To represent the country in Egypt: Aboriginality, Britishness, Anglophone Canadian identities, and the Nile voyageur contingent, 1884-1885

Histoire Sociale

Volumn 39, Issue 77, 2006, Pages 45-75

  Michel, Anthony P ^a  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33845419465     PISSN: 00182257     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (153)

1. Winnipeg Sun, September 12, 1884.
2. This is not to suggest that Canada's experience in the Nile expedition can be reduced to these dynamics alone. Important categories of difference such as language, social class, region, religion, gender, and military/civilian distinctions are beyond the scope of this discussion.
3. C. P. Stacey, (Records of) The Nile Voyageurs, 1884-1885: The Canadian Voyageur Contingent in the Gordon Relief Expedition (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1959);
4. C. P. Stacey, "Canada and the Nile Expedition of 1884-1885", Canadian Historical Review, vol. 33, no. 4 (December 1952), p. 319;
5. C. P. Stacy with E. Pye, "Canadian Voyageurs in the Sudan, 1884-1885", Canadian Army Journal, vol. 5 (1951), Parts I-III: no 7, pp. 61-73;
6. C. P. Stacy with E. Pye, "Canadian Canadian Army Journal, 1951), no. 8, pp. 58-68;
7. C. P. Stacy with E. Pye, "Canadian Canadian Army Journal, 1951), no. 9, pp. 16-26.
8. Roy MacLaren, Canadians on the Nile, 1882-1898: Being the Adventures of the Voyageurs on the Khartoum Relief Expedition and Other Exploits (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1978), pp. 159, 40.
9. Phillip Buckner and Daniel Francis, "Introduction", Rediscovering the British World (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2005).
10. Adele Perry, "Canada and the Empires of the Past", History Compass, vol. 1, DOI: 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2003.0008.x (2003) NA 008, 1-4 [online journal], 〈http://www.history-compass.com/viewpoint. asp?section= 9&ref=8〉.
11. See also Adele Perry, On the Edge of Empire: Gender, Race and the Making of British Columbia, 1849-1871 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001).
12. R. Scott Sheffield, The Red Man's on the Warpath: The Image of the "Indian" and the Second World War (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2004), p. 10.
13. Charles Taylor, "The Politics of Recognition", in Ajay Heble and J. R. Struthers, eds., New Contexts of Canadian Criticism (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1997).
14. Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition: The Moral Grammar of Social Conflicts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996), p. 92
15. Once again, this article is necessarily limited in its scope to the ways anglophone Canadians defined themselves in relation to Aboriginal and British peoples. Francophone Canadians made up a significant portion of the contingent as well, and questions of national identity were reflected in a host of francophone texts, but many aspects of my larger research project are beyond the scope of this discussion.
16. "Lord Derby to Lord Lansdowne [August 20, 1884]" and "Lord Lansdowne to Lord Derby [August 23, 1884]", Stacey, ed., (Records of) The Nile Voyageurs, pp. 55, 62. All subsequent references from Stacey refer to this volume of published documents.
17. "Lord Lansdowne to Sir John Macdonald, Aug 21", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 55
18. Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life (Westminster: Archibald Constable, 1903), p. 112
19. Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life (1903), Ibid., p. 113.
20. Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life (1903), Ibid., pp. 114-115.
21. Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life (1903), Ibid., pp. 190-191.
22. Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life (1903), Ibid., pp. 212-214.
23. Viscount Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life (1903), Ibid., pp. 168-169.
24. Linda Colley, "Britishness and Otherness", Journal of British Studies, vol. 31, no, 4 (October 1992), pp. 309-329.
25. Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life, p. 205.
26. William F. Butler, The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-west of America (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Searle, 1872), p. 109.
27. William F. Butler, The Great Lone Land: A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-west of America (1872), Ibid., p. 140.
28. "Lord Lansdowne to Sir John Macdonald, Aug 21", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 55.
29. Library and Archives Canada [hereafter LAC] RG 7 G21 vol. 82, Governor-General's Lellerbooks to Colonial Office 1883-1887, Lansdowne to Derby, August 21, 1884, p. 120.
30. LAC RG 7 G19 vol. 29, part 2, folder 38, "Transportation of Voyageurs", Herbert M. Price to Melgund, August 22, 1884.
31. LAC RG 07 G12 v. 82, Governor-General's Letterbooks to Colonial Office 1883-1887, Lansdowne to Derby conf. August 23, 1884.
32. LAC RG 07 G12 v. 82, Governor-General's Utterbooks to Colonial Office 1883-1887, Lansdowne to Derby conf. August 25, 1884.
33. Winnipeg Sun, September 1, 1884.
34. Winnipeg Sun, September 2, 1884, c.f Hamilton Spectator as "current comment".
35. "Lord Derby to Lord Lansdowne 28 Aug 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, pp. 65-66.
36. Melgund to Kennedy, August 28, reprinted in Manitoba Free Press, August 30, 1884.
37. "Melgund to Wolseley 30 August 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 67.
