Will verdict ‘You’ll never die, Sir John!’ crumble in 2020?

By Sue Capon
As tension continues over statues of Canada’s first prime minister – toppled, decapitated, vandalized, and moved into storage – citizens across the nation are protesting and supporting the legacy of a man – with roots in Prince Edward County – who is credited with both building the nation, and of mistreatment of Indigenous peoples.

Debates on Sir John A. Macdonald’s contributions to history reignited in Picton early this summer following two instances of mischief where his bronze statue was splashed with red paint.

Picton’s bronze portrait of Canada’s first prime minister was unveiled July 1, 2015 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of his birth.  The creation by artist Ruth Abernethy depicts the 19-year-old Macdonald presenting his first case to a judge and jury in Oct. 8, 1834 in the new courthouse in Picton. He won that trial as a student of law, and a few months later passed his Attorney Examination at the Law Society of Upper Canada. That marked the beginning of a 56-year career in law and politics.

From Alan R. Capon’s book Prince Edward County Treasury, John A. Macdonald c 1856. Public Archives Canada photo

As Alan R. Capon wrote in his book “Prince Edward County Treasury”, Macdonald was no stranger to Prince Edward County.

“His father Hugh, and mother Helen, operated a grist mill at Stone Mills (Glenora) after previous business ventures in Kingston and Hay Bay had failed. John was about 10 when he moved to Stone Mills. During his stay in Hallowell, Macdonald became the first secretary of the Hallowell Young Men’s Society, and the Prince Edward District School Board appointed him secretary.”

The spirit of Sir John A Macdonald continued to live on in Prince Edward County to this day, Capon wrote. “And many in the area agree with the nameless supporter who cried out at one of Macdonald’s political meetings, “You’ll never die, Sir John!”

That verdict of history may change in December, 2020 – already an unprecented year of change due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Picton’s Macdonald sculpture was in storage for several months last year while landscaping took place in front of The Armoury and was re-located on the forecourt at the Picton Library, a short distance east of its former location.

That was the catalyst for conversation to remove the statue.

In November 2019 the Picton Library hosted a full-house presentation by Dr. Niigaan Sinclair on Macdonald’s abuse of Indigenous peoples in the Canada. His father, Justice Murry Sinclair, was the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada.

Citizens woke to the knowledge of Indigenous history demanded action.

County council has since formed the “Holding Court” Statue Working Group under the Prince Edward Heritage Advisory Committee (PEHAC), to conduct public consultation, research and ultimately to make recommendation about the statue’s future, following the scope of the 10 Principles of Truth and Reconciliation, a framework put forth by the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to move forward establishing and maintaining respectful relationships.

Retired university professor David Warrick, who was the chair of the Macdonald Project group that commissioned the 1,400-pound statue for Picton, is a member of the new working group.

His deep concern is a condition by the group to exclude discussion and debate of Canadian history and Macdonald’s achievements.

“You can’t defend Macdonald without historical context,” said Warrick, who addressed accusations against Sir John and his historical achievements, as a guest speaker at a Picton Rotary Club meeting last week.

“The first thing students of history are taught is the importance of cause of events and the context of events,” said Warrick. “A cause is something that brings an effect, for instance, the killing of George Floyd. The context, is understood as the climate of opinion, that surround the issue at hand. They help to understand its urgency, its importance, its shape or even its timing. That would be Black Lives Matter.

“As we look at the history of Macdonald, we need to look at events farther afield such as the Slaughter of the Buffalo in the U.S. and the American Civil War, to understand the choices Macdonald faced as he led the nation as Prime Minister.”

Warrick says Macdonald’s legacy should be commemorated as a nation builder and as such, his bronze portrait of his time in Prince Edward County should remain on Main Street Picton.

“Without Macdonald, there would be no Canada,” said Warrick. “Unlike most nation states, Canada was not created by revolution, nor conquest. It was created through extensive negotiations and much compromise… Macdonald devoted his entire life to Canada (Premier of Canada for six years, Prime Minister for 19 years) and died in office at the age of 76.”

Warrick’s presentation to Rotarians noted Macdonald’s negotiated purchase of Rupert’s Land, from the Hudson’s Bay Company for $1.5 million in 1869 – among at least nine attempts to annex Canada.

“In spite of strong competition from the U.S. which was willing to pay much more after purchasing Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. There would be no Canada without this purchase. The U.S. would be the largest country in the world today.”

The sale involved roughly a quarter of the continent, but failed to take into account existing residents – mainly Indians and Metis. But Warrick noted the U.S. treatment of its Indigenous citizens was even more horrific.

Warrick said that by 1871 U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant initiated the Buffalo Policy: “A buffalo dead is an Indian gone” further to the U.S. Indian Removal Act. 30 million Bison were slaughtered in North America and replaced with Texas Longhorn to force Indians onto reservations, mainly in Oklahoma.

Grant ended hundreds of Indian treaties. Prime Minister Macdonald began the first of 11, covering most of Canada today.

“It was seen as a way to starve Native Americans into submission,” said Warrick. “The Canadian government began a program to settle Indians on reserves so they would not interfere with the spread of agricultural settlement across the prairies. The Indian, bedeviled by alcoholism, smallpox epidemics, disappearance of the bison, and subsequent famine, had no alternative but to accept that program.”

