Truth and Reconciliation: a settler’s tale

I accept that our First Nations peoples suffered in Residential Schools, and that reconciliation is necessary to heal. This is truth. Yet I see many settler descendants have difficulty accepting this reality. I don’t blame them.

I have a theory why this is the case. It involves our history. And by “our”, I mean the experiences endured by the European settlers. The real stories that haven’t been passed down. The stories so horrible that no one spoke of them. The stories that have been lost, everywhere, except in our cells and genetic programing.

How can one have compassion for the other, when one knows at a cellular level that one also suffered from being labelled and treated as “lesser than”?

In my research, I’ve learned that in the 1870s some people in the British Isles were labelled as “surplus”. The Industrial Revolution had rendered them “useless”; they had, after all, been replaced by machines. Something needed to be done with them. One solution was to send them to Britain’s dominions in the “new world”. If you don’t believe me, google “Thomas Spence” and the “North West Territories”. GoogleBooks has a copy of a treatise he wrote. He describes my ancestors, and perhaps yours, as surplus.

If that isn’t enough, I’ve researched one branch of my family. The Scottish branch.

My great-great grandfather, Thomas Malcolm, was not a nice person. He and his first wife had a son who never lived with them. The son lived in care. At age 4, he fell down some steps (say the reports) and languished for about a week before he died. When Thomas’ wife was pregnant with their second child, he reported her to the authorities as a bigamist. She was convicted, and their second child - a girl this time - was born in prison. As their marriage had been moot, the baby was born a bastard.

The wife had been in care as a child. She married at 16. Her first husband died in an accident when he was riding in the bucket, being pulled from a coal mine. I read the report on the Mining Association (UK) website. It was grisly.

They had two young boys, and she had no lawful way of earning income to support them. She quickly married a man she knew only for 10 days. He deserted her and her sons. She met and married Thomas. What was she to do?

Even before his daughter was born, Thomas had taken up with my great-great grandmother. She knew nothing of his first marriage. By the time they married in August, 1879, she was six months pregnant. They left shortly thereafter, for Canada. At first they were in Nova Scotia, where Thomas worked at a coal mine. Their oldest daughter, Grace, was born that fall. Their younger daughter, Maggie, was born two years later.

In October, 1882, my great-great grandmother’s older sister and her two children, joined them in Canada. They arrived in Quebec City and then everyone travelled west.

Thomas and Catherine homesteaded in 1882. Catherine’s sister and her children remained in Brandon.

Life went badly for Thomas, Catherine and their family. Surplus people in the British Isles faced great difficulties. Catherine ended up in an asylum for the insane. Their children were placed with other families in the district. Three were adopted. The oldest, at age 11, became a domestic servant. Thomas left the district, and his children never heard from him again. The land was lost. Catherine was released from the asylum, and spent the last 10 - 15 years of her life living with one of her sons. On the census, she is described as a domestic servant, not as his mother.

I imagine what that means, and shudder.

What follows is a letter I imagine Thomas wrote to Catherine’s sister, as their situation spiralled downward.

I imagine it was similar for other European settlers. If more of us (European settler descendants) can acknowledge the darkness in our family histories, reconciliation becomes more possible. That is my hope.

15th day of October, in the Year of Our Lord 1890

 Dear Mistress Thomas Robertson,

Although you no longer use the name “Robertson”, I am addressing you so in this missive because Robertson is your legal name. This is who you are in the eyes of Our Lord and Father.

Having fled with your daughter from the home of your lawfully wedded husband Thomas Robertson in 1870, then bearing a child out of wedlock in 1872, with only you and Our Lord and Father knowing whom sired the bastard, you are an adulteress. Adopting the surname “Bunting” in this new world changes naught. This sin marks your soul, and the souls of your surviving child, the bastard James Craig.

I share this to be clear about my true feelings for you. I am not writing because I hope to mend our relationship or to seek your forgiveness for my treatment of you since you arrived at the Port of Quebec on the 19th day of October, 1882. I am and always have acted in accordance with Our Lord’s dictates. It is you who have strayed.

Because of your sins, I wish there existed someone else with whom I could share this missive. But your parents have passed, and my lawful wife Catherine has no other close relatives in Canada. She needs someone here to watch over her. You are the only person available to fill this role.

I write to you now because I comprehend that if Catherine and our children disappear without any word from her or me, you will assume the worst. You will believe I murdered them and left their bodies to rot on the prairie. Such is the relationship between you and I. If Catherine should come back to herself, she will need information as to the whereabouts of our children.

Catherine does not possess the constitution to thrive on a remote farmstead in the Assiniboine East District of the North West Territories. There is no delicate way to express it. Living free of adult company for much of the year (I am away, as you know, working for the railway), in the company of four young children, with the howling wind and unforgiving emptiness, Catherine has gone mad.

