkirk had been “... encouraged by the great Father to
send out the Settlers” and the written terms of the treaty specified that the
chiefs had granted and confirmed “... unto our Sovereign Lord the King all that
tract of land...” adjacent to the Red and Assiniboine. [19] The chiefs also
received medals. [20]
Wanduta (Red Arrow), a Dakota
man from the Oak Lake area in Manitoba wearing his treaty medal, circa 1913.
Photographed by N. C. Gould, Brandon, Man.
Source: National Archives of
Canada.
Peguis has been popularly celebrated as the staunch friend of the
Selkirk settlers, the HBC and the English, yet his positions were much more
complex and he often used his eloquent oratorical skills to protest the changes
brought by the British, including the destruction of the beaver and the
buffalo. [21] In 1838 Peguis was baptized into the Anglican church and at that
time he took the name William King. The name King possibly signified his sense
of equality with the monarchy. His wife took the name Victoria and thereafter
their descendants came to be known by the surname “Prince.” [22] Throughout his
long life Peguis continued to convey his understanding of the importance of the
connection with the British Crown. On 6 August 1821, Nicholas Garry,
deputy-governor of the HBC, mentioned in his diary that they arrived at the
encampment of Chief Peguis and added, “The Chief had his Flag hoisted, an
English Jack, with the Hudson Bay Arms, given to him by Lord Selkirk ...” [23]
Acting for his father in 1845, Henry Prince addressed the Bishop of Montreal,
who was visiting Red River, and concluded with the words “We pray every day for
our Great Mother, The Lady Chief, Victoria, and for her relations.” [24] In the
1860s Chief Peguis protested that Aboriginal title had not been extinguished
properly in the Selkirk Treaty. In a letter to the Aborigines Protection
Society, London in 1863, Peguis explained that they took this agreement as a
“preliminary to a final bargain about our lands.” [25] He did say in the same
letter however, that he had a “British flag and valuable metal [sic] from our
Great Mother (the Queen), which I treasure above all earthly things.”
Peguis had moved to the Red River settlement in the 1790s with his
family and followers from present-day Ontario and he may have been drawing on
an eastern North American tradition of Aboriginal oratory that drew on
references to the British monarchy, detailing the military contribution of
First Nations and calling on the honour of the Crown to keep their promises.
[26] A tradition began in eastern Canada of appealing to the representatives of
the sovereign, the governors-general, for redress of grievances. Some
Aboriginal people of eastern Canada had even visited royalty, such as the
Ojibway woman Nahnebahweeequay who secured an audience with Queen Victoria in
1860. [27] When the Prince of Wales toured North America in the summer and fall
of 1860, Aboriginal people were “on display” in many ceremonies, but they took
advantage of these opportunities to profess their loyalty and to present their
concerns about the misconduct of the Indian Department and the illegal sale of
their lands. [28]
By the time of the “March West” of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP)
in 1874, Aboriginal people of Western Canada were well-acquainted with Great
Mother invocations and were prepared with responses of their own that
challenged or poked fun at pompous claims. NWMP trumpeter Fred Bagley recorded
one such incident in his diary entry from a camp on Old Wives Creek in August
1874: “During the Pow Wow Col. French, in order to impress them with the wide
power of Queen Victoria said ‘The Great White Mother has Red Children, white
children and black children.’ Whereupon one of the back row braves remarked in
a loud stage aside ‘Well, it seems to me that the Great White Mother must be a
woman of very easy virtue’—or words to that effect.” [29]
The British monarchy underwent significant transformation in the
nineteenth century, becoming more imperial, and the British Empire more royal,
presided over by a “semi-divine” Queen. The monarchy was “refurbished and
reinvented as an imperial crown of unprecedented reach, importance and
grandeur.” [30] In the colonies including Canada by the last decades of the
nineteenth century, new and elaborate ceremonies marked openings of parliament,
royal birthdays, and royal visits, presided over by governors-general and
lieutenant-governors bedecked in plumes, feather and medals. These were the
personal representatives of the sovereign, linking the colonies directly and
personally to the monarch and the mother country. [31] And in the colonies, in
dialogues with Indigenous people, the monarch was now at times referred to as
the “Great White Mother,” as in Colonel French’s address at Old Wives Creek. A
clearer dimension of racial difference and hierarchy was implied with this
addition.
By the 1870s much had changed also for the Plains people of the West as
the foundation of their existence, the buffalo, was almost extinguished. They
were in need of a strong ally in a transition to a new economic future, and
this was why they initiated treaties. But the treaty ceremonies, and those that
attended the vice-regal and royal visits that followed, were not all
British-imposed plumes and feathers. The ceremonies and displays of oratory
that characterized these were not inventions imposed by the colonizers but rich
hybrids of traditions, most of which were embedded in Aboriginal practice, and
had developed through two centuries of fur trading with Europeans. [32] Pipe
ceremonies, welcoming salutes and escorts, parades, dances, enactments of
bravery and oratory, all figured prominently in Plains diplomacy and
celebrations and these were found in treaty ceremonies and vice-regal visits.”
In the written texts of the Western Canadian treaties, First Nations
agreed to “cede, release, surrender, and yield up to the Government of Canada
for Her Majesty the Queen,” large tracts of land. They were promised however,
that they could continue to hunt throughout these surrendered tracts, except
areas taken up “from time to time for settlement.” Annual payments were
promised each man, woman and child (ranging from five to twelve dollars). Reserves
of land were to be set aside where they would live and establish economies of
farming or ranching. They were promised implements, oxen, seed and other
supplies necessary to the establishment of agriculture. These agricultural
clauses were the result of the effective negotiating skills of Aboriginal
leaders who were concerned about the future livelihood for their people in the
light of the disappearance of the buffalo. Treaty commissioners were not
initially prepared to provide direct assistance in the transition to
agriculture, although they promoted the idea that agriculture was the future
hope for First Nations, that this was in fact the Queen’s plan for them.
