French
History/Heritage
IF Midwest
Tour
July 2008
Commentaries
1) Dick Bernard's Report on the IF
Midwest May 2-3, 2008 Metis Heritage Tour:
From: Dick Bernard [mailto:dick_bernard@msn.com]
Sent: Thu 7/10/2008 8:33 PM
To: Dick Bernard's List
Subject: Meeting Jack Fiddler
----------------------------------------
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 8:28 AM
Subject: P&J#1679A Meeting Jack Fiddler
It was May 2, 2008, and we were nearing the end of a stimulating and
exhausting day on a French-Canadian/Metis heritage tour, and our bus was
humming along towards our destination of Belcourt ND, near the International
Peace Garden, and in the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation.
At one point, when we were both awake, I asked tour leader Dr. Virgil
Benoit, who was sitting across from me, what it was that triggered his
obviously strong sense of compassion and justice. I've known Dr. Benoit, though not well, for perhaps 25
years, and compassion and justice seem to ooze out of every pore.
Virgil answered almost immediately, remembering a long-ago encounter,
when he was perhaps 22, with Roger Jourdain, the legendary, long-term and often
controversial chairman of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa.
We rode on. Exactly what
happened in the encounter between a young white man and a native American elder
is irrelevant.
But whatever it was has had a lifelong impact on Dr. Benoit, farm boy
from Red Lake Falls MN, professor of French at the University of North Dakota,
and passionate salesman for the heritage and relationship of French-Canadians,
native Americans, Michif* and others of the midwest. (Dr. Benoit's current project is at www.ifmidwest.org).
The next day, May 3 at Turtle Mountain Community College in Belcourt,
proved every bit as stimulating and exhausting as the previous day had been.
At one point, I was walking past a table near the entrance to the
auditorium, and noticed a stack of booklets near the wall.
They turned out to be extra 10-page booklets remembering the life of one
Jack Fiddler, who reached 87 years of age before his death April 6, 2008, less
than a month before our day at the college. The booklet cover presented Jack as "Mr. Community
College". The stack of
booklets seemed public property, there for the taking, so I took a couple and
went on to my session.
Fiddler seems to have been a pretty remarkable fellow: born in a one
room home on the reservation, then educated in a one room school, then at
Wahpeton and Flandreau Indian Schools, where he graduated about the time WWII
began with what he later found was the academic level of an eighth grade
student. "Only 20 to 25
percent of the time was spent in the classrooms. The remainder of the time was spent rehearsing for public
events. The policy of the BIA
[Bureau of Indian Affairs] was to show us off. We'd go on tour and perform," said Fiddler.
After a tour in the Merchant Marine in WWII, embarked on a most interesting
and productive life, overcoming obstacles that most of us in the dominant white
culture did not.
Some would have become
embittered. Not Jack. His "deepest passion and social
involvement" came from his belief in self-determined tribal education for
the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. With many others, Jack worked tirelessly to establish Turtle
Mountain Community College. The
college was chartered by the tribe in 1971 and [became] one of the six original
tribal colleges started in the early 1970's in the U.S...From its humble
beginnings in the basement of an abandoned government building to the new
123-acre state of the art campus, Turtle Mountain Community College has become
an integral part of the tribe as it strives to improve all levels of
educational achievement...and public and private economic sustainability of
the Turtle Mountain Band...."
The temporal community Jack Fiddler left on April 6 is not a perfect
place, no more or less so than any community anywhere. But what for certain he left behind was
vision, pride and stamina for others to emulate. One of them was Les Thomas, the local coordinator for our
visit. He documented our visit
through video, and said that an objective would be film on YouTube. The Tribe
is embarked on a major initiative to build its visibility and economic
viability. I'd give it good
odds. Dr. Benoit with his
long-time passion to true dialogue and understanding between the native, Metis,
and white cultures will help.
Reaching any destination can be a long, difficult journey, but every
trip is a succession of steps, hopefully mostly forward, but not all.
Friday morning of the trip I parked my car about a block from the
immense hockey palace in Grand Forks, apparently called "The Ralph"
by locals, but in fact, the Ralph Engelstad Hockey Arena, built for millions of
donated dollars, with the pre-condition that the nickname of the college team
remain the "Fighting Sioux". You don't need to be much of a sports fan to have
heard of the controversy over this.
"The Ralph" was a step back...or was it? Sometimes negative symbols can lead to
positive results.
