A few days ago I signed the agreement that will see me going to Fairhope, Alabama for three months in 2017 — as the Writer-in-Residence at the Center for the Writing Arts.

Here is the link to the item that announces my term on that Center’s web site.

http://www.fairhopecenterforthewritingarts.org/current-news.html

As you will see, I am in pretty good company. The July 2016 WIR is Karen Zacharias, who has written extensively about Vietnam veterans and been hosted at the White House by President Obama.

I was in Bermuda last week and found myself — unexpectedly — thinking about Nova Scotia and the Edward Cornwallis debate.

Over the past few months, many have joined the debate in Nova Scotia (and to a lesser extent a separate one on Prince Edward Island) over what certain British officials did during the colonial era. Edward Cornwallis has been much discussed in NS while in PEI Jeffery Amherst has been singled out by at least one prominent person for criticism. In Cornwallis’s case it was a bounty for scalps of the Mi’kmaq that he authorized. With Amherst it was the approval he gave in a letter (written years after he left the Maritimes) to the idea of distributing smallpox-infested blankets among the Aboriginal people in the Ohio country. 

I think everyone agrees that both of those actions are deplorable. Yet that is far from where the matter ends. A sharp dividing line has emerged between (i) those who affirm that what those British officials approved was awful, yet regrettably that was the way wars were fought at the time; and (ii) those who won’t accept any explanatory context at all. The latter want Cornwallis’s and Amherst’s names (and in the Cornwallis case, a statue as well) removed from public spaces.

It generally seems that there is nothing anyone on either side could say or write to change anyone’s mind on the other. Their views are entrenched. (My personal view is that one of the goals of studying history is to place the people of the past and their actions in the context of their times, but clearly there are some who do not feel that way. For them, on at least some matters, there is no excuse for doing what today we abhor.)

As I said at the start, this debate over the colonial history of the Maritimes came back to me last week in Bermuda. At the time I was going through an exhibit in the Bermuda National Museum (in the Commissioner’s House within the Royal Naval Dockyard). The opening section offers an extensive look at how slavery was such an all-encompassing and frightful fact of life on the island until well into the 19th century.

In Bermuda — and many other southern islands, not to mention colonial North America, including what became the United States and Canada — slavery was a harsh and cruel reality. It touched, harmed, shortened the lives and killed millions of men, women and children over the span of several hundred years.

And yet — and this was my thought that connects to the Cornwallis and Amherst debates — how come there is no outcry in those former slave societies to have the names and faces of the owners of slaves removed from the public spaces they still inhabit?  

True, I am an infrequent visitor to such places and maybe as a tourist I’m not aware of precisely such debates and protests. I admit that. On the other hand, I have had a number of conversations with residents of different southern isles about the slavery era — which lasted until the 1830s and sometimes much later than that — and the impression I always get from the people who live there is essentially this: That was then and this is now. We have moved on; we have turned the page. (That is me paraphrasing.)

One particularly vivid recollection is of a young Antiguan leading a tour to a seaside cliff of jagged rocks where runaway slaves a couple hundred years ago would toss themselves off to their deaths to be free of slavery. “It’s kind of a sad story,” he said. To say the least, I thought. I was astonished that the young man could distance himself from a place and a history that may well have affected some distant relative of his.

I’m thinking that may be the crux of the matter. Some of us see the past as distant, a matter to be understood, whether it was good or bad, and then move on. Others, a smaller number I suspect, see aspects of the past as a troubling legacy for which we need today to atone.

I fall into the former camp, and think it best to have histories that are multi-layered, which recall not just those at the top of the social pyramid but all the way down, histories that include the stories of victims of oppression and barbarous acts, if that’s the way it was. But at the same time, we should aim to understand that it was not just people’s haircuts, heights and fashions that were different in earlier times. but also their minds. The ways of fighting wars, punishing criminals, pursuing economic goals, respecting or devastating the environment, treating children, respecting women and a whole lot more were often drastically different in the past than they are today. And tomorrow will be different again, for better or worse.

Harsh and cruel elements of our shared past should definitely be acknowledged, and remembered. But vilifying individuals who acted along with many others of their era seems to me not to accomplish very much. Our energy is likely better spent improving the lives of people living today.

Here’s hoping this piece will be the last thing I say about Edward Cornwallis and all the controversy that has been swirling around him in recent days, weeks and years.  I was on National Post Radio on May 12 speaking with host Matt Gurney for about 10 minutes, but that wasn’t long enough to say all of this. So I’m repeating some of what I said and adding a bit more.

I think it’s great that Mi’kmaw Elder Daniel Paul has been fighting to have this discussion for years, as part of his life-long struggle for mainstream society in eastern Canada to understand better and show respect for the Mi’kmaq and their culture and history. Through Daniel Paul’s tireless efforts, many have seen the world through his eyes and given him their support on the Cornwallis and other issues.

On the other hand, I am a professional historian, and on that front I understand and sympathize with some of what other historians are saying when they object to some of what is being said to denounce Cornwallis on the radio and in letters to the editor.

It’s tricky seeing merit in both sides, but that’s how it is for me. If you are curious how this plays out in my head, please read on.

