Historian offers measured defence of Sir John A. Macdonald

Yahoo

22-04-2025

Sir John A. Macdonald & the Apocalyptic Year 1885
Patrice Dutil
Sutherland House
Here's Canada's first prime minister in 1885 talking about the United States and its land-grabbing credo of manifest destiny:
'They desire to enlarge the boundaries of the country; they would like to add Canada to the United States … they said, 'let us hold off a little longer; let us refuse them reciprocity, and Canada will fall like a ripe plum into our mouths.''
Here again, a few months later, is Sir John A. Macdonald, reviled today as the architect of Canada's residential school system, pleading in Parliament on behalf of Indigenous rights:
'Here are Indians, Aboriginal Indians, formerly the lords of the soil, formerly owning the whole of the country. Here they are, in their own land, prevented from either sitting in this House, or voting for men to come here and represent their interests. There are 120,000 of these people, who are virtually and actually disenfranchised, who complain, and justly complain, that they have no representation.'
These remarks are part of the record, and historian Patrice Dutil argues that they are but two reasons for pushing back against the blackening of Macdonald's name in recent years.
'It's hard to imagine a reputation being trashed so hatefully, so suddenly, and so thoroughly,' he writes in his new book, Sir John A. Macdonald & the Apocalyptic Year 1885. And he makes clear that he's seeking to redress a wrong.
'He was very much a man who was remarkably progressive for his times,' Dutil tells Postmedia by phone from his Toronto home. 'And I think that is something that has been underplayed when it comes to our understanding of Macdonald — especially today when politicians and activists are doing everything they can to denigrate his reputation. So I think these two quotes demonstrate that he was very much a realist politician who had great ambitions for the country.'
He argues that in the age of Donald Trump, Canadians need to be especially attentive to Macdonald's commitment to a sovereign Canada. Trump's musings about annexing Canada represent thinking that's always been 'latent' in American politics, Dutil says. In fact he's 'staggered' that Washington didn't actually move against Canada in 1885.
'The Americans had an enormous standing army but they didn't mobilize and move north,' he points out. 'The only reason they didn't was that they still had ample land they could populate.' Meanwhile, Macdonald was setting his own agenda for defence against American expansionism.
'The territories had to be taken over. Rupert's Land had to be taken over … to tell the Americans that this was 'taken' territory.' Macdonald was sending a stern message south of the border: to invade, they would be taking on the British Empire.
'Macdonald understood the American threat,' Dutil says now. 'He was always awake to it. Yes, he wanted to trade with the Americans. Yes, he wanted a free trade deal, but the Americans resisted. So his National Policy was a response to American policy.'
Dutil also suggests that Macdonald established a barrier 'that probably went a long way to protect Indigenous people out west. They would have been annihilated by an American army.'
Dutil was setting down these thoughts in manuscript at a time when statues of Sir John A were starting to come down. This veteran historian's intent was to chronicle what he saw as a crucial year in Canada's history — 'yet I felt that I was having to overcome a great deal of prejudice in our country against Macdonald. It's not the historical record that's troublesome — by and large most historians have been very complimentary toward John A. Macdonald. It's the activists and political enablers that have transformed him into an ogre and attributed to him crimes that he simply never committed.'
The resulting book, published late last year and already in its second printing, is scarcely a work of unblemished hagiography. We also witness the Macdonald who referred to Indians as savages, oversaw an expansion of residential schools, humiliated the Chinese Canadians who helped build a transcontinental railway and saw Louis Riel hanged on his watch. But Dutil argues that, although Macdonald often revealed the prejudices of his times, he must also be assessed within the troubled context of those times.
'He knew exactly what the stakes were, so in terms of being alert to the American threat, he demonstrated it time and again. His contemporaries saw that … which is why he was returned six times to power.'
Dutil knows he is pushing back against contemporary judgment when he argues that Macdonald's policies toward Indigenous communities demonstrated 'openness of spirit, dedication to democracy and a willingness to challenge conventional wisdom.' Yet he himself is also firm in saying that the residential schools left a shameful legacy. 'I do not deny that terrible things happened in residential schools,' he says. But, he asks, should Sir John A. be fingered as the primary villain for a policy which continued under the watch of a succession of prime ministers well into the 20th Century?
'The truth and reconciliation report demonstrated vividly that residential schools predated Macdonald,' Dutil says. 'It was part of the colonialist tradition. That's what people did. What makes Macdonald different is that he was a little more entrepreneurial. His intentions were I think noble. He want to provide an education for Indigenous children. I've tried to illustrate that in the west residential schools were part of a wider range of policy innovations that included model farms and massive budgetary expenditures.'
But what about the famine which ravaged the plains during that decade? What of charges that the government was prepared to allow Indigenous peoples to die of starvation? This book offers a Macdonald in genuine anguish over famine in the west. 'Rations did run out,' Dutil concedes. 'But I have real issues with the demonization of Macdonald as some sort of genocidal maniac who purposely withheld rations to starve people. That's not the case.'
Dutil chose to write about the year 1885 because it confronted Macdonald with a perfect storm of challenges — a predatory America, armed rebellion in the west, financial crises threatening the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, protests against Chinese immigration, a smallpox epidemic in Montreal, pushback against his attempts to expand the franchise, and famine among Indigenous populations in the West.
'I chose to write about that year because to me 1885 seemed inescapable. I thought it would be a useful literary device to see how Macdonald performed as one issue cascaded after another. I wanted to bring out the dynamism of the era and show how he dealt with it — 1885 seemed to crystallize everything by crystallizing Macdonald in action.'
Still the fact remains that Dutil is writing about a polarizing figure in our history. So you ask him the inevitable question. Is it currently possible to have a nuanced conversation about Sir John A. Macdonald?
Dutil's answer is simple and to the point. 'Well, I'm hoping that my book can help.'