I began seeing signs of this during the winter of 1889, when I trekked home from the station at Qu’Appelle, to be with her and the children at the time of the birth of Christ. I arrived to find the children dressed in rags, and the stench of the overfull chamber pot assaulting my nostrils. I immediately charged Gracie and Maggie with cleaning the filth.

Catherine rallied in my presence. She spoke of the sadness in her, since learning of the passage of your Grace, in childbirth. She needs to be stronger. This is no place for the weak. I charged the girls with caring for their ailing mother and the wee boys, then left to return to work with a clear heart and mind.

The next time I returned to our farmstead was to supervise the planting of the wheat crop in the spring of 1890.  There was very little difference in Catherine’s demeanour. With my presence, thanks to the bounty of Our Lord and Father, Catherine was able to dress our remaining ox in his harness and attach him to the plough. Together, we planted the seeds we had harvested the previous fall. Although they were damaged by frost, we prayed that they would catch in the warm earth, and would provide us with a bountiful harvest.

During this time I noticed several strange behaviours in Catherine. I vowed to learn of any assistance available to her.

To this end, when I returned to my employment, I began making inquiries. I learned there was an established Presbyterian Church in Fort Qu’Appelle, with a newly ordained minister, Mr. Matheson. He served Fort Qu’Appelle and the entire district. Our Lord and Father directed me to seek him out.

I shared these concerns with this most caring and compassionate gentleman.

He told me the gaol in Regina was used to house individuals who were mad. We agreed this would be a most Christian fate for Catherine.

We also discussed the fate of my children: Gracie, Maggie, Tommy, and Russell. It was determined that it would be best for them to be placed with other families in the Qu’Appelle District.

Mr. Matheson promised to make discrete inquiries with families of the Methodist church. He promised he would approach families who had homesteaded near the Qu’Appelle Valley, as far away as possible from our farmstead three miles south of the railway. He did not want knowledge of their mother’s madness to taint their lives.

He advised me it may be necessary to provide each family with some funds, as an incentive for providing a home to my children.

This caused me a moment of consternation. I have no money or savings. What I earn working on the railroad barely covers my expenses. The small excess has been used to buy food for my family, to help sustain them during the lengthy winters. I could not tell the Reverend I am impecunious. After all, I hold title to a large estate comprised of 160 acres. This is a mighty holding. It would have brought shame on me to make such an admission. Instead, I indicated I would be able to provide financially for my children. I silently prayed to Our Lord and Father to show me the way to do so.

We promised to meet again in the fall.

Over the course of the summer, I learned John Labatt was loaning monies to settlers. Thus, I came to apply to him for such funds. His company agreed to loan me money if I would pledge our farmstead as security. I readily agreed. A representative promised to send me the necessary paperwork. Once I had signed and returned the documents, they would wire transfer funds to me.

I returned to the farmstead in mid-August, to harvest the wheat crop. I found Catherine even worse, and the crop near to non-existent. I knew Our Lord and Father wanted me to continue with the course of action I had set with the Reverend Mr. Matheson.

I chided the girls to provide better care for their mother. At ages 11 and 9, I expect more of them. Then I left them with their mother and younger brothers. I returned to my work on the CPR.

When I returned to town, the loan documents were waiting for me. I signed them properly, and placed them in the post. It was time for the next steps in our plan.

When I met again with the Reverend Mr. Matheson, he told me there was another option. The home for wayward boys in Brandon that had opened that summer, was drastically under-utilized. There were more staff than boys. In reality, only one boy was housed there.

This had created such an uproar the Dominion government had decided to convert the facility to an Asylum for the Insane. The conversion was to be complete by May 1891. He suggested it would be a more humane place for my wife than the Regina gaol.

What could I do?

I wanted Catherine gone, as she was no further use to herself or to me. Our children could be placed with other families. Our Lord and Father had directed me that this was the best course of action.

The Reverend Mr. Matheson had sanctified this plan. Catherine had been mad this long, and I believed eight more months would change nothing.

I write this now, in case something adverse should happen to me between now and then. I have been failing in health, and fear for my future. My plan is to go to Vancouver and work in the railyards. A gentler climate, surrounded by men, in a civilised place, will enable me to regain my constitution.

You may think me harsh, but what other options avail? I can think of none. In decline myself, this is how it must be.

This missive has taken me much longer than was expected. I never expected to share as many words with you as this. If I am to keep my strength to work, I must stop this now.

The Reverend Mr. Matheson possesses knowledge as to the placement of the children. If I am unable to write again, and if you should desire to know what becomes of them, or if, Our Lord and Father be willing, Catherine recovers (although this seems a most unlikely fate), he will possess the answers you seek.

Sincerely,

Thos. Malcolm