The last hereditary chief
It’s been 100 years since the passing of Mi’kmaq Grand Chief John Denny Jr.
April 12 marked the 100th year anniversary since the passing of the last hereditary Mi’kmaq Grand Chief John Denny Jr. of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council.
The Si Denny, descendants of the Grand Chief, have celebrated the life of Grand Chief John Denny Jr. with a feast to commemorate the importance of knowing the ancestral lineage of Grand Chiefs among the Mi’kmaq.
The Grand Chief is the ceremonial, spiritual, political and cultural leader of the Mi’kmaq. A crucial role of the Grand Chief is the governance of the Mi’kmaq Grand Council based on Aboriginal and treaty rights for the Mi’kmaq.
The life of Grand Chief John Denny Jr. is not extensively documented which is part of the reason why there is little knowledge about the Grand Chiefs’ legacies before Denny Jr.’s passing in 1918. Therefore Denny Jr’s great-great-grandchildren, John R. Sylliboy and Trevor Sanipass are collaborating in research to gather knowledge about the life and events of John Denny Jr. Grand Chiefdom from 1887 – 1918.
The process will involve speaking with family elders and review published material. The goal is to print a document so that future generations, besides the Si Family, would know about Grand Chief John Denny Jr.
Sylliboy and Sanipass grew up hearing about their family lineage through oral tradition.
“We heard stories about the Grand Chief from our mothers, who heard it from their fathers, John Denny and Newell Denny respectively, and they, in turn, heard stories from their grandfather, Grand Keptin Simon Denny.”
Simon Denny would have been the next in line to become the Grand Chief in 1918, but the Mi’kmaq Grand Council implemented the newly adopted electoral process in selecting the Grand Chief. As a result, the ancestral lineage
was replaced by an electoral process to choose Grand Chief Gabriel Sylliboy in 1918-1964.
The actual reason is not apparent as to why Simon Denny did not become the next Grand Chief as per hereditary custom. It seems that Grand Chief John Denny Jr. may have forwarned Simon about the impending challenges in such tumultuous times in the late 1800s when the population of the Mi’kmaq in Nova Scotia was under 3,000.
The Mi’kmaq faced extreme poverty and the enforcement of colonial laws that displaced Mi’kmaq from their livelihood and cultural practices with the Indian Act of 1867 and the initial assimilation policies by the Indian Residential Schools.
Grand Chief Denny Jr.’s leadership came under scrutiny during his initial years especially from mainland district chiefs who considered the official seat in Unama’ki (Cape Breton) too far from central politics in Halifax. In addition to this, there was increasing pressure by the government to impose an electoral system from the Indian Act which would do away with the hereditary system.
Denny prevailed in his leadership duties and eventually gained support and respect by all district chiefs. In fact, Denny is recognized for his effective leadership and negotiation skills in dealing with land and resource disputes in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
In February 1885, Grand Chief Denny aided Joseph Lewis, an elderly Mi’kmaq whose land was taken by a non-Mi’kmaw farmer in Prince Edward Island. Lewis had farmed the land for 35 years, but the farmer took possession of his land. Denny advocated on Lewis’s behalf by continuously pressuring the Indian Affairs in Ottawa to hear the case, but to no avail, the case was dropped by Ottawa.
In another incident, Grand Chief Denny Jr. wrote to the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs in March 1909 on behalf of Chief Joseph Glode in defence of Mi’kmaq treaty rights to harvest wood for economic purposes.
Denny saw a significant economic opportunity for Mi’kmaq to harvest wood in the southwestern part of Nova Scotia. Denny Jr. pressured Ottawa to side with the Mi’kmaq against the province because Denny Jr. knew it was Ottawa’s responsibility to protect Mi’kmaq rights to access resources based on their treaty rights. The Grand Chief outlined the importance of the harvest for the production of wood handles used for axes and shovels employed in great quantities in the mines and logging industries.
The seeds of colonialism were too profoundly entrenched in mainstream Nova Scotia and Canada to side with the Mi’kmaw claims led by Grand Chief Denny Jr. This period was also known as the period of treaty denial which extended from the mid-1800s to the Marshall decision in 1990.
According to oral tradition, Simon Denny was told that the Grand Chiefdom would return to the Si Denny in the future. Grand Keptin Simon Denny passed away in 1967 still waiting for the seat to be returned to Denny family. Since 1967, the Grand Chiefs continued to be selected through an elected process by the Grand Council with Grand Chief Donald Marshall Sr. (1967-1991) and Chief Ben Sylliboy (1992-2017). The Grand Chief’s seat is currently vacant.
The Si Denny family is hopeful that the Grand Council would consider their agreement from 1918 to return the seat of the Grand Chief to the Si Denny. Elder Mary Jane Sanipass reminds the Grand Council that seat was borrowed, and was not meant to be permanently take away from the Si Denny lineage.
Sylliboy and Sanipass are hopeful that the Si Denny family will once again hold the seat of Grand Chief. There would be many important considerations to make in the selection of a Grand Chief to represent the diverse needs of contemporary Mi’kmaq.
Ideally, the next Grand Chief should be decided between the Si Denny family in co-ordination with the Grand Council. Sylliboy and Sanipass both agree that the time for a revival of the Si Denny Grand Chief should be in the selection of the next Grand Chief.