Loyal Till Death

Loyal Till Death
Author: Blair Stonechild
Publisher: Calgary : Fifth House
Total Pages: 330
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN:

Nominee, Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction This startling retelling of the North-West Rebellion explodes the myth of a grand Indian-Métis alliance and delves into the reasons why Indians have been branded as traitors and rebels in both the public imagination and official records. After the rebellion, twenty-eight reserves were officially identified as disloyal, and more than fifty Indians - including Poundmaker and Big Bear - were convicted of rebellion-related crimes. The most damning event was the mass execution of eight Indian warriors at Fort Battleford in November 1885. But Indian elders have long told stories about how First Nations remained faithful to their treaty promises during the conflict. Having their own peaceful strategies for dealing with an insensitive federal government, they were not interested in Riel's activities, and any Indian involvement was isolated, sporadic, and minimal. But Ottawa deliberately portrayed the Indians as outlaws to justify increasingly restrictive and repressive measures, an injustice that has left a lasting legacy with First Nations people. Loyal till Death is the first comprehensive look at the Indian version of the North-West Rebellion. It brings to life many personalities - particularly those of the Indian leaders, whose voices have seldom been heard in conventional histories of the Canadian West. Combining oral history and exhaustive research, and illustrated with more than one hundred archival photographs, the book sheds new light on a greatly misunderstood aspect of our past.

Loyal Unto Death

Loyal Unto Death
Author: Keith Brown
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2013-04-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0253008476

“The story of the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (MRO) from its rise until the Illinden Uprising of 1903 . . . a fascinating account.” —PoLAR The underground Macedonian Revolutionary Organization recruited and mobilized over 20,000 supporters to take up arms against the Ottoman Empire between 1893 and 1903. Challenging conventional wisdom about the role of ethnic and national identity in Balkan history, Keith Brown focuses on social and cultural mechanisms of loyalty to describe the circuits of trust and terror—webs of secret communications and bonds of solidarity—that linked migrant workers, remote villagers, and their leaders in common cause. Loyalties were covertly created and maintained through acts of oath-taking, record-keeping, arms-trading, and in the use and management of deadly violence. “This book is, to my mind, exactly the kind of work that needs to be done in order to understand civil wars, insurgencies, nationalism, and rebellions, and to get away from what the author rightfully critiques as ‘pidgin social science.’” —Chip Gagnon, Ithaca College “An innovative work that should inspire debate.” —Slavic Review “A subtle and compelling account of revolutionary insurgency in turn-of-the-century Macedonia. His analytical focus on loyalties, rather than identities, goes beyond critiques of nationalism in enabling powerful new understandings of the region’s histories and its continuing social dynamics.” —Jane K. Cowan, University of Sussex

The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: Vol. 2

The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: Vol. 2
Author: Kent Monkman
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2023-11-28
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0771006470

From global art superstar Kent Monkman and his longtime collaborator Gisèle Gordon, a transformational work of true stories and imagined history that will remake readers' understanding of the land called North America. For decades, the singular and provocative paintings by Cree artist Kent Monkman have featured a recurring character—an alter ego of sorts, a shape-shifting, time-travelling elemental being named Miss Chief Eagle Testickle. Though we have glimpsed her across the years, and on countless canvases, it is finally time to hear her story, in her own words. And, in doing so, to hear the whole history of Turtle Island anew. The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle: A True and Exact Accounting of the History of Turtle Island is a genre-demolishing work of genius, the imagined history of a legendary figure through which a profound truths emerge—a deeply Cree and gloriously queer understanding of our shared world, its past, its present, and its possibilities. Volume Two, which takes us from the moment of confederation to the present day, is a heartbreaking and intimate examination of the tragedies of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Zeroing in on the story of one family told across generations, Miss Chief bears witness to the genocidal forces and structures that dispossessed and attempted to erase Indigenous peoples. Featuring many figures pulled from history as well as new individuals created for this story, Volume Two explores the legacy of colonial violence in the children’s work camps (called residential schools by some), the Sixties Scoop, and the urban disconnection of contemporary life. Ultimately, it is a story of resilience and reconnection, and charts the beginnings of an Indigenous future that is deeply rooted in an experience of Indigenous history—a perspective Miss Chief, a millennia-old legendary being, can offer like none other. Blending history, fiction, and memoir in bold new ways, The Memoirs of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle are unlike anything published before. And in their power to reshape our shared understanding, they promise to change the way we see everything that lies ahead.

