Caenen’s Article

Where to Begin

If you asked a first-year student at any of our prestigious universities what they thought of John A. Macdonald they would probably tell you that he was a white, racist, colonizer who did terrible things to the Indigenous people. While all of this is true, this is not a perception that is generally held by many of the older generations within Canada. They would tell you that Macdonald was the Father of Confederation and a political genius who forged this beautiful nation we live in and that he is someone we should be proud of. Therein lies the question I hope to answer, how do we tell our history without making everyone mad?

This is because of how people think about history, it is usually strongly influenced by our own interpretations and the beliefs we value. History is, and always will be an incredibly valuable part of any society, therefore, those in power will always try to control the narrative. Unlike other fields of study, in history, it is almost impossible to be objective in your work. There will always be internal bias of the creators. One of the answers to my question is well you should just tell the truth, but what is the truth? Whose truth should we tell? Should we tell John A Macdonald’s truth or the Cree and Métis truth? Both are equally valuable yet they tell radically different stories.

A Very Brief Overview of John A Macdonald

So what is Macdonald’s story? As described in the Canadian Encyclopedia his family immigrated from Scotland to Kingston in what was Upper Canada and would later in 1840 become Canada West. He took up the practice of law and would advance quite quickly through the ranks to eventually open his own office at 19. As for his political career, Macdonald joined the legislative assembly of Canada in 1844, which would be in opposition until 1854 when he joined the Liberal-Conservative coalition. Macdonald added to his titles he became the Attorney General after which he served as co-premier of the province of Canada with Etienne Cartier. By 1864 the provinces of Canada West and Canada East were politically deadlocked between the anglophone protestants in the west and the catholic francophones in the east.

A new coalition formed with Macdonald’s conservatives, the Grit party, along with the Parti Bleus. This coalition pushed for the confederation of British North America over the next couple of years. After conferences at Charlottetown, Quebec, and London, delegates signed into action the British North America Act(BNA). This signing created the two provinces of Quebec (Canada East) and Ontario (Canada West) and joined them with the maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

The Candian Encyclopedia does mention that the Indigenous people who lived in this new country had not been invited to discuss the BNA Act. Instead, Canada made indigenous peoples and their lands the responsibility of the state until they were deemed “properly educated” in the view of the government. Macdonald wanted a strong government, a federalist system in which the federal government would exert significant control over the provincial governments. On July 1st, Governor General Lord Monck would make John A. Macdonald the first Prime Minister of Canada. 

John A Macdonald’s first term as Prime Minister lasted from 1867 to 1873 and was signified by expansion. During this time several new provinces would join: Manitoba joined in 1870 with the Manitoba Act, British Columbia joined in 1871 and Prince Edward Island joined in 1873. Macdonald was eager to forge new railways with the Intercolonial Railway (Quebec – Halifax) and the Canadian Pacific Railway (Toronto – Vancouver).

An aspect of Macdonald’s first term that is regularly brushed over by articles about Macdonald is the Red River Resistance, The Métis’ antagonism in Red River has roots in the Selkirk settlements of 1811. In 1869 The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC)  sold off their supposed land claim to MacDonald’s government in 1869. The important thing to note is that the HBC did not have ownership rights over Rupert’s land, what they actually had was a charter from the 1600s that gave the HBC trading rights to all the rivers that drained into the bay. By 1869 this issue did not matter to them, Macdonald and the HBC saw it all the same, he believed they had a genuine claim over the land.

The Métis at Red River had grown frustrated with Macdonald sending land surveyors to carve up their land in expectation of incoming settlers and railway. The Métis would seize Upper Fort Garry and establish a provisional government under the leadership of Louis Riel. The Métis delegates at Fort Garry would draft a document that listed their rights and the promises they desired from the federal government. Since the Métis at Red River were predominantly French Catholic, there was a minority of white protestant agitators who continually tried to disrupt the provisional government. The most prominent of which was Thomas Scott, a rabid Orangeman (anti-Catholic), who resisted arrest and assaulted multiple guards. The Métis were fed up with his behavior and decided to make an example out of him. In a controversial act, Scott would be executed by the provisional government. The Métis Provisional government would eventually send a delegation to Ottawa to negotiate with the federal government. After some back and forth an agreement was made and in May 1870 Manitoba became the fifth province to enter the Dominion of Canada. There were a few agreements that were part of the Act, mainly bilingual rights for French speakers in schools and government, as well as this 1.4 million acres of land were supposedly set aside for the Métis children at Red River.

What happened next is known as the Reign of Terror and is a significant moment in Macdonald’s time as Prime Minister. Métis lawyer, Jean Teillet places the blame for this on Macdonald in her book The North West is Our Mother. She notes that the responsibility for the deployment of the military is directly controlled by the Prime Minister. The use of the military against a mainly civilian population at Red River led to disastrous results, as Tiellet describes. The occupying forces under Colonel Wosley would rape and pillage the Métis settlement, and many of the militiamen would take revenge for the execution of Thomas Scott. Some of the younger Métis tried to fight back against the soldiers but were regularly beaten back. Many of the soldiers who perpetrated the violence would eventually end up settling in the region as well.

One of the other major events of Macdonald’s first term as Prime Minister was the Pacific scandal. Macdonald and the conservatives were losing seats to the liberals of Alexander Mackenzie and the French Canadian Rouges. This would come at a time when Macdonald was looking for contractors to build his Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Sir Hugh Allan was a wealthy railway owner who offered to give a generous contribution to the conservatives if he was promised the contract for the CPR. Macdonald agreed and in 1873 the conservatives would skim by to victory. George Norris, the secretary of Sir Hugh Allan’s lawyer would steal Allan’s private letters that exposed the entire operation. Norris would then sell them to the Liberals who published them and the scandal erupted. The conservative coalition government was in shambles and subsequently resigned in shame. The Liberal government under Mackenzie called for an election in 1874 which they easily won. 

