Indigenous communities still face challenges 75 years after Confederation: elder
Indigenous elder Calvin White knows all too well about Indigenous history in Newfoundland — he wrote a book about his involvement in it as a member of an Indigenous community.
Having lived through Confederation in 1949, he says the main issue for Indigenous people on the island was not being recognized by the government as the Terms of Union were hammered out. He says it took decades of work for official recognition from the government.
“None, no recognition whatsoever, by the government. There was recognition by the neighbouring communities. It was a negative one. Here in the Bay St. George area, they called us Indians and savages for a little while. I grew up with that,” says White.
“That was inflicted on us by the neighbouring communities, so we couldn’t assimilate even if we wanted to assimilate. They wouldn’t allow us.”
EFFECTS OF CONFEDERATION
White is from Flat Bay, a small community on the west coast of Newfoundland.
His family, and many other Indigenous families, didn’t feel the effects of Confederation until years later.
“The tentacles of Confederation didn’t reach us until about 1959, which would have been 10 years after it had been negotiated,” he says.
“When Confederation was being talked about when it was enacted in 1949, I can tell you that my parents would have had no more interest in Confederation than I had at six years old. It was something that we knew nothing about. We knew very little about governments.”
IGNORED ON PURPOSE
He says the government deliberately ignored Indigenous communities in Newfoundland.
“Smallwood and the negotiators denied to the federal government that there were any Indian population in Newfoundland and Labrador. There was no way that the responsible government of Newfoundland was unaware of an Aboriginal population,” says White.
“One of the more recent documents that would have been available to government was the 1945 census, which was done by the responsible government. In the community where I live in Flat Bay, 207 people identified themselves as Indians.”
UNANSWERED QUESTION
He says it baffles him to this day why Joey Smallwood didn’t acknowledge that there were Indigenous groups in Newfoundland.
“Why he denied the existence of Indigenous people, I have no idea,” says White.
“We speculate there’s probably a number of different reasons. One of them could have been for the simple reason that Aboriginal people weren’t allowed to vote.”
LOTS OF WORK DONE
He says in the decades after Confederation, lots of work has been done to improve the rights and recognition of Indigenous people.
“Confederation is not yet finalized when it comes to Aboriginal people. It’s unfinished business, because we’re the only group in Canada who have been treated entirely different than the rest of Aboriginal nations right across this country,” says White.
“I got married in 1964 and started my family, and in 1969, we organized the band council here in Flat Bay. In 1972, we organized the provincial organization Flat Bay and Conne River.”
ONGOING ISSUES
He travelled throughout the island identifying Indigenous families, organizing them and creating what is known today as the Qualipu band.
In the 2010s, when registration for the Qualipu band was ongoing, four of his children were approved to be members and two were denied.
White says this is a sign of flaws in the system, decades after Confederation.
“I played a very important role in the organizing of what turned out to be the Qualipu band today. When these things can happen, you certainly must question the process,” he says.
THE NEXT 75 YEARS
He says after 75 years of Confederation, it’s up to the next generation to advocate for the struggles of Indigenous communities in the next 75 years.
“We have many young people who are now in universities and, hopefully, some of them will take up the challenge and use their academic skills to challenge the wrongs that have been inflicted on our people.”
LABRADOR WAS DIFFERENT
David Mackenzie, a history professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, agrees with White’s assessment that Indigenous people in Newfoundland had to fight for decades for recognition.
Labrador was a different story altogether.
“There were Indigenous people in Labrador and, in fact, much of the discussion in 1948 wasn’t about Indigenous people on the island. It was all about the people in Labrador. Newfoundland as a separate country didn’t have an Indian Act,” says Mackenzie.
“People knew there were Indigenous people in Labrador. The question started to arise about Indigenous peoples on the island of Newfoundland and Joey Smallwood knew that there were people.”
THE OUTLIER
He says Newfoundland’s handling of Indigenous affairs was entirely different than that of the rest of Canada, even after Confederation.
The key difference, he says, is that Indian affairs — as it was known then — was left in the hands of the provincial government.
“It was unusual, and there was reasoning behind it. If you read the British North America Act, the Canadian constitution at the time, Indian affairs is clearly a federal responsibility,” Mackenzie says.
“When Newfoundland became a part of Canada, they did not immediately extend the Indian Act to Newfoundland, and therefore, that was unusual. It made Newfoundland the outlier.”
There are different opinions on why that happened, he says.
“My take is that the delegation from Newfoundland didn’t include any Indigenous people,” says Mackenzie.
“For many Newfoundlanders, there was a sense that there were no Indigenous people in Newfoundland on the island.”
POOR LIVING STANDARDS
Living standards for Indigenous people, especially in Labrador, were very low at the time, but Mackenzie says that wasn’t out of the ordinary for this province.
“By modern standards, they were very low living standards. They were low in Newfoundland in general,” he says.
“Not much of a connection to the outside world. No roads, no ferry service. There were essentially residential schools and some missions, like the Grenfell mission.”
SMALLWOOD AFTER CONFEDERATION
Mackenzie says Joey Smallwood had the desire to develop Labrador, but whether it would have happened is unclear.
“Joey Smallwood, and many other Newfoundland politicians, always saw Labrador as a great untapped source of wealth,” he adds. “I think they would’ve tried for new development. I don’t know how successful they would’ve been.”
White has a question for Joey Smallwood that has gone unanswered.
“I’d say, ‘Mr. Smallwood, what motivated you to deny that there were any Aboriginal people on the island of Newfoundland? What motivated you to do that?’ I’d like an explanation. That would be the question I’d ask him.”