Nation Maker

Nation Maker
Author: Richard J. Gwyn
Publisher: Vintage Canada
Total Pages: 738
Release: 2012-08-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 0307356450

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER John A. Macdonald, Canada's first and most important prime minister, is the man who made Confederation happen, who built this country over the next quarter century, and who shaped what it is today. From Confederation Day in 1867, where this volume picks up, Macdonald finessed a reluctant union of four provinces in central and eastern Canada into a strong nation, despite indifference from Britain and annexationist sentiment in the United States. But it wasn't easy. Gwyn paints a superb portrait of Canada and its leaders through these formative years and also delves deep to show us Macdonald the man, as he marries for the second time, deals with the birth of a disabled child, and the assassination of his close friend Darcy McGee, and wrestles with whether Riel should hang. Indelibly, Gwyn shows us Macdonald's love of this country and his ability to joust with forces who would have been just as happy to see the end of Canada before it had really begun, creating a must-read for all Canadians.

Broken Treaties

Broken Treaties
Author: Jill St. Germain
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2009-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0803224451

Broken Treaties is a comparative assessment of Indian treaty negotiation and implementation focusing on the first decade following the United States–Lakota Treaty of 1868 and Treaty Six between Canada and the Plains Cree (1876). Jill St. Germain argues that the “broken treaties” label imposed by nineteenth-century observers and perpetuated in the historical literature has obscured the implementation experience of both Native and non-Native participants and distorted our understanding of the relationships between them. As a result, historians have ignored the role of the Treaty of 1868 as the instrument through which the United States and the Lakotas mediated the cultural divide separating them in the period between 1868 and 1875. In discounting the treaty historians have also failed to appreciate the broader context of U.S. politics, which undermined a treaty solution to the Black Hills crisis in 1876. In Canada, on the other hand, the “broken treaties” tradition has obscured the distinctly different understanding of Treaty Six held by Canada and the Plains Cree. The inability of either party to appreciate the other’s position fostered the damaging misunderstanding that culminated in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. In the first critical assessment of the implementation of these treaties, Broken Treaties restores Indian treaties to a central position in the investigation of Native–non-Native relations in the United States and Canada.

Contours of a People

Contours of a People
Author: Nicole St-Onge
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Total Pages: 408
Release: 2014-12-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 0806146346

What does it mean to be Metis? How do the Metis understand their world, and how do family, community, and location shape their consciousness? Such questions inform this collection of essays on the northwestern North American people of mixed European and Native ancestry who emerged in the seventeenth century as a distinct culture. Volume editors Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, and Brenda Macdougall go beyond the concern with race and ethnicity that takes center stage in most discussions of Metis culture to offer new ways of thinking about Metis identity. Geography, mobility, and family have always defined Metis culture and society. The Metis world spanned the better part of a continent, and a major theme of Contours of a People is the Metis conception of geography—not only how Metis people used their environments but how they gave meaning to place and developed connections to multiple landscapes. Their geographic familiarity, physical and social mobility, and maintenance of family ties across time and space appear to have evolved in connection with the fur trade and other commercial endeavors. These efforts, and the cultural practices that emerged from them, have contributed to a sense of community and the nationalist sentiment felt by many Metis today. Writing about a wide geographic area, the contributors consider issues ranging from Metis rights under Canadian law and how the Library of Congress categorizes Metis scholarship to the role of women in maintaining economic and social networks. The authors’ emphasis on geography and its power in shaping identity will influence and enlighten Canadian and American scholars across a variety of disciplines.

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Author: James Fairbairn
Publisher:
Total Pages: 678
Release: 1892
Genre: Crests
ISBN:

The New Buffalo

The New Buffalo
Author: Blair Stonechild
Publisher: Univ. of Manitoba Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2006
Genre: Education
ISBN: 088755377X

Post-secondary education, often referred to as "the new buffalo," is a contentious but critically important issue for First Nations and the future of Canadian society. While First Nations maintain that access to and funding for higher education is an Aboriginal and Treaty right, the Canadian government insists that post-secondary education is a social program for which they have limited responsibility. In "The New Buffalo, "Blair Stonechild traces the history of Aboriginal post-secondary education policy from its earliest beginnings as a government tool for assimilation and cultural suppression to its development as means of Aboriginal self-determination and self-government. With first-hand knowledge and personal experience of the Aboriginal education system, Stonechild goes beyond merely analyzing statistics and policy doctrine to reveal the shocking disparity between Aboriginal and Canadian access to education, the continued dominance of non-Aboriginals over program development, and the ongoing struggle for recognition of First Nations run institutions.