38. "Wolseley to Melgund, 1 Sept 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 70.
39. The band at St. Peter's had its lands appropriated by the town of Selkirk in 1905. The band members were relocated further north and are today the Peguis First Nation. For an early history, see Carolyn F. Podruchny, "'I Have Embraced the White Man's Religion': The Relations between the Peguis Band and the Church Missionary Society, 1820-1838", Papers of the 26th Algonquin Conference, vol. 26 (1995), pp. 350-378.
40. "Melgund to Lansdowne 3 October 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 82.
41. "Lansdowne to Melgund 30 Aug 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 69.
42. LAC RG7 G19 vol. 29, part 2, folder 38, "Transportation of Voyageurs", Donnelley to Melgund, September 8, 1884.
43. LAC RG7 G19 vol. 29, part 2, folder 38, "Transportation of Voyageurs", Dawson to Melgund, October 25, 1884.
44. "Melgund to Lansdowne 3 October 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 82. Irregular capitalization in original.
45. Winnipeg Daily Times, August 26, 1884.
46. Ottawa Free Press, August 27, 1884,
47. reprinted verbatim in the Winnipeg Daily Times, August 28, 1884,
48. and the Manitoba Free Press, August 29, 1884.
49. Reprinted as "current comment", Winnipeg Daily Times, August 30, 1884.
50. Montreal Star, September 9, 1884.
51. Winnipeg Daily Times, August 28, 1884.
52. Winnipeg Daily Times, September 15, 1884.
53. Winnipeg Sun, September 15, 1884.
54. Winnipeg, Sun, Octobers, 1884.
55. Winnipeg Sun, August 28, 1884. Lorne had been the Governor General before Lansdowne and Charles Tupper was Canada's High Commissioner, both in London at that time.
56. Grip Magazine, September 27, 1884.
57. See especially LAC RG 07 G-19 vol. 29, part 2, folder 38, "Transportation of Voyageurs";
58. see also LAC RG 25 A-1, Colonial Office Correspondence, vol. 35, August-October 1884.
59. Manitoba Free Press, September 9, 1884.
60. Winnipeg Sun, September 5, 1884.
61. The motivations of these working-class boatmen were diverse and did not necessarily coincide with the public discourses found in the newspapers, magazines, and published memoirs to which this research is limited.
62. Winnipeg Sun, September 13, 1884.
63. Winnipeg Daily Times, September 5, 1884.
64. Montreal Star, Septembers 3, 1884.
65. Ottawa Free Press, September 3, 1884.
66. Montreal Star, September 3, 1884;
67. see also Ottawa Free Press, September 5, 1884;
68. Winnipeg Daily Times, September 8, 1884.
69. Ottawa Citizen, September 13, 1884.
70. Winnipeg Sun, October 15, 1884,
71. reprinting an excerpt from The Broad Arrow, September 27, 1884.
72. Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier's Life, p. 211.
73. Robert H. MacDonald, The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism, 1880-1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), pp. 40-41.
74. Gillian Poulter, "Montreal and its Environs: Imagining a National Landscape, c. 1867-1885", Journal of Canadian Studies, vol. 38, no. 3 (Fall 2004), pp. 69-100.
75. See Philip J. Deloria, Playing Indian (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998);
76. Rayna Green, 'The Tribe Called Wannabee: Playing Indian in America and Europe", Folklore, vol. 99, no. 1 (1988), pp. 30-55.
77. Montreal Star, March 7, 1884.
78. Montreal Star, September 13, 1884,
79. reprinting undated commentary from the Springfield Republican.
80. Ottawa Free Press, September 2, 1884.
81. MacDonald, The Language of Empire, p. 49.
82. Montreal Gazette, August 28, 1884.
83. Ottawa Free Press, September 2, 1884.
84. Ottawa Citizen, August 28, 1884.
85. Ottawa Citizen, August 29, 1884.
86. Sheffield, The Red Man's on the Warpath, pp. 63-74.
87. Montreal Star, September 3, 1884.
88. Winnipeg Sun, September 3, 1884.
89. Winnipeg Sun, December 31, 1884.
90. Winnipeg Sun, September 8, 1884.
91. Winnipeg Sun, 1884. Ibid.
92. Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa Free Press, September 13, 1884.
93. Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa Citizen, September 13, 1884.
94. Winnipeg Sun, Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 1884.
95. Ottawa Free Press, August 30, 1884.
96. James Deer, The Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt (Montreal: John Lovell & Son, 1885), p. 3.
97. LAC MG29 E37, John Louis Hubert Neilson Fonds, "Nile Expedition Diary", September 9, 1884.
98. Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 1884.
99. Toronto Globe, September 15, 1884.
100. Winnipeg Sun, September 18, 1884. Emphasis in the original.
101. Winnipeg Sun, 1884. Ibid.
102. Ottawa Citizen, September 15, 1884.
103. Winnipeg Sun, September 18, 1884. Capitalization and inset emphasis in original.
104. J. R. Miller, "Petitioning the Great White Mother: First Nations' Organizations and Lobbying in London", in Phillip Buckner, ed., Canada and the End of Empire (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005), p. 309.