Several days earlier, I had picked up the April 28 Fargo (ND) Forum, and
on the Opinion page was a long column by former ND Lieutenant Governor Lloyd
Omdahl, which headlined "Apology is long overdue". His column speaks for itself.
Thanks Jack. And Virgil,
and Lloyd, and legions and legions of other women and men who in small ways and
large make a huge difference every day.
I salute you all.
* - I will not attempt to enter into a scholarly debate
about the difference between the words Metis, Michif, Mitchif, metisse...it is,
first of all, a bit dangerous piece of 'water' to enter! Even the pronunciation can be debated. Mostly, let's say, it means mixed
native and white ancestry, often Ojibway or Cree and French-Canadian, but not
always. It seems a variation on
'mestizo', but that would be a point of argument as well. "half-breed" is yet another
word (I am, I guess, a half-breed too, French-Canadian and German ancestry,
roughly half and half.) Oh
well....
* * * * * * *
2) MaryEllen Weller book review - (from
the May 2-3 Tour):
From: Maryellenweller@aol.com
[mailto:Maryellenweller@aol.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 1:01 PM
Subject: re IF Midwest
tour-----an article
Riding the bus was an essential part of the French
Heritage Tour sponsored by the IF Midwest May 2, 2008. Essential because of who
was sitting in those seats. Some were on the program and many were authors of
books related to French-Canadian heritage in the US.
What follows is a review of one of those books, a
fascinating look at the US Civil War as an engine of French-Canadian
immigration. It is not yet available in English.
MaryEllen Weller, French Instructor, Mesabi Range
Community and Technical College, retired.
- - - - - - -
Les Canadiens
Francais et la Guerre de Secession, 1861-1865, une autre dimension de leur
migration aux Etats-Unis
(French Canadians and the War of Secession,
1861-1865, another dimension of their migration to the United States)
by Jean Lamarre, Professor of History, Royal Military
College of Kingston, Ontario
Quebec: VLB Editeur, 2006.
Americans of French-Canadian descent are likely to
find their first immigrant ancestor arrived here between 1840 and 1930. In
those 90 years more than a million French-Canadians came south of the border.
The numbers are especially high during the time of the American Civil War.
Exactly why young men of 15 to 49 (average age 25.2) (p. 51) would choose to
fight in a neighbor's civil war is addressed in Mr. Lamarre's intriguing book
and the answers are surprising.
The facts and evidence on which this work is based
represent months of often tedious research in the National Archives in
Washington D.C. where military records for each and every enlisted man are
found. Lamarre used Record Group 94: the Adjutant General's Office, Civil
War (Union) Compiled Military Service Records. "The researcher who wants to consult the personal
file of a soldier must fill out, for each one, a form on which he indicates the
name of the soldier and his regiment." (p.26)* Using such a laborious
process Lamarre gathered a sample of 1320 Union soldiers of French-Canadian
origin, of whom 1142 were born in French-Canada and 178 in the US. He concludes
that they represent about 10% of the total French-Canadian participation in the
Union Army.
In addition to the challenge of submitting the
necessary forms one by one to establish this sample, was the challenge of
recognizing French surnames from approximate homonymic spellings in English.
The recruits often could not spell their own names. More than 90% of these men
could not sign their contracts and simply made a cross at the bottom of the
page (p. 53). Check Mr. Lamarre's appendix for the name Duquette and you will
get a quick lesson in the challenges he faced. Remember, he had to order each
record individually by name.
Once accessed, the record shows the soldier's age at
enlistment, his home, his place of enrollment, date of enrollment, and assigned
regiment. The appendix which lists this information for the entire sample of
1320 French-Canadian Union soldiers will certainly be useful to anyone doing a
family history. Thirty regiments from Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York,
New Hampshire and Rhode Island are represented. Additionally, the record might
note injury, hospitalization, discharge at the end of his contract,
re-enlistment, or status as a prisoner of war. Lamarre has re-created the
stories of many individual soldiers and tells them with great care within the
body of the text.
The first wave of (over-)confidence and patriotism
that brought volunteers to the Northern Army swept many French-Canadians with
it. An early victory was expected. Some joined for adventure, some for
patriotism, some to combat slavery and some for the security of food, shelter,
and a small salary. Those French-Canadians already living in the US were often
pressured to show their allegiance to their new country by enlisting. In some
communities there was violence against immigrants.
The situation at the border echoes the years of the
Revolution. Just as Loyalists headed north to avoid the Revolutionary War,
many, many French-Canadians returned to Canada alongside Americans seeking
shelter from the conflict.