• The 18th century in North America was a violent world, much more violent than many people living in 21st-century North America seem to realize today. It was a time when people from Europe thought it right (and God-ordained) that they could colonize the rest of the world, enslaving millions of Africans (with a monstrous death toll) and pushing back or eliminating the indigenous peoples of the Americas who tried to get in their way. There was not constant warfare, but warfare was never too far from anyone’s mind. All the reconstructed and restored forts we visit today as tourists to learn about the past were originally built to defend a territory from someone else, someone who wished them gone or dead. No one today can justify all the blood that was shed in the colonial era by Africans and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, but we can at least acknowledge a few centuries later that there were many wrongs committed. Edward Cornwallis was a product of that era — and thought and acted the way a great many did.
•  Violence was also an everyday part of social and (sometimes) domestic life in Europe and in its colonies. Wives had few rights; servants and slaves almost none. Women and those in service could be disciplined with violence up to a certain point without the police or the courts stepping in. And when it came to criminals, the punishment that was typically exacted was upon their bodies, in a spectacle of suffering that took place in a public setting, often with large crowds looking on and sometimes cheering. Brandings, floggings, hangings and worse (being burned or broken on a wheel) were some of the punishments used, including at Louisbourg and Halifax. It makes one shudder to recall that that’s how it was, but that is the truth. And yes, Edward Cornwallis lived in that era.
• On that same theme of punishing criminals 18th-century style, pirates were sometimes executed and their heads stuck on stakes or their entire cadaver placed in a cage at a harbour entrance to warn other mariners from choosing such a life. Going back into history — across Europe — heads had long been cut off traitors and other enemies and posted in prominent places. It is sickening to think of all this, but it was the way the world was (and still is in some parts of the world.) Scalping is a variation on bringing back a head — but only the hairline is removed and brought back as proof.
• Despite what is sometimes implied, Edward Cornwallis did not show innovation by introducing a bounty for the scalps of the Mi’kmaq. The British colony of Massachusetts first introduced such a measure against their indigenous population more than a half-century before, in 1689. Massachusetts would reintroduce similar bounties with variations several times again before 1750. New York and Pennsylvania paid bounties for scalps as well. Sometimes the payments listed showed that the scalp of a man was to be paid at about the double the rate for women and boys under 12. These facts make one cringe, but the point is that Edward Cornwallis was following the lead of the most prominent British colonies in North America by introducing a bounty on scalps.
• Meanwhile, on nearby Cape Breton Island (them known as Ile Royale), the French administration at Louisbourg was encouraging their allies the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet to attack the English settlements and settlers in any way they could, and it was paying for any scalps brought to Louisbourg. There are numerous instances in the financial accounting of government expenditures (bordereaux) that list payments to Mi’kmaw warriors for scalps.
• I could be wrong, but I believe that Edward Cornwallis’s prejudices about the indigenous peoples, the inevitability of war and the utility of a bounty for scalps were shared by most if not all of his fellow British officers and officials and by most of the settlers. It was the way the world was at that time. This comes home — to me at least — when I read the speech to the troops that Major-General Jeffery Amherst prepared on the eve of the 1758 landing at Louisbourg. (I reproduce some extracts in my book Endgame 1758, p. 197.) Amherst included in his speech a lengthy section on the Aboriginal allies of the French that his British soldiers were likely to meet when they went ashore. He describes them in what today we would describe as “demonizing” terms. Yet Amherst at that point had never set foot anywhere on North American soil. The venomous descriptions came to him, I maintain, because that was how the British officer corps and maybe most contemporary British civilians viewed the Mi’kmaq, Maliseet and other Aboriginal nations of the Americas who were allied to the French.
• None of the above historical context is offered as a way to diminish the objections that Elder Daniel Paul and others voice about the awful reality that once was bounties for scalps. But for me, that historical context is of crucial importance. It suggests that Edward Cornwallis was a product of his era, not some kind of diabolical figure. I think we can and should learn from the horrors of the colonial era, but when we seek to condemn and denounce it is really a period we should have in our sights rather than any individual actor living then. Americans seem able to do this well when it comes to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers. Most if not all of those revolutionaries owned slaves. So while everyone denounces slavery, today’s African Americans  understand that was the era in which Washington and Jefferson lived and as far as I know are not asking for those Founding Fathers to be taken off the currency or their names and statues to be removed.
• As for the requests in Nova Scotia to rename places and features that currently bear the Cornwallis name, if the communities that are most affected (and who live there or nearby) want to do that, they should go ahead.
• I see the prominent statue to the founder of Halifax and the first governor of Nova Scotia in a different light. My suggestion is that the surrounding park be renamed Reconciliation Park and that it be redesigned to feature not just the Cornwallis statue (which will likely have to be shifted from where it is commanding the centre) but also something of equal stature and scale to represent the Mi’kmaq. Maybe that new art will be one or more human figures, or maybe something more abstract. Whatever it is, it should come from and rise proudly out of the culture of the Mi’kmaq.

A J B Johnston, Writer

Is the controversy surrounding the name and statue of Edward Cornwallis of interest to you?If so, the issue is to be explored this Thursday morning (7 to 10 AM, Eastern Time) on National Post Radio, a morning news radio show hosted by Matt Gurney and broadcast on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. I have been asked to take part beginning at 8:45 AM (9:45 Atlantic).

May 7 offered a great afternoon at the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia. That’s because the next generation of writers announced itself with strong readings by each and every one. They were the winners of the Atlantic Writing Competition and the graduates of the Alistair MacLeod Mentorship Program. Here are a couple of photos taken after the event. One is of thee of the five writers who participated in the mentorship Program: Nicola Davison, Lindsay Wilson and Linda MacLean. The other photo is of just Linda and me. We met at the Halifax Central Library to discuss the progress of her work every couple of weeks for five months.