The treaty commissioners continually emphasized that they were the
representatives of the Queen, and were speaking for her. They were keenly aware
that there was a well-established knowledge of the Queen by the time of the
treaties among prairie First Nations. Family metaphors were used extensively by
both sides. Treaty Commissioners stated that they were acting under the
detailed instructions of the Great Mother, that First Nations were entering
into treaties with the Great Mother, that they were her “red children,” and
that she was personally concerned about their welfare and their future. [34] At
Treaty One for example, lieutenant-governor Adams Archibald’s said: “Your Great
Mother wishes the good of all races under her sway. She wishes her red children
to be happy and contented. She wishes them to live in comfort. She would like
them to adopt the habits of the whites, to till the land and raise food and
store it up against a time of want. She thinks this would be the best thing for
her red children to do, that it would make them safer from famine and distress,
and make their homes more comfortable.” [35] Although he made continual
references to the Queen’s “red children, “ lieutenant-governor Alexander Morris
made it clear that this did not denote an inequality, saying at Treaty Six “You
are, like me and my friends who are with me, children of the Queen. We are of
the same blood, the same God made us and the same Queen rules over us.” [36]
In seeking ways to guarantee their sovereignty, a future livelihood,
and protection against economic hardship Aboriginal leaders also made extensive
references to the Great Mother and other kinship terms. As Raymond DeMallie and
John Tobias have written in important articles on treaty talks, kinship terms
are significant symbols that functioned as diplomatic devices. [37] They were
not a mere token, or subservient designations. According to DeMallie, kinship
is the foundation of Native American society, it is “a central part of the
culture and provides a rich field of meanings and metaphors, symbols that
create cognitive worlds. Many American Indian peoples conceptualise kinship in
terms of sharing, generosity, and nurturance.” [38] The ideal symbol of the
concept of kinship was the relationship of an individual with his or her mother
with whom the strongest bond exists. The treaty commissioners at Treaty Six were
addressed as brothers, emphasizing their equality, and in Plains societies one
could not refuse anything to a brother without giving offence. [39] DeMallie,
“Touching the Pen,” 50; Morris, 190 -1. A tactic was also used of establishing
a common humanity and equivalence with the Whites. Chief Sweet Grass said,
according to Morris “I am thankful that the white man and red man can stand
together. When I hold your hand and touch your heart, let us be as one; use
your utmost to help me and help my children so that they may prosper.” [40]
According to oral histories of the treaties in the province of
Saskatchewan, the treaties were understood to have created an irrevocable,
perpetual familial relationship with the British Crown, based on concepts,
principles and laws defined in Cree as wahkohtowin (good relationships). [41]
The commissioners came as relatives, and the Queen adopted the First Nations as
her children. Elder Danny Musqua said “We believed that the treaties and the
Crown were going to do us good. That they were going to bring the heart [the
goodness and wealth] of the Great White Mother...” [42] Conduct between a
mother and child according to Cree concepts is characterized by mutual respect
and reciprocal duties of nurturing, caring, loyalty and fidelity. Brothers and
sisters are equal, separate and independent.
Treaty medals, which featured the Queen’s and the First Nations’
representatives of equal height shaking hands, symbolized the equality between
the partners to the agreement. The treaty suits of clothing that were
distributed to each chief and headman once every three years conveyed symbols
of the enduring relationship with the Crown and the promises made at the time
of the treaty. The Crown was featured on each of the buttons of these suits. In
the post- treaty years reminders of the relationship with the Crown appeared on
the ration tickets that were a feature of life on many reserves, permitting
families or individuals to supplies of food.
The relationship between the Crown and First Nations was reaffirmed in
the years following the treaties through the visits of governors-general. The
visits celebrated and renewed the treaty relationship, and confirmed the
treaties as vital, living instruments of that relationship. Aboriginal
diplomacy and protocols required such ceremonies of renewal through which
parties to a treaty declared their determination to sustain their shared
agreement. [43] These visits were also opportunities to remind their treaty
partner of obligations and commitments. From the perspective of the vice-regal
party, such tours served to reaffirm that the monarch continued to watch over
her or his realm with parental care. Vice-regal tours, staged throughout the
British Empire, were also referred to as progresses, a term from the time of
Elizabeth I describing when the “sovereign, or a near relative, symbolically
marked out, took possession and beat the bounds of this greater royal realm.”
[44] While viceroy of India in the 1890s, Lord Elgin explained that the prime
purpose of going on large tours was to permit opportunities to Her Majesty’s
subjects in the presence of Her Majesty’s representative, “ for manifestations
of loyalty and affection for her throne and person.” [45]
In 1877 Lord Dufferin (governor-general between 1872 and 1878) and Lady
Dufferin made the first vice-regal visit to the West when they came to
Manitoba. Their visit established a pattern that was to prevail in subsequent
tours. Governors-general were honoured and welcomed with Aboriginal ceremonies,
presents were exchanged, mutual expressions of loyalty were made, and
Aboriginal leaders pointed to obligations and promises yet to be observed, or
their treaty partner was called on to advocate on their behalf. In August of
1877, Lord and Lady Dufferin attended a ceremony at St. Peter’s Reserve, the
settlement established by Chief Peguis and where his descendants lived. [46]
They were honoured with displays of Cree and Saulteaux music, dancing, and
oratory and the Dufferins distributed gifts. In his address to the Dufferins,
Chief Joseph Prince spoke of the “unalterable attachment of our race to the
Great Mother.” Dufferin was presented with a pipe and Chief Prince said that
“As we present the stem and pipe of peace to your Lordship, we point also to
the rising sun—towards the throne of our Great Mother, as the emblem of our
devotedness to the Queen’s sacred person.” In his reply Dufferin addressed the
“Indian children of the Queen,” and said that “your Great Mother and the
Government at home across the sea are well aware that you have always been the
friends and allies of the British power” and that the Great Mother “has often
written to me to inquire about you, and before I took this journey expressly
commanded me to tell you that she loves you.” Chief Prince then spoke about
some of their concerns and needs, especially their want of agricultural
implements. Dufferin promised to put these complaints before his government.
According to Lady Dufferin, there were many occasions during the visit
to Manitoba when the vice-regal couple met Aboriginal people, including just
after they crossed the border into Canadian territory at Emerson, where they
were greeted with two speeches from Aboriginal orators.. “The first described
them as very happy and prosperous,” Lady Dufferin wrote, and “the second named
some grievance to be redressed.” [47] Dufferin made special mention of his
concerns for Aboriginal people in his farewell speech in Winnipeg late in
September, 1877. Although Dufferin focused on the great future destiny of Manitoba,
he noted that “in contemplating the vistas thus opened to our imagination we
must not forget that there ensues a corresponding expansion of our
obligations.” [48] It was “our most urgent and imperative duty to take timely
precautions by enabling the red man ... by precept, example and suasion, by
gifts of cattle, and other encouragements, to exchange the precarious life of a
hunter for that of a pastoral and eventually that of an agricultural people.”
