The Point Where History Interects

 Like so many of us, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, my mind turned to the past.  I was aided in this by my second cousin in England.  He is a keen amateur genealogist who used his vast amounts of now free but locked-down time to educate me about our family tree.  As my parents were immigrants from northern England and I had only met a few relatives a handful of times, I knew very little about my ancestors other than a collection of anecdotes and childhood memories.

My cousin made me a guest on his ancestry page and I began exploring the twigs, branches and roots of our family tree.  Being from the working class, most of our family members worked in cotton mills or other working class jobs.  However, our Great Uncle Stirling Marron was a well-known politician in the town of Oldham where our family is from.  During his time as an alderman, councillor and mayor Stirling Marron fought long and hard to get people who were mentally ill taken care of under the new National Health Service instead of under the Poor Law.  This intrigued me and I asked my cousin why our Great Uncle would care so much about this issue.

This simple question led to a long reply in which my cousin described the history of caring for the poor in England.  In the medieval era, the monasteries took care of the poor until Henry VIII destroyed them in 1536. By 1601 it was clear that the government had to fill this gap in care and the Poor Law Act was created which had four categories of poor: impotent, able-bodied, idle and children.  This system in which aid was dispensed at a Parish level lasted about two hundred years until industrialization and urbanization in the nineteenth century led to the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 which sought to spend less on the poor who were now in only two categories; deserving and undeserving.  The idea was to make workhouses which already existed with living conditions that were so deplorable, that only the truly destitute would apply for help.  These conditions were made famous by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist published in 1838.

At this point in the story, I will fly over the Atlantic Ocean and land in Simcoe County, Ontario, Canada.  Not only have I been learning about my ancestors’ histories in England, but I have been investigating the history of the land where I now live.  What we now call Canada was home to Indigenous Peoples for thousands of years or time immemorial before Europeans found their way here around the same time as the Poor Law was enacted.  As more and more settlers arrived in this area, the original inhabitants of this territory were pushed onto smaller and smaller pieces of land by the British military officers who were put in charge by the Crown. 

In 1830, the Chippewa of what is now called Simcoe County were convinced by the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, Sir John Colborne to move onto a parcel of land of about ten thousand acres between the Narrows where Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching meet (present day Orillia) and Matchedash Bay including Coldwater.  This reserve was an experiment which would affect future reserves in Canada and elsewhere. 

The government of the time wanted the Chippewa who traditionally lived by hunting and fishing, to farm instead.  Despite the government offering little help, the people learned to farm and did well.  They also built a grist mill and a saw mill, created a road, built houses and a school in Coldwater and a community in what is now Orillia.  As I do more research and listen to Indigenous Knowledgekeepers, the stories of these people emerge from a dominant colonial narrative.  The three Chippewa chiefs, Aisance, Musquakie and Snake constantly advocated for their people with the British leaders as they adapted to their new circumstances.

However, in 1836, a new Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was appointed by Britain.  Sir Francis Bond Head had just finished an appointment of Assistant Poor Law Commissioner in Kent, England which he began in 1834 after the Poor Law Amendment Act was passed.  In this job, he had created the document Plan of a Rural Workhouse for 500 Persons.  In this plan, males and females were separated but the sick, the well, young and old, sane and insane were all put together in tight quarters and only a barely subsistence diet was provided.  The following year Head came to Upper Canada.  The belief that inequity was not only normal but was sanctioned by God came with him.

Once here, Head determined that the Chippewa were “undeserving” of the reserve land and that the new settlers were more “deserving”.  Through subterfuge he tricked the three Chippewa chiefs into signing a document that said in writing that they had surrendered this land.  However, this is not the agreement that the Chiefs thought they were making.  They thought they were getting title to the land.

And this was the point of intersection for me.  The history of my ancestors which was interesting didn’t seem to have much to do with my life here in Canada.  But, here was the very mind set that we now think of as abhorrent being used right here on this land to steal that land from the people who had been so generous and willing to share.  The weight of my ancestry landed on me.  It was heavy and dark as the Dickens.

The Chippewa leaders appealed the “deal” over and over again but the government didn’t listen.  Nor did it listen in 1842 or 1850 or 1892.  And not in 1991 when the Chippewa Tri-Council with legal representation petitioned the Canadian government again.  Not until 2002, when the Canadian government entered into negotiations which resulted in an out of court settlement in 2012 in the amount 307 million dollars.  It took 176 years to get the descendants of my ancestors to admit that what they did was illegal and immoral and to take action to redress the wrong.

My Great Uncle Stirling spent the last portion of his life fighting to have the mentally ill cared for by the National Health Service which began in 1948, instead of being “managed” by the Poor Law.  By 1959, the battle was won with the passage of the Mental Health Act.  It only took 11 years.  Stirling died three years later at the age of 61. 

I will never know what drove him to do this.  But, in learning the stories of my ancestors and seeing the worldview that they brought to this land and the harm that it caused, I feel driven to create change and be a part of the healing. I may not live to see what this will bring but perhaps I can create some pathways for those who are still to be born.  I am inspired by my Indigenous friends and neighbours who did not give up and I am inspired by my Great Uncle to live my responsibility as a settler on this land and as a treaty person in a good way.