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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780889776272 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Regina Press |
| Publication date: | 04/13/2019 |
| Series: | The Regina Collection |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 208 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
About the Author
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CHAPTER 1
OPENING SNAPSHOTS LOYAL TO WHAT AND TO WHOM?
* * *
THE DAY AFTER
On November 9, 2016, the day after Donald J. Trump was elected president of the United States, some temporary residents of Canada had a sort of a national identity conversion experience. As one of them said to me, "This is it. We hadn't been able to make up our minds, but now we're applying for permanent residency." It seemed to be that prior to the election these folks wanted to keep their options open. They might have wanted to return to the United States for a grand employment opportunity, less expensive housing than in Canada's big cities, a warmer climate, or substantially lower taxes. The results of the 2016 election seemed to forecast, however, that these potential advantages wouldn't actually materialize. Perhaps it was much better to "commit" to Canada.
The day after the 2016 us election another Toronto resident, who'd arrived for a very good specialist job, thought it best to stay put. Plus, the dangers of living in the States, including gun crime, seem to be getting worse. The kneejerk reaction was to remain in Canada, to hunker down.
Another long-term dual citizen decided in the evening of the 2016 us election to shed American status. No more dual. The advantage had been the possibility of working in the States from time to time. And the possibility of children and grandchildren working in the States. This advantage had seldom been exercised and didn't look as if it would come up again anytime soon. The United States was hostile to the arts and international co-ventures, whether in business, education, or science. Plus, the disadvantages had to be weighed: a conservative us government hostile to visible minorities and international travel; no end to the wars to be fought, a questionable privilege of American citizenship; and, of course, taxes to be filed even if no payment was required. The day after the election it seemed to be worth the cost and stress of shedding American citizenship.
Canada rather suddenly seemed to have a number of positive points for those who had until then remained undecided. The current Liberal government, which will most likely be in power until 2020, has affirmed its commitment to the sciences, research, and the arts. For the most part, Canadians continue to affirm and welcome refugees. The government passed a private member's bill to combat Islamophobia. And finally, then, there is Medicare, universal health coverage for all.
LOYALISTS PRO AND CON
In the classic definition, a Loyalist is one who was on the side of the British, not that of the Americans, in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. To claim a Loyalist history in the new millennium in Canada, however, is to dance around a number of possible contradictions in how this past history is viewed. For instance, here are a few of the competing narratives about Canada's Loyalist past:
• The Loyalists were/are a rigidly pure white/ Anglo British group.
or
• The Loyalists were/are early adopters of multiculturalism and inclusion, especially of the despised Indigenous and black minorities prior to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
or
• The Loyalists were all men, hearty, working-class stock, who had been rejected by the British class system and escaped.
or
• The Loyalists included women, all of middleclass stock, who wanted to protect the British values that privileged them.
or
• The Loyalists were all aristocratic Anglo men.
or
• The Loyalists recognized the equality of women, and women settlers in leadership roles brought a very civilizing instinct to the colonies.
In his book Inventing the Loyalists: The Ontario Loyalist Tradition and the Creation of Usable Pasts, Norman Knowles offers an explanation of why we have come to have these contradictory narratives: "The Loyalist past was constructed and remade by various groups interested in the creation of usable pasts that spoke to present anxieties and interests." Knowles notes that "the efforts of early feminists and Native activists to appropriate the Loyalist past to their own ends highlight the important role played by gender and race in the construction of public memory."
Some Loyalist descendants have less-than-proud histories. One said, "My ancestors were poor. They never moved off their one land-granted acre for generations. They were so parochial, they were afraid to travel from the ancestral township to Montreal. My ancestors worked hard at not learning French." For this person, having a Loyalist background in contemporary Canada was akin to inheriting both an impoverished and a snobbish history about which to be embarrassed. All of the reunions and getting one's name on the Loyalist registers felt like a simple pedigree grab. Yet, even in the embarrassment there was regret that the person didn't ask more questions about the ancestors, especially why the family was so timid, so frightened.
Another Loyalist descendant had a striking experience of the differences between Canada and the United States. She grew up in Canada, believing the story that there are few differences between the two countries, and then immigrated to the States in the early 2000s. She had grown up watching American television, listening to American music, and admiring the entrepreneurial spirit in the United States. A job in Washington, dc, seemed like a great opportunity, and it was time for a change.
This mature Canadian citizen, who always thought the differences between the two countries were minuscule, was overwhelmed by the culture shock she experienced. How to describe it? First, there was competition over everything, from the extremely petty to the fairly significant. To her, the American style felt totally competitive compared with the Canadian style of consensus. Second, individuals in the United States, even smart ones, believed they were independent and self-made, so there was no need for a social safety net. Third, there was in the United States a profound belief in not questioning persons in authority.
