We Were Not the Savages

Daniel Paul's Mi'Kmaq History Rewrites Racist Wrongs

Daniel PaulI wrote We Were Not The Savages to address the historical misinformation about his Mi'kmaq peoples and to reclaim the Aboriginal pride residential schools had denied him.

At the Indian Day School on the reserve we were taught that we came from an inferior civilization and culture and that we should strive to adopt white ways if we wanted to succeed in the world. The first time I came into contact with blatant racism, it was by a teacher - a Catholic nun. The school was staffed by a religious order - the Sisters of Charity - and a priest was the principal. When I was a child in the 1940s, we used to go down and watch cowboy and Indian movies, and of course we'd cheer on the "good guys" - the cowboys.

John Martin Crawford preyed upon First Nations women and was the real savage on trial for the murder of four Cree women. The media paid very little attention though he tortured, raped and murdered. The judge in Crawford's trial, when he handed down his verdict, stated that Crawford "knew what he was doing." In 1981 he was caught for raping a white woman and got 10 years. When he was paroled, he raped 'other' women, Cree women.

Mi'Kmaq and other First Nations peoples have been portrayed as barbarians and savages, but in We Were Not The Savages a different story of the Mi'Kmaq is told. It sold 25,000 copies and several universities use it as course material.

In Nova Scotia, a junior high school, park and street is named after Governor Edward Cornwallis, a man who issued a proclamation in 1749 for scalps of Mi'Kmaq men, women and children. He stated explicitly in his records that he meant to exterminate them in the peninsula of Nova Scotia. So far, the hunter's side of the story has been told. I am telling the lion's story.