Queen Victoria did not herself venture out to the empire but she began
a tradition of exporting close relatives as governors-general. The first such
appointment was the Marquis of Lorne, the husband of Princess Louise, the son-
in-law of the Queen, as governor-general of Canada from 1878-1883. He was also
a Scottish Highlander, the son of and later himself the Duke of Argyll and head
of the Campbell clan in Scotland. In the summer of 1881 the Marquis of Lorne
embarked on a tour of the West as far as Fort Macleod, that took several
months, covered over 8,000 miles, and involved many meetings, audiences, or
“pow-wows” with First Nations who dominated the population of most of the
places he visited and who turned out in great numbers to meet and speak with
the Queen’s son-in-law. The visit served a royal purpose of reminding the
inhabitants who reigned over this corner of the empire. It asserted Canadian
sovereignty over the newly-acquired western territories. The tour was also
launched in an effort to promote the resources and settlement of the West at a
critical moment in time. The Canadian Pacific Railway was set to begin
construction across the prairies from Portage La Prairie, and it was essential
to entice settlers from Great Britain and eastern Canada. Lorne was devoted to
the idea that the prairies were the logical home for Britain’s “surplus”
population. The tour permitted Lorne to provide selected information about
conditions that awaited emigrants in his 1885 book Canadian Pictures Drawn with
Pen and Pencil, and his 1891 book Canadian Life and Scenery with Hints to
Intending Emigrants and Settlers. [49]
The extensive coverage of the 1881 vice-regal tour in the British and
Canadian press featured glowing descriptions of the prospects for settlement.
These included tributes to the richness of the soil, the scenery, the
prosperous farm homes, horse and cattle ranching, and the capital game hunting
prospects. In the press reports and in Lorne’s books there is no mention of the
destitution that prevailed at that time among Plains people. There was widespread
starvation, disease and death following the disappearance of the buffalo.
Earliest efforts to establish agriculture on the reserves were unsuccessful due
to environmental factors but also because what was promised in the treaties,
the implements, oxen and provisions, proved insufficient and even these
commitments were not met. [50] Indian Commissioner Edgar Dewdney, (and
lieutenant-governor of the North West from the fall of 1881), who accompanied
the vice-regal party for much of the journey, reported in 1881 that the “want
of more teams and implements is felt by the Indians from one end of the
territory to another.” [51] Treaty Four for example, promised only one yoke of
oxen to each band (of several hundred people) and one plough to every ten
families. Since the disappearance of the buffalo, Plains people were in a
deplorable state with regard to clothing, footwear and housing as they had
relied on this animal for all of these. Aboriginal people then had compelling
reasons to use the opportunity of the visit to remind their treaty partner of
their promises and obligations.
Initially Princess Louise was to accompany her husband, but by mid-July
it was announced that due to an injury, her physicians had ordered her not to
undertake the voyage to Canada and journey to the North-West. The viceregal
party, of seventy-seven men included Lome’s aides-de-camp, servants, personal
chef, chaplain, a NWMP escort, correspondents, artist Sydney Hall of the London
Graphic and a changing entourage of local guides, and officials of the
Department of Indian Affairs (DIA). [52] Lorne was equipped with gifts and
supplies for feasts that were an essential part of meetings with First Nations.
Among the gifts were medals, featuring Lord Lorne and Princess Louise, to be
given to the chiefs who showed the greatest disposition to carry out the
treaties. [53] They set out in on 21 July and travelled by railway, steamer,
canoe, York boat, horse and wagon until the tour ended with Lome’s speech in
Winnipeg on 11 October.
All along the route they were met by assemblies of First Nations
people, generally separate from the assemblies of White people. In some cases
they travelled great distances to meet Lorne, and they had well-prepared
spokespersons who expressed both their loyalty to the Queen and the problems
they believed the Queen should address. Many of the prominent chiefs proudly
displayed their treaty, George III and other medals. As the special
correspondent to the London Times wrote, describing a chief near Georgian Bay,
“The only article worth noting was a large George III medal hanging from his
neck by a long red riband. It was probably given to some ancestor for services
rendered in our old wars against the French or the revolted colonies. The
Indians are very proud of these medals, and still speak of themselves and their
English friends as “King George’s men’ in contradistinction to the ‘Long
Knives,’ the Americans.” [54]
A reminder of First Nations’
relationship with the Crown even appeared on ration tickets.
Source: John Maclean
Collection, United Church Archives, Toronto.
The audience Lorne held with Chief Shingwauk and the people of Garden
River on 25 July set the tone for much of the trip. Lorne was welcomed and
honoured as the relative and representative of the Queen, but also as their
relative, as he was addressed as “brother”, “brother-in-law” and by a few
orators as “father.” (This initially surprised Lorne, who noted in his journal
following one Ontario audience that “a grand old man perpetually in his speech
addressed me, who might have been his grandson, as ‘father’) [55] At every stop
Lorne was presented with detailed reminders of promises and obligations not
met. Lorne, on almost every occasion, provided acknowledgement of the Queen’s
commitment, stated that the Queen kept her promises and that their concerns
would be looked into.
Shingwauk indicated that he had been granted an interview through
correspondence with the governor-general’s secretary one year earlier. Then,
according to Globe reporter W. H. Williams, the chief gave “a somewhat lengthy
though fairly concise review of the relations of the Algoma Indians with the
white men, recounting the grievances, including the destruction of fish and
game and the alleged non-fulfilment of a certain treaty.” [56] Lorne replied
that “I rejoice I am able to keep my promise made to you to come to see you. It
is a promise I have fulfilled You will always find that any promises given by
the Government or any servant of the Great Mother are always kept. The breaking
of the Treaty made with Her Indian subjects is unknown to the Great Mother ...
I shall take care to enquire into everything than has been said to me to-day.”
Some days later the chief of the Lake Wabigon Ojibway, who displayed a Queen
Victoria medal, addressed Lorne saying that they were honoured to meet “our
great mother’s son-in-law and her speaker for this country. We all shake hands
with you through me as their chief.” He continued with his concerns about
issues including their rights to cut timber on their own reserves. [57] Five
hundred Ojibway were camped at the narrows near Rat Portage, a gateway to
Western Canada, and to meet the governor-general they had crossed the Winnipeg
river in a large fleet of canoes, dressed, according to W.H. Williams, in the
most picturesque of costumes. Their chief Mawedopenais, a prominent
spokesperson at the protracted negotiations over Treaty Three, wore his treaty
medal and gave an address on behalf of the people of Lake-of-the-Woods.
On 1 August, Lord Lorne was given a cordial welcome at Winnipeg. The
two welcoming arches that had been constructed had escaped damage in a
thunderstorm and “little cyclone” that swept through the city two days earlier.
