Anti-Colonial Organizations at McGill McGill and Montreal Resource List

Acknowledging our colonial past isn’t enough

2 021 marks 200 years since McGill University was established on Haudenosaunee land. While the bicentennial has been championed by McGill’s principal, Suzanne Fortier, as “a momentous milestone” that invites the McGill community to “reflect on our past, celebrate our achievements and look to the future,” the actions of the university support a different story. On the contrary, it seems that McGill University has no intention of truly reflecting or reckoning with its colonial past; rather, the administration prefers to sweep it under the rug to protect the university from due criticism and demands for material change.

McGill University as a whole has failed to adequately address its history of colonialism, despite the consistent appeals of student groups, activists, and academics. The University could have used the bicentennial as an opportunity to truly reflect on the past – to establish more inclusive iconography (e.g., replacing the statue of James McGill, who gained his wealth from the exploitation of enslaved people) and listen to the demands of BIPOC students to address systemic racism at the university. Instead, the bicentennial has been used as part of an ongoing campaign to glorify the university amidst renewed efforts to show the university as it truly is: a colonial, white supremacist institution that refuses to acknowledge, much less reckon with, the past and its continuation into the present and future.

Dr. Charmaine Nelson, former Art History Professor at McGill, released a 98-page document on June 22, 2020, titled “Slavery and McGill University: Bicentennial Recommendations,” with the help of some of her students. Amongst larger historical overviews of slavery in New France and Western universities, the report also included a critical biography of James McGill as a slave owner and multiple sections of recommendations to redress McGill’s colonial legacy.

The critical biography of James McGill, written by Lucy Brown and Emma Risdale, is especially important in the context of the bicentennial. While the University celebrates its history, the critical biography offers a counterpoint that asks the essential question: what history is the university really celebrating as it marks 200 years of existence? The report shows that the history being celebrated is not that of a self-made, enterprising James McGill (as is so often championed), but rather that of an exploitative enslaver who built the university from the wealth amassed from the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

James McGill began his career i n the fur trade and later expanded into the transoceanic and West Indian trade. With this expansion, McGill’s trade empire relied almost entirely on plantation crops and goods that were produced by enslaved labour. This meant that the mercantile business that provided James McGill with his prosperity, that allowed him to donate land and funds for the establishment of McGill University was entirely reliant on the labour and expendability of thousands of enslaved people throughout the West Indies. In addition to owning a trade empire that relied on the exploitation of enslaved Black and Indigenous people, James McGill himself was a slave owner and trader, and at various points in his life “he owned at least five people of both African and [I]ndigenous origins.” McGill also proctored a significant number of sales of enslaved people throughout his lifetime. Upon his death in 1813 and subsequent endowment of land and funds to establish McGill University, James McGill solidified his position as part of the wealthy, elite “white men who used their wealth made from the exploitation of enslaved people and colonial trade built upon Transatlantic Slavery to found academic institutions throughout the English colonies and North America.”

Even within this brief summary of the life and death of James McGill as well as the subsequent establishment of McGill University, it becomes apparent what his real legacy is. Despite this, McGill administration seems content to celebrate the legacy of James McGill as one of ‘complexity’ that “included different dimensions, some positive, others not so,” according to an email sent by principal Suzanne Fortier following the defacement of his statue in July 2021. This reduction is nothing short of institutional violence against BIPOC students on campus, especially following the movement to remove McGill’s statue from campus altogether. Even though removing the James McGill statue would only constitute one symbolic step in fighting systemic racism on campus, it is a step that the administration refuses to take nonetheless. In doing so McGill University only reinforces the sanctity of its colonial record while actively i gnoring calls made by BIPOC students.

Furthermore, McGill University only seems committed to taking halfmeasures that preserve its future as a so-called ‘diverse and welcoming institution while obscuring its perpetuation of settler colonialism. James McGill’s statue was quietly removed following its defacement to be repaired, and Fortier has said that the fate of the statue, once repaired, remains to be decided. Aside from the lack of willingness to commit to the removal of the statue, McGill University has also failed to heed the calls made by Dr. Nelson in the aforementioned report: namely, the creation of a Department of African and Black Diasporas Studies and an Indigenous Studies department. While the University has frequently publicly referenced its Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion strategic plan, it has failed to maintain transparency throughout its process and so far, little has materialized from its adoption, particularly in regards to equitable representation and resources for BIPOC staff and students.

Outside of explicit calls to address systemic racism at McGill University, the administration continues to financially support settler colonialism both domestically and abroad. The University has downright refused to divest from fossil fuels, an industry that enacts violence against Indigenous people in Canada through environmental and cultural destruction. On the international level, just this past year, McGill University once again refused to divest from corporations complicit in the violence enacted by the settler-colonial Israeli regime in Palestine. In both of these instances, the University has prioritized profit over any rejections of colonial atrocities, and through such continues to perpetuate these systems of violence. Time and time again, McGill University proves its interests lie in maintaining its position as a profitable colonial institution while paying lip-service to the communities impacted most by its actions.

In the face of institutional harm and disregard for the demands of BIPOC, i t ’s essential that McGill students not only acknowledge these fundamental truths about the University ’s past, but also take action i n a way that produces change in the future. One easy step is to sign the petition to replace James McGill’s statue with a tree. Signing the petition is, as previously stated, only one step i n addressing systemic racism at McGill. Another essential step is for students to read Dr. Nelson’s report and call on t he University administration to follow the faculty and student recommendations to redress McGill’s colonial legacy, including but not limited to the expansion of Black and Indigenous faculties and full oversight of equity, inclusion, and diversity policies by an appointed advocate.

Another step towards action is to support the student organizations who have consistently put in the work to bring McGill’s colonial legacy to the forefront. Some of these organizations are detailed on the following page.

The bicentennial has been used as part of an ongoing campaign to glorify the university amidst renewed efforts to show the university as it truly is: a colonial, white supremacist institution that refuses to acknowledge, much less reckon

with, the past.

McGill University has also failed to heed the calls made by Dr. Nelson in the aforementioned report: namely, the creation of a Department of African and Black Diasporas Studies and an Indigenous Studies department.

It’s essential

that McGill students not only acknowledge

these fundamental truths about the University’s past, but also take

action.