105. Sheffield, The Red Man's on the Warpath, pp. 52, 58.
106. See Miller for a good overview of the meaning of kinship metaphors such as "Great Mother" in Aboriginal diplomatic language and the political consequences of Canadian misunderstandings of this language based on Victorian cultural norms of parent-child relations ("Petitioning the Great White Mother", passim).
107. Quebec Morning Chronicle, September 16, 1884;
108. Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, pp. 76-79.
109. Henri Têtu, Le R. P. Bouchard. Missionnaire Apostolique (Québec: Pruneau & Kirouac, 1897), p. 125.
110. Winnipeg Sun, September 22, 1884.
111. Winnipeg Sun, November 4, 1884.
112. Winnipeg Daily Times, October 20, 1884.
113. Toronto Globe, January 27, 1885.
114. Winnipeg Sun. December 4, 1884, c.f. London [England] Standard, November 13, 1884.
115. Winnipeg Sun, February 20 and 21, 1885.
116. Letter to editor, Toronto Globe, March 12, 1885.
117. Winnipeg Sun, November 21, 1884. This item was widely published.
118. Winnipeg Sun, December 29, 1884.
119. Montreal Star, March 10, 1885.
120. Winnipeg Sun, March 10, 1885.
121. Ottawa Citizen, March 6, 1885.
122. Winnipeg Daily Times, November 21, 1884.
123. James Grant, Cassell's History of the War in the Soudan (London: Cassell and Company, Ltd., 1885), vol III, pp. 33-34.
124. Charles L. Shaw, "Random Reminiscences of a Nile Voyageur", Toronto Saturday Night, December 23, 1893.
125. William Francis Butler, The Campaign of the Cataracts: Being a Personal Narrative of the Great Nile Expedition of 1884-5 (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1887, 2nd ed.), pp. 143-144.
126. William Francis Butler, The Campaign of the Cataracts: Being a Personal Narrative of the Great Nile Expedition of 1884-5 (1887, Ibid., pp. 190-191.
127. Toronto Globe, January 27, 1885.
128. Louis Jackson, Our Caughnawagas in Egypt: a narrative of what was seen and accomplished by the contingent of North American Indian voyageurs who led the British boat expedition for the relief of Khartoum up the cataracts of the Nile (Montreal: W. Drysdale, 1885), p. 26.
129. Correspondent of the London Standard, reprinted in the Winnipeg Sun, December 29, 1884.
130. "Denison to Melgund, 17 October 1884", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 150;
131. Butler, The Campaign of the Cataracts, p. 143.
132. "Report of Brigadier-General F. W. Grenfell, 4 July 1885", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, pp. 219-220.
133. Montreal Star, March 8, 1885.
134. Shaw, "Random Reminiscences of a Nile Voyageur".
135. K. I. Inglis, The Rehearsal: Australians in the Sudan, 1885 (Sydney, Australia: Kevin Weldon and Associates, 1985), p. 95.
136. Ottawa Citizen, March 6, 1885;
137. Globe, March 7, 1885.
138. On the topic of "Miss Canada" as represented in Grip magazine, which styled itself a Canadian Punch, see Christina Burr, "Gender, Sexuality and Nationalism in J. W. Bengough's Verses and Political Cartoons", Canadian Historical Review, vol. 83, no. 4 (2002), pp. 505-554.
139. Toronto Globe, March 9, 1885.
140. Ottawa Citizen, March 13, 1885.
141. "General Report, Lt-Col. F. C. Denison to Major-General, Sir Redvers Buller, 9 May 1885", in Stacey, ed., The Nile Voyageurs, p. 213. Lt.-Col. Coleridge Grove's "Report on the Canadian Voyageurs" reorganizes Denison's nationality groups as follows: "The 380 foremen and men consisted of 36 English and Scotch, 158 Canadians, 93 French Canadians, 77 Indians, and 16 other nationalities" (p. 215).
142. Jackson, Our Caughnawagas in Egypt, pp. 14, 26, 30, 33.
143. Charles Lewis Shaw, "Captain Robinson and the Nile Expedition", Winnipeg Tribune, September 15, 1905.
144. LAC RG10 Indian Affairs, vol. 6829, file 503-4-1, reel C-8547, Neilson to Denison, January 21, 1894.
145. Sheffield, The Red Man's on the Warpath, p. 48.
146. Winnipeg Sun, February 19, 1885.
147. Montreal Star, March 9, 1885;
148. L'Ère nouvelle de Trois-Rivières, March 10, 1885.
149. Montreal Star, March 6, 1885.
150. Montreal Star, March 9, 1885.
151. Ottawa Citizen, March 8, 1885.
152. Toronto Globe, March 9, 1885.
153. Hon. John A. Macdonald, Official report of the debates of the House of Commons of the Dominion of Canada (Ottawa: MacLean, Roger, 1885), March 26, 1885, p. 764.