[58] During his first address in Winnipeg at City Hall Lorne stated that
peaceful settlement “is guaranteed by the just, generous and faithful treatment
of the Indians, by scrupulous respect of all treaties made with them ...” [59]
West of Portage la Prairie at the HBC’s Fort Ellice a large gathering of Cree,
Saulteaux and Dakota awaited the Marquis of Lome. According to Globe
correspondent Williams here “the Indians engaged in a right royal pow-wow,
which His Excellency seemed to enjoy,” and dances and speeches alternated for
some time. [60] The Dakota, who were granted reserves but were not permitted to
enter into treaties because they were presumed to be “American” Indians, once
again displayed their British medals and the Union Jack, and their chief
Wabadiska gave an address to Lome who acknowledged their ancient affiance,
saying “I look upon it as a sign of our alliance of old days that you have
brought the flag with you. I see the medals on some of your breasts, tokens of
service rendered the Great Mother.”
Lorne attended speeches and dancing at Fort Ellice for four hours but
Chief Sounding Quill was disappointed that he could not stay for three or four
days “... to give them time to fully address him upon their grievances, but
they were informed that his Excellency could not stay.” By this time the correspondent
Williams was summing up and dismissing these grievances with the words “They
made the usual complaints of want of food etc.” They had to be content with
Lorne’s parting address, which again invoked the personal interest, concern and
largesse of the Queen. He also promised to address their concerns:
I am glad that you have come
and spoken your mind so freely to me. Have seen that the chiefs were good to do
as Government told them. The Queen took pity for your hunger and sent her
servants to enter a treaty with you. Now you have land for farming and I am
glad to see that you are doing so well ... Glad to see that you want
implements. Shall see that you get them and are instructed well. Seed will also
be given you. Hope to hear of more Indians working. The Queen wishes you to
remain on the land and be good friends of hers ... [61]
Lorne then presented Chief Gabriel Cote, one of the Treaty Four chief
negotiators and signators, with a large silver medal, to show appreciation for
his efforts to live by farming. [62]
The reception for Lorne at Fort Qu’Appelle was described by Williams as
“one of the grandest Indian shows of the whole trip.” [63] One thousand four
hundred Saulteaux, Cree and Assiniboine were assembled, and the speeches and
dancing lasted five or six hours. The main speaker at Fort Qu’Appelle was
Saulteaux headman Louis O’Soup. [64] An eloquent orator, O’Soup was highly
critical of much that had happened since the treaty. O’Soup stressed that they
found the original agreement was not enough to keep them alive:
While prairie was open I
could clothe myself but now that the buffalo are driven away I can not do so.
The clothing you see on the people round all comes from $5 [annuity] and in 2
or 3 months it will all be gone—Your heart would melt if you saw these people
in the winter. I have got no shoes nor mittens ... Take this to your heart and
think it over. And how do you think these people can live on 1½ pound of flour
a day ... According to treaty a yoke of oxen going to keep 100 people alive.
Will they break up land enough to keep them alive? Now the Indian knows more
... [65]
The major message delivered by O’Soup and other speakers was that they
could not make a living by the treaty, that they were starving, unable to farm
with the lack of assistance and implements, and they wanted what was translated
as a “reformation” of the treaty. [66] There was frequent mention of the Queen.
O’Soup said that the Queen would be sorry to hear that they had all died. [67]
“Let us see the kindness of the Queen,’ said Day Bird. Several expressed
disappointment that the Queen’s daughter had not accompanied Lorne as expected.
Lorne was addressed as “brother-in-law.” Loud Voice, a principal and elder
chief of the Cree said “I shake hands with the Almighty. I shake hands with the
Queen. Let us live.” [68]
Lorne replied at some length to the assembly at Fort Qu’Appelle,
stressing the Queen’s love for them, her direct role in the making of treaties,
and the personal interest she continued to take in their welfare:
I want them to know for
certain that having made so long a journey it shows the Queen’s love who always
loves her red children and was very sorry seven years ago to learn that they
were hungry. She heard in her Grandfather and Great Grand-father’s time that
many of them were hungry that they were sick and suffered from small pox ...
therefore the Queen was very sorry and wished they should be made happier in
her life time. [69]
He promised that implements would be given to the young men who worked
and those who worked would receive food. Lorne stated that he considered the
chiefs the officers of the Queen and that he expected them to keep the treaty
that “the Queen gave her officers to prevent her Indian children from
starving.” He said he was there to hear what they had to say and to see if both
white and red men were keeping their promises, although he was “not to make any
change in treaties.” Here and in other localities he said “The Great Mother
will always keep her promises and the Canadian Government will keep their
promises.” He also lectured them about the necessity of applying themselves to
agriculture and not just to eloquent speeches. “Hands were not given by Manitou
to fill pipes only but to work.” At the end of the Fort Qu’Appelle assembly,
which included the elaborate and animated buffalo dance, O’Soup gave Lorne what
the Globe correspondent described as “a handsome present in the shape of a
complete and elaborately ornamented Indian dress,” and in exchange O’Soup was
presented with a “handsome Waltham watch.” [70]
Saulteaux orator Louis O’Soup
addressed Governor-General Lord Lorne at Fort Qu’Appelle on 19 August 1881.
O’Soup signed the drawing by Sidney Hall with his mark at bottom right.
Source: National Archives of
Canada, C12947.
At the HBC post Fort Carlton, there was an assembly of chiefs and
headmen only, as the others had been encouraged to remain at their harvesting
on the reserves. The distinguished chief Mistawasis spoke at length, beginning
by drawing attention to the familial relationship between his people and the
Queen: “We are the children of the Great Mother, and we wish that through her
representative, our brother-in-law, she would listen for a little while to our
complaints and sympathise with our sufferings.” [71] Mistawasis made many of
the same points made at Fort Qu’Appelle: that the treaties were inadequate or
unfulfilled, and that his people were starving. “Often I have been sorely perplexed
and miserable at seeing my people starving and shrunken in flesh till they were
so weak that with the first cold striking them they would fall off their feet,
and then nothing would save them.” Mistawasis and Chief Ahtakakoop were
presented with Louise and Lorne medals.
After stops at Prince Albert and Battleford the vice-regal tour struck
off in a south-westerly direction toward Blackfoot Crossing and Fort Calgary.
Plains Cree Chief Poundmaker, of the Battleford district and an important
negotiator of Treaty Six, guided the entourage on this leg of the journey and
he made a great impression on all. Poundmaker had a close association with the
Blackfoot, having assisted to negotiate peaceful relations between the Cree and
the Blackfoot in the mid 1870s, and he was an adopted son of the Siksika Chief
Crowfoot. One evening Poundmaker told Cree were mesmerized by his words and
performance. [72] One Blackfoot legend left a deep impression on Lorne. This
was about the time when men and women lived in different camps, how the two
worlds came together in marriage, and the lesson that the chief of the women
taught the chief of the men about decisions based on superficial appearance.
