The Borderlands of the American and Canadian Wests: Essays on Regional History of the Forty-ninth Parallel

Part 3. Seeking Sanctuary on Both Sides of the Line

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 [First Page] [131], (1) Lines: 0 to 1 ——— 6.0pt PgV ——— Normal Page PgEnds: TEX [131], (1) Part 3. Seeking Sanctuary on Both Sides of the Line Over the past two and a half centuries, many have viewed the borderlands of the United States and Canada as a place of refuge from persecution. For example, at the time of America’s War for Independence, despite “revolutionary” language about freedom of thought and ideas, thousands of loyalists to the Crown suffered persecution by other Americans who forced them to flee to Canada. Conversely, thousands of Acadian Roman Catholics, made equally unwelcome in Atlantic Canada, were forced to flee to the United States, settling in New England and eventually as “Cajuns ” in Louisiana. And black slaves sought refuge in Canada, specifically in Chatham, Ontario—the end of the line on the “underground railroad.” This pattern of seeking sanctuary intensified with Anglo-European expansion into the American and Canadian Wests. American Indians, most notably groups of Sioux under the direction of the Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull, fled across the border (often called “the medicine line” by American Indians) to “Grandmother’s Land” to escape brutal U.S. military atrocities and the advent of the reservation system. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce Nation almost succeeded in leading his people to Canada in 1877 when the U.S. cavalry cut him short near what is today the Montana/Saskatchewan border. Some Nez Perces had already fled across the border and lived among the Sioux. But as Gerhard Ens and Michel Hogue show in their chapters here, Native and mixed race peoples (the Métis) of the Canadian prairies saw escaping to the U.S. borderlands as a safety valve for their survival against an equally hostile Canadian government. These authors and other historians are working to revise the outdated notion that there was somehow a more benevolent First Nations policy in Canada. 132 | Seeking Sanctuary on Both Sides 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 [132], Lines: ——— * 18.544pt ——— Normal * PgEnds: [132], The wide open prairies and ranges of the American and Canadian Wests and the land policies that encouraged their settlement by European immigrants also attracted a variety of ethnic and religious groups seeking solace and freedom. Mennonites, Hutterites, and Doukhobors all established communities on both sides of the border. And as Peter Morris shows in chapter 10, Mormon settlers moved into southern Alberta seeking sanctuary from Americans opposed to their religion, specifically to polygamy. Morris frames his analysis of this history around a borderlands thesis, suggesting that interactions of people, regions, and borders represent a “special kind of comparative history” that provides a “fuller understanding of [a] shared continental context” between the United States and Canada. These patterns continued into the twentieth century, with other groups seeing the border as a line of refuge or escape (discussed in part 5). Space constraints prevented more discussion of nineteenth-century dimensions of the borderlands as a sanctuary. However, listed below are a number of excellent works on the topic. Readers interested in the Sioux’s cross-boundary history, for example, should consult the works of Black Elk (via John Neihardt), David McCrady, Beth LaDow, Robert Utley, and Paul Sharp. On the Nez Perce they should see books by Merrill Beal, Jerome Greene, Alvin Josephy, Linwood Laughy, and Merle Wells. Likewise listed are books regarding the establishment of religious communities in the borderlands. And for a unique study of how African Americans sought refuge from discrimination in the Canadian prairies, unfortunately to no avail, readers should consult Bruce Shepard’s Deemed Unsuitable. For Further Reading On Native American/First Nation and Métis History in the Borderlands Region of the Plains and Rockies On Migration to the Borderlands for Religious and Ethnic Refuge On Native American/First Nation and Métis History in the Borderlands Region of the Plains and Rockies Barkwell, Lawrence J., Leah Dorion, and Darren R. Prefonatine, eds. Métis Legacy: A Métis Historiography and Annotated Bibliography. Winnipeg: Pemmican, 2001. Seeking Sanctuary...