January 18, 2010
Media contact: Anne Russell
Cell: 604-798-3709
Office: 604-795-2826
anne.russell@ufv.ca
UFV historian's lecture to look at indigenous peoples’ contribution to war efforts
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Scott Sheffield |
Canada and other “settler societies” have historically had complex and complicated relationships with their indigenous peoples.
Initially, there was a dependence on the skills and knowledge of indigenous people to help the newcomers survive in their new land. Over time, settler societies gained dominance in the relationships an developed a tendency to try to suppress aboriginal culture and language and alter traditional ways of life through residential schools and other processes of assimilation.
It is ironic, given the long efforts at assimilation, that during the Second World War, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States would not only look to their indigenous population as a source of recruits and labour, but would even seek to mobilize for the war effort the very indigenous cultural knowledge and attributes that they had previously tried to suppress. As Canada, Australia, and New Zealand joined the war effort to support their mother country, and the United States signed on later for its own reasons, the governments of the day viewed their indigenous populations as fair game for recruitment or conscription.
University of the Fraser Valley historian Scott Sheffield, of Chilliwack, is currently researching how these settler societies interacted with their indigenous peoples during the wars, and he will present some of his findings at a special public lecture on Wednesday, Jan 27, at 7 pm in the Abbotsford campus lecture theatre (B101) as part of the inaugural UFV Lecture Series.
“Many indigenous people served in the armed forces in all four of these countries,” Sheffield notes. “And all four used their own particular national lens when they viewed aboriginal soldiers, which often shaped the nature and extent of service indigenous peoples contributed.”
For instance, notes Sheffield, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand all tended to view their indigenous peoples as coming from a warrior tradition, or “martial races”, which influenced their enthusiasm to recruit them. Australians, on the other hand, had erased their national memory of conflict and battle with the aborigines, and saw their colonial occupation as a passive one. Thus they didn’t regard their indigenous population as warriors to the same degree as the other countries did, although they did admit them into some roles in the armed forces.
Indigenous populations were valued for their warrior tradition, their hunting and tracking ability, and ironically, also for their mother tongues. While residential schools sought to suppress aboriginal languages, fluent speakers of Navajo, Cree, Maori and other languages provided undecipherable communications for some Allied forces as ‘code-talkers’.
Even knowledge of their traditional territories and the bush and survival skills developed over thousands of years of hunting and gathering were of use in defending remote frontiers. Soldiers from indigenous communities didn’t just serve abroad, they also played an important role in the home defence, especially in coastal British Columbia, Alaska, and northern Australia, according to Sheffield. After Japan entered World War II the remote coastlines of these countries were under threat, and the military did not have the assets to place eyes in all these areas, much less defend them. They all turned to their local populations, many of them indigenous peoples, to be their observers. Their knowledge of the local terrain and coastline was very valuable. In Australia, the military capitalized on the aborigines’ ability to survive in isolated and harsh desert settings, something few white Australians had the skills to do.”
Sheffield’s research shows that the four countries in his study all had different types of relationships with their indigenous peoples, but during the wars indigenous peoples from all four countries volunteered to serve, often with an eye on securing greater rights and recognition after the war in exchange for their service.
While Sheffield’s lecture will focus broadly on indigenous societies’ roles in World War II, he will also be open to questions about the Sto:lo and Coast Salish peoples’ experiences in the war effort.
Sheffield’s research is funded in part by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He works in collaboration with Dr. P. Whitney Lackenbauer at St. Jerome’s University in Waterloo, Ontario.
The second lecture in the 2010 UFV Lecture Series will feature Dr. Darryl Plecas, a renowned UFV criminologist. He will speak on successful crime reduction on Wed, March 10, at the Abbotsford campus.
The series is presented by the UFV Research Office and the UFV Research Advisory Council.
Admission is free and the public is welcome at the Jan 27 lecture. Pay parking is in effect at UFV.
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