A LONG STORY OF OPPRESSION OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

Anja Petrovic

DOI Number
https://doi.org/10.22190/FULL221124007P
First page
081
Last page
093

Abstract


Canada’s colonial past may be arguably described as the process of forcibly disconnecting Indigenous peoples from their land, disintegrating their traditional ways of life, and destroying their system of values over an extensive period of time, before confining these communities to reserves. The detrimental consequences of physical segregation enforced through the Residential School System and life on the reserves are seen to this day through the fact that most Indigenous peoples were left disconnected from their traditional culture and economically impoverished in modern-day society. One of the ways to get an accurate insight into this methodical disempowerment process would be to experience it from the Indigenous point of view by reading their literature. Thus, this paper aims at analyzing the works of Beth Brant (“A Long Story”), Emma Lee Warrior (“Compatriots”), and Emily Pauline Johnson (“A Red Girl’s Reasoning”) in the postcolonial framework in order to expose instances of both spiritual and physical discrimination as well as economic marginalization imposed on Indigenous characters in these stories.

Keywords

postcolonial studies, Canada, Indigenous people

Full Text:

PDF

References


Asch, Michael. 2004.” Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” The Canadian Journal of Sociology 29, no. 1 (Winter): 150-152. https://doi.org/10.2307/3341950.

Austin, Alvyn, and Jamie S. Scott. 2005. Canadian Missionaries, Indigenous Peoples: Representing Religion at Home and Abroad. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Bonvillain, Nancy. 1992. The Mohawk (Indians of North America), Hammond: Chelsea House Pub.

Brant, Beth. 1994. Writing as Witness: Essay and Talk. Toronto: Women’s Press.

Brant, Beth. 1999. “A Long Story.” In Sinister Wisdom, A Gathering of Spirit: North American Indian Women's Issue, edited by Beth Brant, 90-97. Iowa: Iowa City Women's Press.

Burton, Lloyd. 2002. Worship and Wilderness: Culture, Religion, and Law in the Public Lands of Management, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Cairns, Alan. 2004. Citizens Plus: Aboriginal Peoples and the Canadian State. Vancouver: U.B.C. Press.

Cesaire, Aimé. 1955. Discourse on Colonialism (Discours sur le colonialism), Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press

Christiano, Thomas. 1996. The Rule of the Many: Fundamental Issues in Democratic Theory. Boulder: Westview Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/233902.

Cranston, Maurice. 1991. The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1754-1762. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Dessault, René. 1996. "Looking Forward, Looking Back". In Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1. (October): 204-340. Ontario: Canada Communication Group.

Fanon, F. 1965. The Wretched of the Earth (Les Damnés de la Terre). Translated from the French by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press.

Fournier, E. Crey, and David Neel. 1997. Stolen from Our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre.

Jenkins, Keith. 1991. Re-Thinking History. London: Routledge.

Johnson, E. Pauline. 1913. “A Red Girl’s Reasoning”. In the Oxford Book of Stories by Canadian Women in English. Edited by Rosemary Sullivan, 1-13. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Justice, D. Heath. 2001. “We’re Not There Yet, Kemo Sabe: Positing a Future for American Indian Literary Studies.” American Indian Quarterly 25, no. 2 (May): 256–69. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1185953.

MacDonald, David B., and Graham Hudson. 2012. “The Genocide Question and Indian Residential Schools in Canada.” Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue Canadienne de Science Politique 45, no. 2 (April): 427–49. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23320978.

McKinnon, Ann. 1998. “Morality Destabilised: Reading Emma Lee Warrior’s ‘Compatriots.’” Studies in American Indian Literatures 10, no. 4 (May): 54–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20739472.

Miller. J.R. 1996. Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools. University of Toronto: Press Incorporated.

Neihart, Bryan. 2013. “Awas Tingni v. Nicaragua Reconsidered: Grounding Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights in Religious Freedom”. In Denver Journal of International Law & Policy 46, no.1 (Fall): 5-16.

Owram, Doug. 1998. “Growing Up: Childhood in English Canada from the Great War to the Age of Television.” In Journal of Social History 32, no. 2, (Winter): 472–474. https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/32.2.472.

Prince-Hughes, Tara. 1998. “Contemporary Two-Spirit Identity in the Fiction of Paula Gunn Allen and Beth Brant.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 10, no. 4 (June): 9–32. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20739470.

Robinson, Amanda. 2008. "Pauline Johnson (Tekahionwake)." In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Article published April 14, 2008; Last Edited January 24, 2020. http://development.ywg72fwnca.ca-central-1.elasticbeanstalk.com/en/article/pauline-johnson.

Rude, Darlene, and Constance Deiter. 2004. From the Fur Trade to Free Trade: Forestry and First Nations Women in Canada. Ottowa: Status of Women Canada.

Ruoff, A. LaVonne Brown. 1992.“Justice for Indians and Women: The Protest Fiction of Alice Callahan and Pauline Johnson.” In World Literature Today 66, no. 2 (spring): 249–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/40148127.

Sayce, Liz. 1998. "Stigma, discrimination and social exclusion: What's in a word?." In Journal of mental health 7, no. 4 (Spring): 331-343.

Schaefer, R.T. 2008. Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.

Schelling, T. C. 1969. "Models of segregation." In The American economic review 59, no. 2 (Fall): 488-493.

Stanley, George. 1947. “As Long as the Sun Shines and Water Flows: A Historical Comment.” Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto.

Tobias, John L. 1978. “Protection, civilization, assimilation: An outline history of Canada’s Indian policy,” in As Long as the Sun Shines and Water Flows, edited by Ian A.L. Getty and Antoine S. Lussier, 39-55. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.

Warrior, Lee Emma. 1987. “Compatriots”. In All My Relations: An Anthology of Contemporary Canadian Native Fiction, edited by Thomas King 48-59. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, Inc.

Weller, P. 2011. Religious discrimination in Britain: A review of research evidence, 2000-10. Manchester: Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Wesley-Esquimaux, Cynthia C., and Magdalena Smolewski. 2004. "Historic trauma and Aboriginal healing." In Ottawa: Aboriginal Healing Foundation 3 (2004), 1-99. Ontario: Aboriginal Healing Foundation.




DOI: https://doi.org/10.22190/FULL221124007P

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


ISSN 0354-4702 (Print)

ISSN 2406-0518 (Online)