prominently displayed photographs of winning lacrosse teams. And she regularly called in at Mason and Risch’s Music Shop to pick up sheet music for Bev. He was particularly fond of the newest dance tunes.
Pauline spent only two years at Brantford Central Collegiate; even by late-Victorian standards of girls’ education, her schooling had been skimpy. In 1877, she triumphantly graduated from the school—and then came down to earth, and to Chiefswood, with a bump. Once she had left ink-stained desks and chalky blackboards behind, she no longer had any excuse to linger on weekday afternoons in Brantford. She was now expected to spend her days helping her mother at home, making only occasional forays away from her family. But Chiefswood began to seem more like a cage than a haven; she hankered after the hissing gas lamps and colourful bustle of the Market Square. The traditional way of life of her father’s people and the quiet harmony of her parents’ home lost their charm. Most of Pauline’s Mohawk cousins still lived in simple wooden houses with dirt floors; none of her Brantford schoolfriends came from such humble dwellings. The Johnson relatives on the reserve continued to eat a diet of corn soup supplemented by roasted guinea fowl, rabbit orsquirrel—the same diet that immigrant pioneers had once enjoyed. But middle-class Brantford families turned up their noses at such fare. They preferred stuffed partridge followed by English custards at their Sunday lunches after church. Several of the girls Pauline had known at the little school on the reserve were already mothers; they all wore drab woollen gowns rather than satin and lace. None of them pored over the photogravures in Canadian Illustrated News to see what Queen Victoria’s daughters were wearing, as Pauline and her friends did. Pauline knew that the only women other than herself from Six Nations whom her Brantford friends might meet were the pipe-smoking Cayuga elders selling live chickens, apples and corn in the market, or the unsmiling Oneida women who went door to door in the more affluent parts of town selling tin pails of wild raspberries.
Consciously or unconsciously, Pauline realized that the Six Nations Reserve, including Chiefswood, was being left out of the booming growth visible in places like Brantford, London and Hamilton. In the rest of southwestern Ontario (as Upper Canada had been named in 1867), European- and American-born entrepreneurs were building manufacturing plants on credit, expanding their businesses on borrowed money and shipping goods south into the States or east to the Mother Country. But there was no such commercial explosion amongst the Six Nations, largely because of new laws that remoulded relations between non-natives and Indians. In 1857, the legislature of the Province of Canada had passed the Gradual Civilization Act, which had the express purpose of absorbing native peoples into European-settler society and culture. Traditional communal land-holding practices were modified. Indians had to demonstrate their capacity for British citizenship by proving themselves debt-free and of good moral character (a test many British settlers would not have passed) before they would be entitled to hold land freehold and to enjoy other rights of citizenship. In the meantime, Indians would have “protected” status, which meant that they were treated as wards of state, like children. Native leaders had made it clear that they did not welcome the Gradual Civilization Act, but worse was to come. In 1860, Britain transferred jurisdiction over Indianmatters to the legislatures of its British North American colonies. Responsibility for native affairs was now in the hands of a land-hungry settler society rather than the lofty (but ostensibly impartial) rulers of Imperial Britain. Sir William Johnson’s ideal of harmonious cohabitation had been overtaken by a policy of assimilation.
The assimilation approach was strengthened by an avalanche
Pauline spent only two years at Brantford Central Collegiate; even by late-Victorian standards of girls’ education, her schooling had been skimpy. In 1877, she triumphantly graduated from the school—and then came down to earth, and to Chiefswood, with a bump. Once she had left ink-stained desks and chalky blackboards behind, she no longer had any excuse to linger on weekday afternoons in Brantford. She was now expected to spend her days helping her mother at home, making only occasional forays away from her family. But Chiefswood began to seem more like a cage than a haven; she hankered after the hissing gas lamps and colourful bustle of the Market Square. The traditional way of life of her father’s people and the quiet harmony of her parents’ home lost their charm. Most of Pauline’s Mohawk cousins still lived in simple wooden houses with dirt floors; none of her Brantford schoolfriends came from such humble dwellings. The Johnson relatives on the reserve continued to eat a diet of corn soup supplemented by roasted guinea fowl, rabbit orsquirrel—the same diet that immigrant pioneers had once enjoyed. But middle-class Brantford families turned up their noses at such fare. They preferred stuffed partridge followed by English custards at their Sunday lunches after church. Several of the girls Pauline had known at the little school on the reserve were already mothers; they all wore drab woollen gowns rather than satin and lace. None of them pored over the photogravures in Canadian Illustrated News to see what Queen Victoria’s daughters were wearing, as Pauline and her friends did. Pauline knew that the only women other than herself from Six Nations whom her Brantford friends might meet were the pipe-smoking Cayuga elders selling live chickens, apples and corn in the market, or the unsmiling Oneida women who went door to door in the more affluent parts of town selling tin pails of wild raspberries.
Consciously or unconsciously, Pauline realized that the Six Nations Reserve, including Chiefswood, was being left out of the booming growth visible in places like Brantford, London and Hamilton. In the rest of southwestern Ontario (as Upper Canada had been named in 1867), European- and American-born entrepreneurs were building manufacturing plants on credit, expanding their businesses on borrowed money and shipping goods south into the States or east to the Mother Country. But there was no such commercial explosion amongst the Six Nations, largely because of new laws that remoulded relations between non-natives and Indians. In 1857, the legislature of the Province of Canada had passed the Gradual Civilization Act, which had the express purpose of absorbing native peoples into European-settler society and culture. Traditional communal land-holding practices were modified. Indians had to demonstrate their capacity for British citizenship by proving themselves debt-free and of good moral character (a test many British settlers would not have passed) before they would be entitled to hold land freehold and to enjoy other rights of citizenship. In the meantime, Indians would have “protected” status, which meant that they were treated as wards of state, like children. Native leaders had made it clear that they did not welcome the Gradual Civilization Act, but worse was to come. In 1860, Britain transferred jurisdiction over Indianmatters to the legislatures of its British North American colonies. Responsibility for native affairs was now in the hands of a land-hungry settler society rather than the lofty (but ostensibly impartial) rulers of Imperial Britain. Sir William Johnson’s ideal of harmonious cohabitation had been overtaken by a policy of assimilation.
The assimilation approach was strengthened by an avalanche
Similar Books