These major differences this Canadian transplant experienced while working for a us news organization finally meant she had to return home. After all, these differences in attitude create vast differences in how news is reported. We are certainly even more aware of the tensions over how news is defined since 2016. Our Canadian had to return home to values to which she was loyal: consensus, a social safety net, and the need to question authority — at least some of the time.
And, as is true for all refugees from the United States, the story evolves over time: the saga of why one fled, why one stayed in Canada after the United States forgave him or her, and what needs reaffirming or changing in Canada. For Canada, the host country, the story of why any particular group of refugees was welcomed also changes and adapts according to our contemporary national rhetoric.
ANGLO LOYALTY: THE KENNEDY CLAN AND THE GIRTY SWORD, UPPER CANADA
Some Loyalists have argued passionately for their version of history with great pride. Patricia Kennedy's cherished account of Loyalist history is not polite, conservative, or elitist. The ancestor whom Pat most proudly claims was radical, activist, and more than inclusive of marginalized Indigenous peoples and people of colour. For those who fear siding with the despised, Pat's ancestor might be the devil incarnate.
I first heard of Pat's radical Loyalist history at an elegant wedding in Ontario. Pat is the mother of the groom and had travelled from British Columbia, where she has made her home for most of her adult life. At this wedding, the cake was proudly cut with the Girty sword, as wedding cakes in her family have been for several generations.
As Pat communicated to me in 2016, the sword was handed down from one of her ancestors, Prideaux Girty, in the War of 1812 (and not for cutting cakes):
He was the son of Simon Girty, a famous Loyalist who was motivated to defend the interest of the Indian tribes of Western Pennsylvania and Ohio against the American Revolutionaries who wanted to take over their land by annulling the Proclamation of 1763 (the real reason for Revolution, according to some historians, including Phillip Hoffman, author of Simon Girty, Turncoat Hero).
Pat joyfully recounted a day in her London, Ontario, high school when she had to defend the reputation of her ancestor. Young Pat could be silent no longer while Simon Girty was labelled a traitor and a scoundrel by her teacher. Pat rose to her feet and said that, to the contrary, Girty was a patriot, a Loyalist, someone who had stood up for the dispossessed. Her high school's characterization of Girty, she thought, most likely came from Stephen Vincent Benét's beloved 1936 short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster," later a popular movie and a play. In Benét's story, numerous villains considered to have betrayed the United States are named, and Girty is one of them. Webster points to Girty in the short story and calls him a "renegade ... who saw white men burned at the stake and whooped with the Indians to see them burn. His eyes were green, like a catamount's, and the stains on his hunting shirt did not come from the blood of the deer." Fictional fame was all very well, but young Pat had to set the record straight. Her ancestor was not a traitor, no Benedict Arnold, also among Benét's accused. Girty was a patriot, she told the class.
The story of Simon Girty is included on William R. Wilson's website Historical Narratives of Early Canada. Wilson's narrative begins with an epigraph based on publicity material for Hoffmann's Simon Girty, Turncoat Hero: "Simon Girty was a sharp-witted, rascally ... frontiersman whose epic adventures span the French and Indian War, Dunmore's War, the American War for Independence, the Indian Wars, and the War of 1812." And Wilson's subtitle for the Girty narrative — "History's realities are seldom dull" — is certainly an appropriate one, as we can see even in this brief account of Girty's later life and of reactions following his death:
... Feared and hated on the American frontier, Simon Girty eventually retired to a farm in Amherstberg, Upper Canada where he raised corn for the government. Blind, crippled and a shadow of his former self, he spent his happiest hours at his favorite public house recounting tales of his spine-tingling career. Even then a $1,000 American bounty remained on his head. He died on the 18th of February, 1818. Warriors on both sides of the Canadian border respected and remembered him fondly. To the Mohawks, Simon Girty was to become an "Indian Patriot." American frontiersmen called him a white savage and years later, Kentuckians crossed the Detroit River into Canada "just for the satisfaction of spitting on his grave." [bold in the original]
The grave-spitting story is another one about her ancestor that Pat laughingly said her father loved to tell. She had no way of knowing if it was true. However, true or false, it tells us how proud the clan is of their controversial ancestor. Pat's father claimed to have actually seen Americans cross the border into Ontario to spit on Girty's grave. That's certainly an attention-getting claim to make.
Pat's Vietnam War resister husband, Jim, has become the background researcher, guardian, and promoter of her Loyalist history. He has those scholarly skills, which he has used since crossing the border in the 1960s to make significant contributions to environmental mining in Canada, and he has been cited as an "industry leader ... at the forefront of the mining industry's movement to sustainable development." His private description of himself is that of a "late-arriving Loyalist" who has gathered further information on the clan he joined after crossing the border, including information about another Loyalist ancestor, William Kennedy. This particular Kennedy, Pat says,
is one of the founders of what is now the town of Aurora north of Toronto. Kennedy Street in Aurora runs down the middle of the 200-acre tract that was his farm. He was from Southern Maryland. He fought the whole [Revolutionary] war in the Prince of Wales American Regiment, was captured and ransomed after a couple of years, was mustered out after the defeat at Yorktown, confined for a while in New York City, and eventually evacuated by the British to New Brunswick, and then moved in 1803 to Ontario (Upper Canada), where he got a land grant from Governor Simcoe.
