The Second Annual Colloquium of the St. Andrew’s Society/McEuen Scholarship Foundation Chair in Canadian-Scottish Studies was held onĚý3 MayĚý2019. The well-attendedĚýevent was sponsored by the ±«ÓăÖ±˛Ą Institute for the Study of Canada and hosted by Rare Books and Special Collections at the McLennan Library. Below are summaries of the presentations.Ěý
Session 1 - Making and Reimagining Scottish WorldsĚý
Born in 1753 in the East Lothian village of Bolton, the young Robert Hamilton emigrated to British America in 1755; by the 1780s, he had established himself in Queenston as one of the most prominent merchants in the new colony of Upper Canada. ĚýHamilton’s career illustrates the importance of family and kin networks, ones that reached across the Canadas and back to Scotland, not least because Hamilton also sent his children to Scotland for further their education. Ěý Hamilton and his kin brought the beliefs and practices of the Scottish Enlightenment to Upper Canada, ones that his sons, particularly Alexander Hamilton, helped perpetuate in the Niagara area. ĚýThe Hamilton family story Ěýreminds us of the importance of looking at personal experiences in Scottish migration and settlement; it also gives us the opportunity to explore the multigenerational transmission of Scottish identities. Ěý
Laura Madokoro (±«ÓăÖ±˛Ą), The Outlaw of Megantic and the Politics of SanctuaryĚý
This paper considers the history of Donald Morrison, the famed “Outlaw of Megantic” who was sheltered by the Scottish community in Quebec’s Eastern Townships in one of the longest manhunts in Canadian history. Approaching this locally mythologized subject from the perspective of a history of sanctuary, or refuge, the paper explores how the community rallied around Morrison while simultaneously drawing lines of belonging along class and linguistic lines, excluding authorities and law enforcement determined to apprehend Morrison for murder and arson. In addition to tracing the events of 1888-1889, which ultimately led to Morrison’s arrest and conviction, the paper examines how the story of the “Outlaw of Megantic” has lived on in popular memory through poems, plays and community histories. In the historically anglophone Eastern Townships, the story of Morrison’s refuge and protection has cemented claims to belonging by Scots and their descendants across the turbulent decades of nationalist politics in Quebec.
Session 2 - Mobilizing Identities
Before Donald Smith became Lord Strathcona or wielded the hammer driving the “Last Spike,” he played an important role in the fur-trade in Labrador and the Northwest. As a man familiar with the Hudson’s Bay Company affairs, he arranged for Louis Riel and the Métis National Council to negotiate terms for confederation with the newly formed Canadian Dominion. This paper argues that in order to achieve this Smith had to accept and respect Indigenous political culture. He did this through performative kinship ties. Smith, like many other men involved in the fur-trade before him, was able to operate in the Northwest because of his marriage to woman from the “country.” The role of Isabella Sophia Hardisty, Donald Smith’s wife, deserves to be emphasized in this story.
Cynthia Cooper (McCord Museum), Tartanizing CanadaĚý
The late 1950s and early 1960s witnessed the creation of a number of tartans emblematic of Canada, its regions and founders. Most were the result of commercial initiatives taken by immigrant entrepreneurs, and marketed in a variety of fashion and souvenir products. This paper discussed the trajectory of the most well-known example, the Maple Leaf tartan, named an official symbol of Canada in 2011 and “tartanized” as an acknowledgement of Canadians of Scottish origin. I argued that its historical context calls for a reconsideration of its relevance as a symbol for an inclusive contemporary Canada that recognizes complex and plural identities.
Session 3 - Education and Sport in the Long Nineteenth Century
Half a century before the creation of the High Schools of Quebec and Montreal in the 1840s, modelled on the High school of Edinburgh, a Scottish influence on secondary education is already apparent in Lower Canada. Through the life-stories of Daniel Wilkie and Alexander Skakel, and the case studies of their schools in Quebec, and in Montreal, it is possible to see the impact of Scottish ideas on Anglo-Protestant education from the late 18thcentury onward. An education taking place in an Atlantic context, facilitating European cultural transfers in Canada, and that participated in the European colonial project in the St. Lawrence valley. Supported by colonial elites, these two schools helped to promote a discourse informed by a conservative and counter-revolutionary Enlightenment and ultimately intended to form the next generation of Loyal Gentlemen.
John ReidĚý(Saint Mary’s University), Working-Class Cricketers of Scottish Origin in Nova Scotia, to 1914
On 1 August 1904, during a Provincial Workmen’s Association picnic held at Glace Bay, Cape Breton, the cricket teams from Dominion # 1 Colliery and Dominion # 2 Colliery met in a highly competitive and sometimes ill-tempered encounter. Of the 15 identifiable players on the field, all but one were Nova Scotia-born. The exception was Gilbert Darroch, a miner whose family had immigrated from Scotland when he was eight years old. Of the other 14, ten gave their ethnic origin as Scottish, and two of those spoke Gaelic as their mother tongue. In Cape Breton and on Nova Scotia’s other major coalfields, miners of Scottish descent formed the mainstay of teams in many towns and villages. Yet neither the international historiography of cricket nor the national sport historiography of Canada, with a very few exceptions, has acknowledged the existence of cricket as an element of either Scottish or working-class culture in Canada. Scots, it would seem, were not generally known to be cricketers, while cricket as a miners’ sport was recognizable in places such as the northern counties of England or the mining areas of New South Wales, but not on the Cape Breton, Pictou, or Cumberland coalfields of Nova Scotia. This presentation will outline the extent of working-class cricket in Nova Scotia, and delineate the involvement of miners and other pit workers of Scottish descent. It will also suggest that the writing of sport history in Canada should accommodate more fully the social and cultural significance of cricket as a major and diverse sport during the era up until 1914. Moreover, the Scottish experience in Canada, the presentation will contend, must be understood to extend beyond overtly or ostentatiously Scottish cultural expressions, to include the class-related sporting activities that so frequently brought Scots together in solidarity or in competition with one another.
Ěý