The grandest reception yet of all was held at Blackfoot Crossing, on
the Siksika reserve and scene of Treaty Seven. There were 2,000 Blackfoot
awaiting the vice-regal party, and about 500 T’suu Tina. The Blackfoot named
Lorne the “Son of Love.” [73] Lorne described the occasion in some detail in
his book Canadian Pictures. [74] The event began with a mock battle on
horseback, followed by dancing. Crowfoot and Bull Head of the Tsuu T’ina each
bore the Union Jack as a banner which they placed before Lorne. Crowfoot’s
eloquent address stressed their need for more assistance. But as described and
dismissed in the Graphic, Crowfoot’s speech “... was like the rest of them—a
begging one—but he illustrated it by holding up a tin cup to show how much
flour was doled out to each of his people—poor flour too, and he compared
himself and the tribe to that empty pannikin, for so they had been since the
buffalo left them.” [75]
The vice-regal party crossed the 49th parallel near Chief Mountain,
travelled east to Minnesota, and then returned across the border by railway to
Winnipeg where on 11 October Lorne gave an address to the Manitoba Club. From
his words on that occasion, one might think that he had not encountered any
First Nations people at all, as the focus was on glowing descriptions of the
agricultural, mineral, lumbering and other resources of the West including the
beauty of forests, lakes and open plains. [76] He declared only that the
Canadian government had inherited the “policy of kindness and justices which
was inaugurated by the Hudson’s Bay Company in their treatment of the Indians.”
[77] In Lorne’s conclusion to his speech he completely disregarded the presence
of the vast majority of the people he had met on his tour, saying that Western
Canada was a “territory favourable for the maintenance of a numerous and
homogenous white population.”
The Crown appeared on the
buttons of the suits provided triennially to Chiefs and Headmen under terms of
the treaties.
Source: Glenbow Museum.
Yet there is clear evidence that Lorne was fascinated with his First
Nations hosts. His 1883 book Memories of Canada and Scotland: Speeches and
Verses, contained his Winnipeg speech above, but also his poetry which included
a number of romantic verses on Aboriginal history and legends with titles such
as “The Guide of the Mohawks,” “The Strong Hunter,” “The Origin of the Indian
Corn,” “Cree Fairies,” “The ‘Qu’Appelle Valley,’“ and “The Blackfeet.” The
latter poem was dearly drawn from the legend that was told to him by Poundmaker
that night camped on the open prairie. [78] He admired their bravery, hunting
and equestrian skills. (Another poem was called “On the New Province of
‘Alberta— which Lorne named in honour of his wife.) An entire chapter in his
book Canadian Pictures is devoted to “The Indians of the North-West,” and
contains an eclectic mixture of topics: the NWMP, the liquor traffic, horse
stealing, evils of whisky drinking, Sitting Bull’s victory over General Custer,
the Sioux, the Blackfeet, the pow-wow in 1881, Indian eloquence, the sun dance,
“squaw” doctors, Canadian policy with the Indians, and the Christian Indian.
Lorne also sketched scenes of Western Canada, some of which were featured in
his book. He collected artefacts, and gifts, including the O’Soup outfit. Lorne
also lived up to his end of the bargain in immediately placing the grievances
and concerns that he had heard before prime minister John A. Macdonald. In a
memorandum of 28 October, Lorne made specific recommendations including greater
assistance with farming instruction and equipment, the establishment of
industrial schools, and the settlement of Metis land issues.”
In 1895 Governor-General Lord
Aberdeen presided over the inauguration of the Regina Territorial Exhibition.
At the event he was presented to a distinguished delegation of First Nations
leaders.
Source: Saskatchewan Archives
Board, R-B1138.
Lorne’s interest in the Aboriginal people of the West may have arisen
in part because he found so many who were descended from Highland Scots. Lorne
was surprised, early in his journey, to see the extent of intermarriage, and
according to his biographer, Lorne “later liked to tell the story of how he had
addressed a request to see a full- blooded Indian to the Hudson’s Bay Company
factor, who turned around and shouted: ‘Come here, Macdonald.’ [80] He found
that many of the mixed-ancestry wives of HBC factors talked “very Highland,”
learned from their Scottish fathers. [81] Lorne had noted certain similarities
such as the travois, harnessed behind Blackfoot women’s horses, which was
“almost exactly the rude machine used in the Highlands for hay carrying.” [82]
Globe reporter Williams thought that Lorne’s general popularity during his 1881
tour had much to do with his Highland Scots identity as there were so many
Westerners with Scottish ancestry. “He may be Governor- General and Marquis of
Lome for infidels and outer barbarians... but for themselves, the faithful few,
he is still the young chief of a clan ...” [83]
Yet Lorne’s private correspondence and diary entries indicate that he
by no means regarded Aboriginal people as his equals and had little
appreciation for or patience with the ceremonies and speeches, which he also
distilled to requests for food. In Canadian Pictures he described the dancing
as “strange, weird and uncouth.” “Usually, amid much flowery rhetoric, the
speech resolves itself into a demand for more favours, and is, in short,
nothing but an exclamatory beggar’s oration,” Lorne wrote. [84] Lorne repeated
one of the most well-worn “jokes” in the Canadian West that mocked Aboriginal
orators, relating how interpreters reduced lengthy speeches to one line, in
this case, “Oh! He say grub!.” [85] In a letter to his brother, Lord Archibald
Cameron, Lorne wrote from the town of Prince Albert that, “The Indians are
horrible savages but are beginning to understand farming. We are giving them
presents everywhere as we pass and go through hideous dances ‘like Hell’ ...”
[86] At Fort Qu’Appelle Lorne wrote that “I have a great Indian Council
to-morrow. The wretches have been having a sun-dance... all seem very friendly,
but all ask for impossible things.” [87] He did not it seems, think much of
treaties despite all of the assurances he gave that treaty promises would be
observed.. Lorne preferred the situation in B.C., where there were virtually no
treaties. During an 1882 address in Victoria Lorne complemented the
“tractability and good conduct of the Indian population” of British Columbia.
[88] They were in his view, independent, trustworthy, and “Where elsewhere
constant demands are met for assistance; your Indians have never asked for any
...”
There was never again a vice-regal tour on the scale of Lorne’s 1881
epic journey. First Nations were also never again permitted the receptions and
addresses of the scale and length that had greeted Lorne. A pattern had been
established and each successive governor-general made trips West, sometimes
several, and all had audiences with First Nations. Although these became more
abbreviated, and sometimes, staged and scripted, these visits none-theless
affirmed the treaty relationship. The vast majority of these meetings took
place on the reserves. Subsequent governors-general varied in their degree of
interest and knowledge. Lord Landsdowne, who served in Canada 1883-1888, (and
later went on to become Viceroy of India) visited the West in 1885, after the
North-West Resistance, and he was disdainful and dismissive of First Nations.