These are the Loyalist stories that Pat is proud to tell her children and grandchildren, stories that affirm Canada as a haven for the dispossessed, for Indigenous peoples, for minorities, for strong women-led families.
Pat has had a long career teaching English as a Second Language. This professional choice, she states, says a lot about her relation to newcomers, to those who wish to become Canadian, contribute to society, and seek a better life. These are family stories that Pat's Vietnam War resister, or late-arriving Loyalist, husband has been more than willing to adopt.
The Girty sword is being polished in preparation for the next wedding in the Kennedy clan.
CHAPTER 2CANADIAN LOYALTY TESTED THE DEFENSIVE SPOTS
* * *
AFRO LOYALTY 1: CAROLYNN AND SYLVIA WILSON, ONTARIO
The people behind the stories of immigrants and refugees from the United States to Canada are never quite whom I expect them to be. We are living through a moment when the diversity of the stories, and the nature of the backstories, might surprise many long-term Canadians. For instance, as we look further at one of the oldest waves of refugees, the Loyalists, who would have expected so many black people?
I was surprised to learn recently of a former American refugee settlement of black people close to my home of almost twenty-five years in Horseshoe Valley, Ontario, in the Township of Oro-Medonte. The mysterious settlement was tied to the War of 1812, but by the early 1900s the inhabitants were gone. Where? Why?
At least one theory is that these were black soldiers' families given land grants to protect a northern water route from Toronto to Lake Simcoe. In a sparsely inhabited Simcoe county, it's possible that these families were a line of defence against the Americans and were being rewarded for service in the War of 1812. Another speculation is that they were escaped slaves who arrived in the north country via the Underground Railroad. What I discovered was that some of the descendants of this mysterious black community, farther north than one typically thinks of the Underground Railroad running, maintain cohesive forms of activism and community involvement.
On a beautiful summer day in 2016, I drove an hour south of my home, just a bit beyond the resort town of Collingwood on Nottawasaga Bay at the southern point of Georgian Bay. In the village of Clarksburg, the signature blue Ontario historic site sign beckons: "Sheffield Park Black History and Cultural Museum." Deep curiosity about what happened to this sizable black community in the 1800s is what took me to the museum. The family who runs it is related to families from Oro, Collingwood, and Owen Sound. These refugees and their descendants stayed in the north. They didn't go to the less isolated southern locations of Toronto, Chatham, London, and Niagara, or back to the United States when it was safer to do so. They were and are at home in the north.
These black communities were small in the 1700s, 1800s, and 1900s, and they remain small now. They are small groups in small towns. Perhaps, after the Fugitive Slave Act was passed by Congress in 1850, freedom seekers in these northern, hard-to-travel-to, thinly populated villages were harder to track down. Perhaps it wasn't even worthwhile financially to search for them.
Descendants of those early black refugees are active community members in the Collingwood area, specifically with their Heritage Community Church and the Sheffield Park Black History and Cultural Museum. I was invited by the dynamos behind the museum, sisters Sylvia and Carolynn Wilson, for a picnic on Sunday afternoon in a screened gazebo on the museum grounds. Twenty minutes late, having made a wrong turn, I was out of breath and apologizing profusely. Carolynn said with great warmth and a smile, "Relax, you're at home now." And she meant it. Since I'm a black woman who found them from my birthplace in Texas to their Collingwood home, I was embraced. The sisters' achievements are staggering: an eleven-acre museum site with displays housed in a dozen buildings, representing the preservation and growth of a small initiative started by their deceased uncle, Howard Sheffield, and financed by the two sisters, their elderly mother, and their friends. Plus, their Heritage Community Church, still a working church, is their anchor, originally a black congregation when worship was segregated, but now welcoming and including all.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "American Refugees"
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Copyright © 2019 Rita Shelton Deverell.
Excerpted by permission of University of Regina Press.
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Table of Contents
Illustrations, xi,
Acknowledgements, xiii,
INTRODUCTION Allegiance to All Her Heirs and Successors, 1,
1. OPENING SNAPSHOTS Loyal to What and to Whom?, 21,
2. CANADIAN LOYALTY TESTED The Defensive Spots, 31,
3. AMERICAN LOYALTY TESTED The McCarthy Era, 91,
4. FACES TURNED TOWARD CANADA Vietnam War Resisters, 143,
5. CLOSING SNAPSHOTS: Their Status Is "Pending", 219,
EPILOGUE Build on It, 235,
Notes, 247,
Selected References, 262,
About the Author, 269,