Have we Acadians forgotten our history?
When given the opportunity to extend solidarity back to the Mi’kmaq, some Acadians have instead resorted to violence
As an Acadian woman and settler to Mi’kma’ki (the sovereign territory of the Mi’kmaw Nation), I am incredibly dismayed at the racialized tensions between Acadian and Mi’kmaw fishers in Digby, N.S. over the lobster fishing season.
All settlers following this issue should familiarize themselves with the Treaties of Peace and Friendship, the treaties which govern these territories and ensure the inherent right of the Mi’kmaq to a moderate livelihood through fisheries. This right was later affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1999.
Many settlers to this region have been unsupportive and hostile towards Mi’kmaw folks for trying to earn a living, and have pretended as though the issue is a conversation issue instead of a race issue. The reality is that the entire Mi’kmaw fishery in the area has under 600 traps, whereas non-Indigenous commercial fishers have quotas for just under 400,000 traps. If there is a reduced lobster population in the area, it is because corporate giants like Clearwater are fishing the oceans dry for global export. It is frankly laughable for settlers to be positing this situation as a conservation issue, when the Atlantic cod fishery was managed sustainably by the Mi’kmaq and Beothuk for over 10,000 years only for cod stocks to be decimated by settler fishers within 200 years. If this issue was truly about conservation, why are settler fishers cutting trap lines, pouring paint thinner on live lobsters and burning lobster pounds housing live Mi’kmaw lobster?
It is so disappointing to see that the majority of settler
fishermen enacting violence against the Mi’kmaw Nation are Acadian. So many Acadians have forgotten our own history, but the only reason we exist as a culture today is because of the generosity and solidarity of the Mi’kmaw Nation during Le Grand Derangement where the English tried to deport tens of thousands of Acadian settlers. The Mi’kmaq fought beside the Acadians and during this mass deportation hid many Acadian families in the woods, which is a major reason why Acadians still populate the Maritimes. It is sad that when given the opportunity to extend this solidarity back to the Mi’kmaq, Acadians have instead made death threats online, punched a local chief and torched their vehicles.
I am not Mi’kmaq and do not claim to speak for that community, but as settlers it is our responsibility to stand up against other settlers who are enacting verbal and physical violence against Indigenous peoples. There are many ways to offer support to the Mi’kmaw fishers during this tense time, including calling your MP and any relevant ministers, donating to frontline funds which are readily accessible online, and following local media to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in Digby.