Warrick told Rotarians the charges against keeping Picton’s Macdonald statue, gathered from a recent online petition, state he was the primary perpetrator of genocide in Canada; created the residential school system, and his statue ‘makes people feel unsafe and uncomfortable’ as well “It is embarrassing to see Macdonald, and the colonial violence that he has come to symbolize, honoured in bronze on Main Street.”

Sir John, stated Warrick, immediately implemented the largest relief program in Canadian history (until the Great Depression) and received more than a little criticism over the cost and scope, but without a doubt saved thousands of native lives,” said Warrick. “He was criticized for being too generous because the federal government was not, at the time, in the business of providing relief programs. The spending amounted to more than three per cent of the federal budget – $6-$8 billion in today’s dollars.”

“In parliament in 1885, Macdonald was criticized for the continuing expense in providing land, agricultural tools, education and general education for natives and the slow progress in moving Natives from a hunter gatherer society into the modern world. His government also carried out a program to vaccinate all Native Canadians against smallpox – 4,000 died of it in Montreal in 1884 and more so for Native Canadians.”

Regarding the implementation of Indigenous schools, Warrick reminds “the first Industrial School was created in Brantford in 1828 called the Mohawk Institute – when Macdonald was 13, and in a grammar school.

“The Anglican Chruch ran the school with aid from the U.S. When it became a residential school in 1834, Macdonald was 19 and studying for his law exams in Picton.”

“In contrast to compulsory public schools, the schools for Native Canadians were voluntary under Macdonald’s term in office, despite pressure from government to make them mandatory. However, Prime Minister John Thompson made the schools compulsory three years after Macdonald’s death in 1891. The schools were administered by the churches: Catholic churches 60 per cent and the Anglican church 30 per cent, and the rest Protestant.”

“Macdonald did not start the residential schools that are so heavily criticized today.”

Warrick’s also compared Mohawk Chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea)’s view on law and order with Macdonald’s.

“In the government you call civilized, the happiness of the people is constantly sacrificed to the splendor of empire, hence the origin of your codes of criminal and civil laws; hence your dungeons and prisons. We have no prisons; we have no pompous parade of courts; we have no written laws; and yet judges as highly revered among us as they are among you, and their decisions are as much regarded.”

Warrick quotes Macdonald’s view from a speech to the House of Commons in 1890:

“Whether is was conquered or ceded, we have a constitution now under which all British subjects are in a position of absolute equality, having equal rights of every kind – of language, of religion, of property and of person. There is no paramount race in this country; there is no conquered race in this country; we are all British subjects, and those who are not English are none the less British subjects on that account.”

Warrick adds Macdonald drafted 50 of the 72 resolutions that were founding principles of the Constitution Act of 1867.

Capon, in his book Prince Edward County Treasury, also captured opposing views of Picton’s two newspapers, following Macdonald’s death.

The Picton Times editor’s comment on Friday, June 12, 1891, following the death of Canada’s first prime minister noted: “He had lived much beyond the allotted three score and ten. He had taken advantage of and, at times had made opportunities without scruple in order to success in the line of life which he had chosen.”

Capon notes the editor commented on the tendency at that time “to gush” over the late prime minister, noting the injuction to not speak ill of the dead.

“The writer said that the career of a public man was, however public property and history had to be recorded truthfully.”

Capon noted the article said Macdonald was “pre-eminently a political pirate” and added “he was but little of the statesman; the longer he lived he became less entitled to high distinction in that line…”

Capon also recorded that the long editorial commented on Macdonald’s “shameful transactions” in the Pacific scandal and said his “so-called national policy was one of the most imprudent frauds ever perpetuated upon a gullible people.

“We have lightly touched upon a few of the sinister features in Sir John Macdonald’s record. It is not to be inferred that we would put that record forward as one of unqualified badness.”

The editor of The Picton Gazette, Capon noted, was appalled at his contemporary at the Times.

“In a rebuttal headed ‘The ghouls at work” the editor wrote: ‘It is the custom among savage and depraved races, that seem to be destitute of the moral sense, to sneak back to the field where some great battle has been fought and some mighty chieftan had fallen, and mutilate the dead. Last Thursday, June 11, when the earth clods were falling on the coffin of Sir John Alexander Macdonald – when sad hearts felt as if stunned by the national calamity that had befallen them – the newsboy was delivering to the subscribers of The Picton Times its last diatribe against the illustrious dead, the wail of a disappointed man.”

Despite the fulminations of The Times, the spirit of Sir John lived on in Prince Edward County to this day.

Will the verdict ‘You’ll never die, Sir John!’ crumble in 2020?

By December, the working group mandate is to advise county staff in preparation of a report to the Heritage Advisory Committee, which will make its recommendation to council.

The working group is currently receiving comments on the municipality’s website ‘Have Your Say’ public engagement page.

To submit comments, the public can also do so through deputations, at the town hall to be held this fall; by sending an email to ecowan@pecounty.on.ca or by mail to The Holding Court Statue Working Group, c/o County of Prince Edward, 332 Main St., Picton, ON K0K 2T0.