[89]
In 1889 Lord Stanley (governor general from 1888-93) and Lady Stanley
made an extensive tour of the West. Stanley participated in the ceremonies and
protocol of Plains diplomacy, and gave firm assurances of the sanctity of the
treaty relationship. The vice-regal party was escorted during the last few
miles to the Blackfoot reserve by about one hundred mounted men on horseback,
firing their guns. The meeting between Lord Stanley and Crowfoot, Old Sun and
other Blackfoot chiefs, began with a pipe ceremony and Crowfoot then presented
his tobacco pouch and pipe to the governor-general. Stanley spoke first, saying
“Your Great Mother across the salt sea, although unable to come and see you
herself, is always glad to hear of your welfare and prosperity, and your
loyalty to her throne...The Queen has no other wish than to see all her people
happy and prosperous.” “The treaty,” Stanley said “ would be observed as long
as the waters ran and the sun shone.” [90] Crowfoot replied by expressing his
loyalty and that of his people to the Queen, and he said “they looked upon His
Excellency as one of a great family who had been their friends so long, and
they would give him the name they gave their first Governor, the Son of Love,
as being sent from their Great Mother, the Queen.”
Lord and Lady Minto visiting
the Blackfoot, circa 1900.
Source: Glenbow Archives
Lord Aberdeen, the seventh governor-general (1893-98) presided in 1895
over the inauguration of Regina’s Territorial Exhibition. A large gathering of
First Nations was convened, including many distinguished treaty chiefs such as
Piapot and Red Crow. There were also displays of the work of reserve farmers
and industrial school children. This was a carefully planned and staged display
of contrast between the “civilized” the “primitive,” with the overall goal of
showing how the hardy White pioneers had transformed the West while doing much
to also transform the First Nations. But like other vice-regal visits the
occasion confirmed the treaty relationship. In “His Excellency’s speech to Her
Majesty’s Indian Subjects,” Aberdeen called them friends and brothers and
stated that “... when I write to the Queen, the Great Mother, I will tell her
how well her Indian subjects have done. It will give great pleasure to the
Queen to hear of their success.” [91] He announced that medals were to be
awarded to those who had the best cultivated land, and that Lady Aberdeen would
give a prize to the Indian woman whose house is best kept. Lord Aberdeen was
made an honourary Blackfoot chief. [92]
The Earl of Minto, governor-general from 1898-1904 took particular
interest in Aboriginal people. He had previous experience in Western Canada as
in 1884, as Lord Melgund, he assisted in recruiting the Saulteaux Nile
Voyageurs, and in 1885 he had served as aide-de-camp to General Middleton
during the North-West Resistance. According to Carmen Miller, Minto never
forgave Landsdowne for his “sneering reception of Poundmaker” whom he met at
Stony Mountain Penitentiary in the autumn of 1885. Minto, then Melgund, wrote
that “Poundmaker appeared ‘all dignity, saying through the interpreter that he
was so honoured in meeting the representative of the Queen and so regretted the
circumstances under which he met him.’“ Carmen Miller writes that “Much to
Melgund’s horror, Landsdowne smiled sarcastically throughout, unable to
appreciate the tragic situation,” and that he treated the chief as “ludicrous
spectacle.” [93]
Minto, by contrast, solicited opinions and complaints of First Nations
during his numerous meetings with them on “a variety of subjects: civil
liberties, education, supplies or undue interference in Indian affairs.” Minto
conveyed these to Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier. In 1903 for example, he wrote
Laurier to object, among other things, to the treatment of Piapot, who had been
deposed as chief a year earlier for not conforming to government policy
abolishing Aboriginal ceremonies and dances. “As you know,” Minto wrote
Laurier, “he has long been a celebrated old character in the North West, rather
a fire-brand perhaps, not over well behaved, but a chief for a great many years
& whose faults, unless very heinous, one might perhaps have hoped would be
dealt lightly with.” [94] Minto objected to the policy that prohibited
Aboriginal dances and festivities, writing to Laurier in February, 1903 that
“...there is a want of sympathy with the Indians, a want of appreciation of the
fact that like all other human beings they require some opportunities for the
enjoyments & relaxations of life, and a rather narrow inclination to
stigmatize all the customs & traditions handed down to them as heathen
& barbaric & therefore to be stamped out without mercy.” [95] He
described their dances as “sober beyond words in comparison to a Scottish
reel.” At the Tsuu T’ina reserve in September, 1900, Minto had been treated to
a great variety including “war dances, ghost dances, scalp dances, horse
dances...” [96]
In a letter he wrote to Queen Victoria in August 1900 Minto wrote that
“I confess the wild red man has charms for me.” [97] Perhaps this affinity had
something to do with Minto’s wife’s claim to have Aboriginal ancestry. Mary,
Countess of Minto, told the Kainai during a visit in 1899 that she was
descended from an Indian “princess,” Pocahontas. According to a policeman who
accompanied the vice-regal party “They were not at all impressed by the
circumstances, and as a matter of fact, did not believe the story.” [98] Minto
himself, according to a newspaper report, told the Tsuu T’ina in 1900 that “he
took all the more interest in them because Lady Minto was descended from an
Indian chief.” [99]
The special bond between the British monarchy and First Nations has
endured because of the central importance of treaties to First Nations, despite
the fact that the continued promises and assurances of assistance produced few
concrete results. As evidence of this special bond, and the Crown’s
acknowledgement of obligations and commitments, First Nations can look not just
to the treaties and the promises made at the time of the negotiations, but to
over 125 years of reaffirmation during vice-regal and royal visits. These visits
are still used as opportunities to reconfirm the treaty relationship. In July
of 1973 Harold Cardinal of the Indian Association of Alberta met with Queen
Elizabeth II. Cardinal welcomed the Queen as “our Treaty partner,” and began by
saying that “...we take this moment to restate and recommit ourselves to the
spirit and philosophy contained in the Treaties entered into by our forefathers
with Your Majesty’s distinguished and beloved Great Grandmother—Queen
Victoria.” [100] Queen Elizabeth accepted the gift of a pipe and in her reply
stated that “You may be assured that my government recognizes the importance of
full compliance with the spirit and terms of your treaties.” As Adrienne
Clarkson has written, “The good faith that was the foundation of these Treaties
at the time of signing continues to this day through the ‘Honour of the Crown.’
[101]
Notes
An earlier version of this paper was given as a keynote address at the
British World Conference II, held at the University of Calgary, July 2003.
