A hundred years ago, my grandfather went to war and upon his return obtained land in Langley to start a farm.
A hundred years ago, First Nations formed the Allied Tribes of B.C. to stop such encroachment on their lands.
Guess who won?
History lessons
I never understood my family history.
I knew my mother had grown up on a farm in Langley, and we occasionally visited the family gravesite in nearby Murrayville, but that was about it.
Until a few years ago.
A University of Victoria colleague invited me to attend a closing ceremony of a field school for graduate students who lived and studied with the Stó:lo peoples in Chilliwack. During the ceremony, one Stó:lo family talked about their traditional land in Langley.
Like a thunderbolt, it hit me that my family had deep if unacknowledged ties to these lands. Until then — clueless.
After this incident, for both personal and professional reasons, I began to rustle through the scads of old photos, letters and various artifacts I inherited when my mother and brother died. And so began a journey to understand my family’s history, along with that of the First Nations on whose lands they settled.
I found out my grandfather, John Jones (after whom I am named) had fought in the First World War. John, known as Jack, received permission, just before he shipped out from Victoria, to marry my grandmother, Agnes Coutts Milne, in December 1915. He survived the war. He and Agnes obtained 40 acres on old Roberts Road in Langley Prairie.
Their farm was on the traditional territory of the Kwantlen people.
Even at the time, First Nations were battling the expropriation of such lands: “The situation is one of great urgency arising more especially from the plans for settling soldiers on all the best lands,” the Allied Tribes stated in their 1919 information bulletin.
As a farm family, settler life was not easy. But unlike those who had been displaced, the Jones family had access to power. My grandfather was active in the Legion, eventually becoming president, and in the 1930s he became the head of the local Liberal association. He went on to become the local liquor agent.
My grandfather died in 1951, just after I was born. Among the family papers I found a condolence note sent to my grandmother from Tom Reid, a Liberal senator, in which he states that John Jones “did splendid service for me in a political way, service which I trust will never be forgotten.”
It should not be forgotten. But it may not be remembered the way Reid wanted.
As a councillor and then reeve of Surrey, twice head of the Union of B.C. Municipalities, Liberal MP for New Westminster from 1930-48 and then senator until a year before he died in 1968, Reid helped found the White Canada Association in 1929, and was a key figure in constructing a system of white supremacy in this province and in Canada.
And my grandfather helped him.
First Nations’ fight for their land began long before my grandfather got involved. But by the early 20th century, they organized to submit petitions and send delegations to London and even the Vatican. New groups formed, including the Indian Rights Committee, the Allied Tribes and the Nisga’a Land Committee, and went into action.
But the First World War and its aftermath ushered in a harsh and punishing period of reaction against First Nations and other peoples of colour.
I don’t know for sure yet, but my grandfather’s first foray into politics might have been in 1919, when veterans like him, as well as white women’s organizations, began a vociferous campaign to stop the provincial government giving the right to vote to 150 Japanese Canadians who had fought in the war.
Or it might have been when the federal government passed the British Columbia Indian Lands Settlement Act in 1920, completely repudiating the Allied Tribes’ demands related to land claims.
Or it might have been in 1927 when, faced with persistent protests by the Allied Tribes, the federal government passed the most deceitful gag order in Canada’s history, section 141 of the Indian Act, making it illegal to “raise money from any Indian or Indians for the purpose of prosecuting any claim against the government.”
This was also the era when the federal government passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, and further restricted South Asian and Japanese immigration. The provincial government passed a municipal act amendment preventing white women or girls from working for Chinese. And the province repeatedly reaffirmed the ban on voting for “every Chinaman, Japanese, Hindu or Indian.”
First Nations and peoples of colour displayed great resilience in the face of such adversity and managed to survive “White Canada.” But not before Reid and his municipal allies from Vancouver, Victoria, Nanaimo and elsewhere took advantage of war conditions and attempted to ethnically cleanse Japanese-Canadians from the province in 1942.
I wish I could believe, as many have suggested, that everyone was racist back then. But it simply isn’t true — some, including feminist Nellie McClung and Angus McInness of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (now NDP) spoke out against racism. And the Langley newspapers show that the CCF candidate for Langley nearly defeated Reid in the 1935 federal election.
Still, I cannot disown my grandfather. Even though the weight of this story grows heavy. The extent to which he was involved in these events needs to come out. Not only did he help Reid and others create the racist state, he benefited from it.
Though never rich, my grandparents were able to buy land, get jobs, vote and send their children to school, all in a culture that they helped impose. I guess this is what is meant by the term “white privilege.”
Times have changed, or have they? Only now are we hearing of the terrible harms of residential schools on First Nations — the list of unresolved grievances is long.
The arson attack against the mosque in Peterborough and assaults on hijab-wearing women resonate with racism, past and present.
Moving forward
I’m hopeful, however. Today, we see environmental groups and First Nations uniting to oppose dirty oil and fracked gas; indigenous and non-indigenous demanding an inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women, and many uniting to toss out the Stephen Harper government.
Our past and future go hand in hand. We of settler heritage should engage in dialogue with First Nations about the land and its future, but this can only happen if we come to grips with the past, particularly the fact that First Nations in B.C. have never relinquished title to the land.
Last summer, the premier suggested June 21 would have been a good day to celebrate yoga. To do so, she was even going to spend tens of thousands of dollars and stop all the traffic on the Burrard Street Bridge. She seemed to have forgotten that June 21 is National Aboriginal Day.
National Aboriginal Day 2016 on June 21 coincides exactly with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Allied Tribes of B.C., a landmark in First Nations and B.C. history.
It will take much more than a day to mend fences broken over a century. But perhaps on that day, settler families and newcomers might take some initiative and, in consultation with First Nations, do some fence-mending?
Many First Nations open their doors to the wider community on June 21. So I know where I will be on that day — and I hope my grandpa’s spirit will be with me.
John Price teaches history at the University of Victoria.
