The Colonization of Mi'kmaw Memory and History, 1794-1928: The King V. Gabriel Sylliboy

William C. Wicken, The Colonization of Mi'kmaw Memory and History, 1794-1928: The King v. Gabriel Sylliboy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. 328 pages. ISBN 978-1-4426-1155-9. $32.95 paperback.In the fall of 1988 as a journalist the courtroom, I witnessed a provincial court judge Sydney, NS, grow increasingly frustrated with the proceedings taking place before him. Fourteen Mi'kmaw men had been charged with violations under the province's Wildlife Act and a preliminary hearing into the charges underway. After lengthy testimony on details of eighteenth-century treaties between the Mi'kmaq and the British Crown, the judge protested, isn't a history lesson!In fact, it a lesson history, one of many that have played out Nova Scotia courtrooms concerning treaties and Aboriginal rights. A similar scenario developed 1928, when Gabriel Sylliboy, a Mi'kmaq, charged with trapping muskrats out of season. His defence a 1752 treaty between the Mi'kmaq and the British which he argued protected his Aboriginal right to hunt where and when he chose. Wicken's The Colonization of Mi'kmaw Memory and History examines the background of the case a unique contribution to our understanding of both past and present.Wicken's focus is not the legalities of the treaty, a field that has been well ploughed since the 1999 Supreme Court of Canada's ruling R. v. Donald Marshall Junior, which recognized the Mi'kmaq's rights to fish commercially as set out treaties signed by the Mi'kmaq and British 1760 and 1761. In fact, Wicken provides a refreshing caution against relying on legal evidence as a source of historical understanding. There is always a danger of distortion when recourse is made to a document or to a vision that must be sustained defending a right... The story told has often been shaped [more] by what needed than by what was (240).Instead, Wicken combines a multi-disciplinary approach with his extensive knowledge of Mi'kmaw history to allow a nuanced and persuasive understanding of circumstances a century ago. This highly readable book attempts to enter the minds of the five Mi'kmaw men who testified at Sylliboy's appeal. How did they come to know about treaties signed well before they were born? What their understanding of the treaties and how did the shifting tides of colonialism affect their understanding? What historical, political, social and economic factors influenced officials to lay charges at that time and place? Ultimately, [w]hat the men said is less important than why they said it, Wicken suggests (244).Part One explores factors that likely motivated settler Alex Gillis to demand that Sylliboy be charged, why the Crown decided to prosecute, and why Sylliboy took the unusual step of appealing (unsuccessfully) his conviction. Parts Two and Three identify changes how the Mi'kmaq framed the significance of the treaties from 1794 to 1928, the year of Sylliboy's appeal. This is the core of Wicken's thesis, that each succeeding generation between these years knew about the treaty, but understood its meaning for their own lives ways that were slightly different than the generation before. These changes were subtle, but telling. As evidence, Wicken relies on four petitions to the British prompted by relentless settler encroachment on hunting and fishing grounds. A 1794 petition recalled the treaty as one between two nations. The petition to remind the British of their promise to leave the Mi'kmaq in quiet possession of their lands. …

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