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In Between and Out of Place: Racial Hybridity, Liquor, and the Law in Late 19th and Early 20th Century British Columbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Renisa Mawani
Renisa Mawani
Affiliation:
Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto, 130 St. George Street, Toronto (Ontario) M5S 3H1,[email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores and questions the colonial anxieties that mixed-race progeny of European and Aboriginal ancestry posed to government and religious officials in late 19th and early 20th century British Columbia. Drawing from federal, provincial, and local correspondence, missionary documents, legal statutes, and various court records detailing provincial and federal liquor infractions, I examine the social, legal, and political debates about racially-mixed peoples and'their “proper” place in the province. Pervasive fears about mixed-race peoples, I contend, were not merely symbolic or metaphorical but were deeply imbricated in material concerns about land. Specifically, federal and provincial authorities argued that race-mixing in British Columbia potentially undermined their efforts to appropriate Indigenous lands and to build the province into a “respectable” white settler society. Throughout this period, mixed-blood peoples elicited a penetrating colonial gaze from government administrators and missionaries alike. Although authorities relied on a variety of spatial and legal techniques to govern racially-mixed peoples, I suggest that liquor prohibitions at both the federal and provincial levels were integral to keeping mixed-race peoples in their place: or rather, “out of place.”

Résumé

Cet article explore et interroge les angoisses coloniales que souleva la progéniture mixed, d'origine européenne et autochtone, chez les responsables gouvernementaux et religieux à la fin du XIXe et au début du XXe siècle en Colombie Britannique. M'appuyant sur des correspondances fédérales, provinciales et locales, des documents de missionnaires, des lois et des rapports judiciaires relatifs aux infractions provinciales et fédérales liées à l'alcool, j'analyse les débats social, juridique et politique entourant les gens d'origine mixed et leur «propre» place dans la province. Je soutiens que les peurs envahissants les concernant ne furent pas seulement symboliques ou métaphoriques mais profondément enracinés dans des craintes bien matérielles pour les terres. Ainsi, des autorités fédérales et provinciales arguaient que la mixité en Colombie Britannique minait leurs efforts d'approprier des terres autochtones et de bâtir dans la province une société de colons blancs «respectable». Pendant toute cette période, les «sang-mêlés» furent l'objet de regards coloniaux pénétrants, tant des administrateurs gouvernementaux que des missionnaires. Bien que les autorités eurent recours à une variété de techniques spatiales et légales pour gouverner les gens mixed, les prohibitions liées à l'alcool, fédérales et provinciales, furent au cœur de l'effort de les maintenir à leur place – ou plutôt «out of place».

Type
Law, Race and Space/Droit, espaces et racialisation
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , August 2000 , pp. 9 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 2000

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References

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39 S.Prov. C, 1850, c. 42, s. 5.

40 Color Coded, supra note 38 at 21.

41 S.C. 1869 c. 6 [hereinafter Lands and Enfranchisement Act]. For a summary of this legislation see Treaties and Historical Research Centre, PRE Group, Indian and Northern Affairs, The Historical Development of the Indian Act (August 1978) at 53.Google ScholarPubMed

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54 Ibid. at 76. Young notes an ambivalence about constructions of hybridity throughout history. On the one hand, he suggests that mixed-race peoples were symbols of degeneracy and, on the other hand, that they were often evoked as the most beautiful human beings in the world. In B.C., the former images of the half-breed as criminogenic and degenerate were most common.

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56 Earl of Kimberley Report to His Majesty (1871). British Columbia Archives and Records Service, GR-0419, box 10, file 1871/23 [hereinafter BCARS].

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59 Department of Justice (26 March 1874) National Archives of Canada [hereinafter NAC], RG 10, reel c10104, vol. 3599, file 1520.

60 Ibid.

61 There is series of correspondence addressing the large numbers of mixed-race people living on B.C. reserves between 1892 and 1913. See NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

62 From Loring to Vowell (25 February 1892) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, v. 3867, file 87, 125.

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69 For a list of statutes prohibiting liquor consumption among Native people in B.C., see supra note 10.

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78 My exploration of British Columbia Provincial Court Records between 1890 and 1924 reveals that 38 peoples were charged with supplying liquor to Indians. Although this number appears insignificant, it is important to note that many liquor offences were dealt with informally or in lower-level courts. In addition, securing convictions for this offence was often difficult due to lack of evidence and/or questions about whether or not the person to whom the alcohol was given was indeed an Indian by law, BCARS, GR–0605 (1890–1924) vol. 1.

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80 Vowell to Attorney General (29 August 1892) BCARS, GR 0429, box 2, file 5.

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82 From Methodist Missionaries to Attorney General of B.C. (21 January 1895) BCARS, GR 0429, box 2, file 5.

83 From F.H. Christie to Pedley (4 August 1909) BCARS, GR 0429, box 17, file 1.

84 Supra note 82.

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87 “Fair Ones of a Purer Caste”, supra note 7.

88 Ibid.

89 From McGinnis to Attorney General of B.C. (21 January 1895) BCARS, GR 0429, box 3, file 3.

90 From McKay to Vowell (22 August 1892) BCARS, GR 0429, box 2, file 5.

91 Ibid.

92 Indian Liquor Ordinance (1867) BCARS, GR 1459, box 1, file 18.

93 Ibid.

94 From Vowell to various Indian Agents (17 March 1892) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

95 Supra note 82.

96 Vowell to unknown (9 November 1892) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

97 Phillips to Vowell (11 April 1892) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

98 B.C. Police Court, Savona's Ferry, BCARS, R–0589, vol. 1.

99 Report on the Half-breeds residing on certain reserves. Loring to Vowell (no date) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

100 McLean to unknown (6 May 1913) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

101 Ditchum to Department of Indian Affairs Ottawa (19 February 1912) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

102 McLean to Ditchum (29 February 1912) NAC, RG 10, reel c11063, vol. 3867, file 87, 125.

103 Ibid.

104 From the Secretary of the Department of Indian Affairs to Reverend McKay (3 November 1902) UCA, Fonds 122 Series 14, Presbyterian Church in Canada: Records Pertaining to Aboriginal Peoples in Western Canada. Accession # 79, 199C, box 4, file 43.

105 Van Kirk, S., “Tracing the Fortunes of Five Founding Families of Victoria” (1997/1998) 115/116 B.C. Studies 161.Google Scholar

106 C.J. South to Superintendent General of Indian Affairs (20 September 1905) NAC, RG 10, vol. 3816, file 57, 045–1.

107 Ibid.

108 Ibid.

109 Race and the Education of Desire, supra note 1.

110 Stoler uses this term to describe the large numbers of illegitimate mixed-race children in the colonies. See “Making Empire Respectable”, supra note 4 at 361.

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