Apology was both necessary and painful
On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the country a story of its past, and like many truths it was both necessary and painful.
He told of chiefs named Biyil, Tilaghed, Taqed, Chayses, Ahan and a sixth, Lhats’as?in, which in the Tsilhqot’in language means “we do not know his name.”
They were leaders of their people, warriors who defended their lands against attempts by British Columbia’s colonial government to build a road through their territory.
After what was called the Chilcotin War of 1864, a colonial leader visited the chiefs with a gift of tobacco and “an invitation to discuss terms of peace,” Trudeau told the Commons.
The chiefs accepted and rode into the colonial camp. “Instead of being welcomed,” Trudeau said, they were “arrested, imprisoned, convicted and killed.”
On Oct. 26, 1864, five chiefs were hanged for murder. Later, Chief Ahan was also hanged.
For 150 years and more their memory has been kept alive by the Tsilhqot’in, the story of the government’s treachery a source of shame for the perpetrators and pain for the victims.
Trudeau sought to right those wrongs by exonerating the six chiefs and apologizing to the Tsilhqot’in. The chiefs had acted “in accordance with their own laws to defend their territory, their people and their way of life,” he said. Their arrest and execution were an injustice and a betrayal of trust.
In 1993, the B.C. government apologized and installed a commemorative
plaque at the site of the hangings. In 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada granted the Tsilhqot’in title to more than 1,700 square kilometres of land.
The past cannot be rewritten. But it can be acknowledged, and responsibility for its wrongs taken.
The government’s action on Monday was proper and welcome.