Special thanks to Harold Cardinal for interpretations of First Nations
perspectives. I am also grateful for the assistance of Donald Smith, Anne
Morton, Gerry Conaty, Florentine Strzelczyk, Chris Kindrasky, Brenda Oskawsky,
and everyone at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities. The two assessors for
Manitoba History provided valuable comments.
1. “Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson Address at
the University of Toronto Faculty Association’s C. B. Macpherson Lecture.
Governor General of Canada Home Page. http://www.gg.ca
/media/doc.asp?lang=e&DocID+-4158
2. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBC), “Medals” Search File. Extract
from James Keith, Fort Chipewyan Journal, 4 September 1823: (HBC Arch. B. /39 /
a /22,fo.33).
3. Alexander Morris, The Treaties of Canada with the Indians of
Manitoba and the North-West Territories, (1880: rpt.: Toronto: Coles Publishing
Col, 1971): 285. Studies of First Nations of Canada and the British Monarchy
include Wade Henry, “Imaging the Great White Mother and the Great King:
Aboriginal Tradition and Royal Representation in the ‘Great Pow-wow’ of 1901,”
Journal of the Canadian Historical Association II (2000): 87 -108; Ian
Radforth, “Performance, Politics and Representation: Aboriginal People and the
1860 Royal Tour of Canada,” Canadian Historical Review, 84, no. 1 (March 2003):
1-32; Phillip Buckner, “Casting Daylight Upon Magic: Deconstructing the Royal
Tour of 1901 to Canada,” The British World: Diaspora, Culture and Identity,
eds. Carl Bridge and Kent Fedorowich, (London: Frank Cass, 2003): 158-189;
Danielle Kinsey “Inventing the ‘Great Mother,’“ paper for History 607,
University of Calgary, December 2000.
4. Kent McNeil, “Sovereignty on the Northern Plains: Indian, European,
American and Canadian Claims,” Journal of the West, 39, no. 3 (Summer, 2000),
p. 14; Arthur J. Ray, I Have Lived Here Since the World Began: An Illustrated
History of Canada’s Native People, (Toronto: Lester Publishing Ltd. and Key
Porter Books, 1996), 70.
5. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives (HBC), Thomas Hutchins to
Governor-in-Council, London, 24 June, 1776. Albany Inward Letters, 1776. Thomas
Hutchins Private Journal. “Medals” Search File.
6. Ibid., “Medals” Search File.
7. Quoted in The Beaver, (June 1930), p. 9 - 10. See also HBC Archives
“Medals” Search File, “Notes on Indian Chief Medals,” 1 and 4. (HBC Arch.B.64
/a/1)
8. HBC Archives, “Medals” Search File. “Notes on Indian Chief Medals,”
2.
9. Ibid. (HBC Arch. B.190 /a /3)
10. Ibid. Extract from James Keith, Fort Chipewyan Journal, 4 Sept.,
1823 (HBC Arch. B./39 /a/22,fo. 33). 46
11. Francis Paul Prucha, The Great Father: The United States Government
and the American Indians, vol. 2, (Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska
Press, 1984), 173.
12. Ibid., 175.
13. David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire,
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 95.
14. George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and
Conditions of North American Indians, vol. 2, (1844 rpt., New York: Dover
Publications, 1973), 173-4.
15. The Nor’Wester (Red River Settlement), 14 March 1860. The Globe
(Toronto), 13 September 1881.
16. Willliam Butler, The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and
Adventure in the North-West of America, (1872 rpt., Edmonton: Hurtig
Publishers, 1968), 385.
17. HBC Archives, “Peguis” Search File. (B.235/a /3 fos. 28 - 28d)
18. Ibid.
19. Arthur J. Ray, J. R. Miller and Frank Tough, Bounty and
Benevolence: A History of Saskatchewan Treaties, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
Press, 2000): 25.
20. HBC Archives, “Medals” Search File. “Notes on Indian Medals,” 1.
(HBC Arch. A.1/66, p. 57).
21. Quoted in S. Tucker, The Rainbow in the North: A Short Account of
the First Establishment of Christianity in Rupert’s Land, (London: James Nisbet
and Co., 1854), 87-8.
22. In 1885 a descendant of Chief Peguis, Chief William Prince, led a
group of skilled Manitoba Saulteaux boatmen who helped guide British soldiers
up the Nile River to relieve General Gordon during the Battle of Khartoum in
the Sudan. The Nile Voyageurs received medals in recognition of their
contribution and these were proudly displayed by the Prince family each year on
Treaty day. Another descendant, Tommy Prince was one of Canada’s most decorated
soldiers during World War II. See C. P. Stacey, ed., Records of the Nile
Voyageurs, 18845: The Canadian Contingent in the Gordon Relief Expedition,
(Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1959).
23. HBC Archives, “Flag” Search File. “Red Ensign with the letters HBC
in white in the bottom corner of the fly.” (“Diary of Nicholas Garry,
Deputy-Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company from 1822-35,” in Transactions of
the Royal Society of Canada, Section II, 1900).
24. George J. Mountain, The Journal of the Bishop of Montreal During a
Visit to the Church Missionary Society’s North-West America Mission, (London:
Seeley, Burnside and Seeley; Hatchard and Son; Nisbet and Co., 1845), 180.
25. HBC Archives, “Peguis” Search File. “Letter from Peguis, chief of
the Saulteaux tribe at the Red River settlement, to the Aborigines Protection
Society, London.”
26. See for example the speeches in Penny Petrone, First People, First
Voices, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983), chapter 1.
27. Donald Smith, “Nahnebahwequay (1824-1865): ‘Upright Woman,’“ In
Neil Semple, ed., Canadian Methodist Historical Society Papers, vol. 13
(Toronto: 2001), 74-105.
28. Ian Radforth, “Performance, Politics, and Representation:
Aboriginal People and the 1860 Royal Tour of Canada,” Canadian Historical
Review, 84, no. 1 (March, 2003): 1-32.
29. Glenbow Archives, “Copy of the Diary of Regimental no. 247,
Trumpeter Frederick Augustus Bagley, North West Mounted Police.” Entry for 13
August 1874, Transcript copy, p. 20.
30. Cannadine, 101.
31. Ibid., 32.
32. Ray, Miller and Tough, 5-10.
33. Frederick E. Hoxie, Parading Through History: The Making of the
Crow Nation in America, 1805-1935, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1995), 5-6.