Alexander Mackenzie’s administration would be hampered by an economic depression, which left their reputation no better than the conservatives. Macdonald would make a return in 1878 and for his second term, he would remain in charge until his death in 1891. An aspect of his second term would be his national policy of tariffs that hoped to protect Canadian manufacturers from American industries. His crowning achievement would be the completion of the CPR and with that, the settlement of the North West. Macdonald gave the contract to a syndicate led by George Stephen which included a subsidy of $25 million as well as 25 Million acres of land.

During this time Macdonald also made himself Superintendent of Indian Affairs. In this position, he was able to direct the actions of Indian agents and withhold food rations from indigenous people who did not comply with his demands. This would not be the only issue he had with Indigenous people, in 1883 he would greenlight the residential school program and in 1876 he helped bring into law the Indian Act. Macdonald would adamantly pass the Electoral Franchise Act in 1885 in which he proposed that any Indigenous men should be able to vote if they matched the same requirements as white men. The important aspect of this was Macdonald was adamant that they would not lose their Indian status to vote, which was a critical aspect of the 1876 Indian Act.

One of the other major criticisms placed on Macdonald was his treatment of Chinese immigrants. In 1885 he would restrict the amount of Chinese men that could immigrate to Canada as well as impose a $50 head tax on any of those who entered. This was an interesting move seeing as thousands of Chinese workers had helped build some of the most dangerous parts of his railway coming through the Rocky Mountains from British Columbia. The racism towards Chinese workers was not restricted to Macdonald and his colleagues in Ottawa, many white workers in British Columbia complained that the Chinese were undercutting their labor and putting them out of work.

What Do We Do About It?

So there you have it, a somewhat condensed version of why John A. Macdonald was the way he was. Something to keep in mind when approaching history from this time is that it was a different time now this is not an excuse for their behavior but more of an explanation. Historical figures are not the icons they are portrayed to be. Just like us at home, they are complex individuals who try to navigate the world we live in. That being said I will remind you that nobody is above criticism, no matter when, where, or who they were, nobody is perfect.

History for a large part is open to interpretation, two people come away from an event and remember two very different things and have different perspectives. This can be affected by many factors such as age, culture, class, and especially upbringing. A white person whose family moved here during Macdonald’s expansion of the west and was granted a great big plot of land will probably have a different view than an Indigenous person whose close family members were traumatized by the residential school program.

In an article by Timothy J. Stanley, he speaks about this and the dangers of glorifying certain historical figures and the damage that can do to the affected communities. His article specifically mentions the actions in Victoria, BC for the removal of a statue of John A. Macdonald at City Hall. In the article, he speaks to residential school survivors who refused to enter the building while the statue remained, a painful memory of the trauma they endured. On the other side, Stanley mentions calls to save Canadian history from political correctness and claims that activists are trying to erase and tear down our proud history.

As an example, in E.H. Carr’s book What is History, Carr describes the relation between historical “facts” and the historian. How do things become “fact” and how do we know with accuracy that what we say is legitimate? To Carr, the historian sifts through the pool of all available historical facts and selects those that fit their perspective and allow them to build their interpretation.

“Of course, facts and documents are essential to the historian. But do not make a fetish of them. They do not by themselves constitute history; they provide in themselves no ready-made answer to this tiresome question, What is History?”

Carr, What is History, 15

One of the biggest advocates for John A. Macdonald is the Macdonald-Laurier Institute who believe itself to be a balanced and unbiased think tank that aims to uphold the legacy of John A. and Wilfred Laurier. They have been very vocal advocates against anything negative said about Macdonald as they posted a petition of over 200 “experts” in defense of their great icon. In it, they claim that people have been too focused on all the negative bad stuff he did and do not talk about his achievements. To them, he broke the political deadlock and through sheer determination created the Dominion of Canada, he shielded Canada from American interests and brought the entire country together from coast to coast with a magnificent railway!

In this context, it’s easy to see how that is impressive, no doubt it took Macdonald immense time and effort to make a new country out of thin air and then spend the next several decades defending it from foreign intervention. This is still a very one-sided interpretation of events, what was the cost of the expansion, and who paid the price?

Tristin Hopper expands on this with an article that lays out all the damage that Macdonald and his government did to Indigenous people. Although his argument is that Macdonald’s actions were somewhat normal for the time period, especially when looking at the actions of the United States. Hopper quotes a lot from James Daschuk’s book Clearing the Plains, in which Daschuk explains that Macdonald’s actions were driven by political desire to expand rather than racism, he wanted them out of the way to build a railroad.

History is complicated. There are many conflicting variables and interpretations that make a big mess. Unfortunately, history is almost never a slick narrative with simple characters and a happy ending. This can make learning about history a daunting task as there is so much to learn if someone is to build a balanced understanding of it. So where does this leave us with Macdonald?

Our best method is acknowledgment. Macdonald like any historical figure is a man of his time and the prejudices that come with that. It would be unfair to apply our modern conceptions to him, he, like us, is a product of their society. Yet he still did some terrible things that we must criticize. We must also acknowledge building and leading a country is not easy and he had to make difficult decisions. We must acknowledge the lasting damage that those decisions had on many communities within Canada, some that still last to this day. Is John A. Macdonald the Hero of Canada? Is he the evil racist villain? No, he is a regular person just like us, who did what he thought was best for Canada and in the process made some very bad decisions that got a lot of people killed. If our generation is going to have any success in writing history we must understand the challenges that come with it. 

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