34. Morris, 27.
35. Ibid., 28.
36. Ibid, 199.
37. Raymond J. DeMallie, “Touching the Pen: Plains Indian Treaty
Councils in Ethnohistorical Perspective,” in Frederick C. Luebke, ed.,
Ethnicity on the Great Plains, (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
Press, 1980), 38-53; John Tobias, “The Origins of the Treaty Rights Movement in
Saskatchewan,” in F. L. Barron and James B. Waldram, eds., 1885 and After:
Native Society in Transition, (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Centre, 1986),
241-252.
38. Raymond J. DeMallie, “Kinship: The Foundation for Native American
Society,” in Russell Thornton, ed., Studying Native America: Problems and
Prospects, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1998), 329.
39. DeMallie, “Touching the Pen,” 50; Morris, 190-1.
40. Morris, 191.
41. Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt, Treaty Elders of
Saskatchewan: Our Dream is That Our People Will One Day Be Clearly Recognized
as Nations, (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2000), 34.
42. Ibid., 47.
43. Robert A. Williams, Jr., Linking Arms Together: American Indian
Treaty Visions of Law and Peace, 1600-1800, (New York and London: Routledge,
1999), 47.
44. Cannadine, 118.
45. Ibid., 105.
46. The Daily Free Press (Winnipeg, Manitoba), 20 August 1877.
47. Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, My Canadian Journal 1872-8:
Extracts From My Letters Home Written While Lord Dufferin was Governor-General,
(1891: rpt.: Toronto: Coles Publishing Co., 1971): 318.
48. Ibid., 1 October 1877.
49. The Marquis of Lorne, K.T., Canadian Pictures Drawn With Pen and
Pencil, (London: The Religious Tract Society, 1885); The Marquis of Lorne,
K.T., Canadian Life and Scenery With Hints to Intending Emigrants and Settlers,
(London: The Religious Tract Society, 1891). The Marquis of Lorne began his
publishing career in 1867 when, according to one appreciative account “he
published a volume of much promise, with the title of “A Trip to the Tropics,
and Home through America,” which is a pleasant and observant record of travel
in Jamaica, Cuba, St. Domingo, and in the United States. These ‘Notes from
Negro Lands’ - as the volume is alternatively called - are extracts from
letters written by the author when travelling in 1866...” See Charles R.
Tuttle, Royalty in Canada: Embracing Sketches of the House of Argyll...”,
(Montreal: Tuttle and Simpson Publishers, 1878), 77. For more on the Marquis of
Lorne and Princess Louise see Sandra Gwyn, The Private Capital: Ambition and
Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart,
1984), and Robert M. Stamp, Royal Rebels: Princess Louise and the Marquis of
Lorne, (Toronto: Dundum Press, 1988).
50. Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and
Government Policy, (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990).
51. Ibid., 97.
52. Stamp, 171.
53. The Globe, 1 October 1881 and National Archives of Canada (NA),
Record Group 10 (RG 10), records of the Department of Indian Affairs, Black
Series, vol. 3768, file 33642, transcript of the meetings with the Marquis of
Lorne, 5.
54. The London Times article was reprinted in The Globe, 26 August
1881.
55. The Duke of Argyll, Passages From the Past, vol. II, (London:
Hutchinson and Co., 1907), 464-5.
56. The Globe, 30 July 1881. W. H. “Buckboard” Williams published his
Globe articles describing the tour of 1881, with some editing, as Manitoba and
the North-West: Journal of a Trip From Toronto to the Rocky Mountains (Toronto:
Hunter, Rose and Co., 1882).
57. Ibid., 8 August 1881.
58. Ibid., 6 August 1881.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid., 13 September 1881.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., 31 August 1881.
63. Ibid., 24 September 1881.
64. Sarah Carter, “Louis O’Soup,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography
vol.14, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 804-7.
65. NA, RG 10, vol. 3768, file 33642, 6.
66. Ibid., 4.
67. Ibid., 3. 47
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid., 3-4.
70. The Globe, 24 September 1881.
71. Ibid., 1 October 1881.
72. Ibid., 7 October 1881.
73. This I have surmised from a newspaper account of the 1889 visit of
Lord Stanley, when Crowfoot was reported as having said “they would give him
[Stanley] the name they gave their first Governor, the Son of Love, as being
sent from their Great Mother, the Queen.” The Calgary Tribune, 23 October 1889.
74. The Marquis of Lorne, Canadian Pictures, 162-3.
75. The Graphic, (London), 5 November 1881.
76. Marquis of Lorne, K.T., Memories of Canada and Scotland: Speeches
and Verses, (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1883), 288.
77. Ibid., 290.
78. Ibid., 50-2. A sample verse from “The Blackfeet” by The Marquis of
Lorne
III
Southward, nearer to the gorges
Whence the sudden warm winds blow,
Shaking all the pine’s huge branches,
Melting all the fallen snow,
Dwelt the Selcsika, the Blackfeet;
They whose ancestor, endured,
With the dark salve’s magic fleetness,
First on foot the deer pursued.
Gallantly the Braves bore torture
While their Sun-dance fasts were held
While the drums beat, and the virgins
Saw the pains by manhood quelled.
“Come with us and share our hunting
Ere the autumn leaves are shed.
79. Stamp, 180.
80. MacNutt, 86.
81. Argyll, 470.
82. Lorne, Canadian Pictures, 169.
83. The Globe, 2 September 1881.
84. Lorne, Canadian Pictures, 162-3.
85. Ibid., 163.
86. MacNutt, 255.
87. Argyll, 466.
88. Lorne, Memories of Canada and Scotland, 318.
89. Quoted in John Cowan, Canada’s Governors-General: Lord Manck to
General Vanier, (Toronto: York Publishing Co. Ltd., 1965), 46.
90. The Calgary Tribune, 23 October 1889.
91. The Regina Standard, 8 August 1895.
92. Cowan, 68.
93. Carmen Miller, The Canadian Career of the Fourth Earl of Minto: The
Education of a Viceroy, (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1980), 37,
176.
94. Paul Stevens and John T. Saywell, eds., and introd., Lord Minto’s
Canadian Papers: A Selection of The Public and Private Papers of the Fourth
Earl of Minto, 1898-1904. (Toronto: The Champlain Society, 1983), 245.
95. Ibid., 253.
96. The Calgary Herald, 18 September 1900.
97. John Buchan, Lord Minto: A Memoir, (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons,
Ltd., 1924), 176.
98. R. Burton Deane, Mounted Police Life in Canada: A Record of
Thirty-one Years’ Service, (London: Cassell and Co., 1916), 89.
99. The Calgary Herald, 18 September 1900.
100. Quoted in Richard T. Price, Legacy: Indian Treaty Relationships,
(Edmonton: Plains Publishing Inc., 1991), 84.
101. Clarkson, “Address at the University of Toronto.” 48.
Page revised: 4 December 2011
---------------------
---------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.