Lamarre notes that seasonal employment in both logging
and farming, from New England to Michigan, had become a way of life for many
French-Canadians. Some were motivated to enlist to protect these very personal
economic interests. They reasoned that if the South won the war, they could
lose these jobs.
That very line of reasoning reveals a lack of
employment opportunities in French-Canada. Between 12,000 and 20,000
French-Canadians enrolled in the Union Army and Lamarre states that "it is
above all the financial advantages accompanying enlistment that attracted the
French-Canadians"(p. 49). At first, the "assurance of a monthly
salary of $13" seemed "preferable to the idleness and poverty that
awaited them on returning home" p. (48). As this most deadly of all
American conflicts dragged on, with tens of thousands of Union soldiers dying
in battle after battle, and few enlistments to replace them, Congress voted
signing bonuses as part of the Militia Act of 1862. French-Canadian enlistments
went up again. In 1863 a draft was established and "enlistment became even
more profitable". (p. 49)
Lamarre brings out three very important aspects of
recruitment and enlistment that were new to me. One, under the draft it was
legally possible to pay a substitute to enlist in your place. 14% of the
French-Canadians who enrolled, did so as substitutes (p. 58) Two, recruiters
for the Union Army operated in French-Canada openly before the British
enforced the Foreign Enlistment Act (which forbade British subjects from
fighting in foreign wars), and clandestinely as 'job recruiters' even after
Britain's declaration of neutrality. Three, the payment of Bounties to new
recruits after 1862 led to a pattern of desertion and 'bounty jumping'.
Enlisting as a Substitute was dazzlingly attractive.
"The sums paid varied between $100 and $300 in 1863 but they later reached
$600 and even $1000. These amounts represented the equivalent of one to two
year's wages in Eastern Canada, a regular small fortune" (p.59).
The British and their colonies north of the border
were understandably nervous at the assembly of large armies in the States.
Among their fears was possible invasion by a victorious Northern Army. It was
thought that the army would be used to pick off territory or whole colonies and
annex them to the US. Among the results was the British North American Act of
1867. Huge territories recently opened by the ending of the charter of the
Hudson Bay Company in 1860 were indeed causing comment and machinations in the
US. Eastern and Western Canada (French and English) pulled together and became
a confederation and a country rather than a collection of colonies. Many other
factors led to confederation, but the American Civil War had its influence.
With Bounties at amazing levels, the fraud that was
called Bounty Jumping is no surprise. Despite the risk of court martial and
possible execution, some individuals signed up in several different regiments
and collected several bounties, deserting each time, or simply not reporting
for duty. Amazing as it seems, the recruits were paid their Bounty and then given
time to put their affairs in order at home before reporting for duty. How much
temptation does a poor man need? The number who reported honorably for duty is
all the more impressive.
The individual stories that Jean Lamarre has
reconstructed for this fascinating account of Civil War experiences are a great
treasure. Alongside the important facts related to French-Canadian Union Army
soldiers as a whole, each individual story humanizes and verifies those facts.
With illegal immigration ever before us as a 2008
campaign issue, with a fence going up between the US and Mexico, consider just
this one fact: 25% of the Union Army were immigrants. At that time, if you were
here and you were not born here, you were an immigrant. Simple as that. At the
end of the war Union soldiers were granted a free homestead of 180 acres in
remote places like Minnesota and Dakota Territory. It solved two problems at
once: what to do with thousands of men seeking work, and how to populate a
continent.
*All translations are mine, mew.
Note: This book is not yet available in English
translation, but the valuable appendix is easily accessible with a minimal
knowledge of French. An earlier work by Professor Lamarre, The French
Canadians of Michigan: Their Contribution to the Development of the Saginaw
Valley and the Keweenaw Peninsula, 1840-1914 is available in English from Wayne State University Press.
* * * * * * *
3) New York Times article
re 1608 & 1776 submitted by Marie-Reine Mikesell
From: mmikesel@uchicago.edu
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 11:15 PM
Subject: L'HISTOIRE - II
Dick :
I just realized that the text on the INTERNET does not
have the titles which are in the NY Times. So I added them, which will make the
text easier to read.
Marie-Reine
Published in the New York Times : July 3, 2008
ONE NEW WORLD, TWO BIG IDEAS
by
David Hackett Fischer
THIS week,
we the people of North America are staging two celebrations. The Fourth of July
is the 232nd birthday of the United States, and it will be observed as John
Adams prescribed in 1776: a "day of deliverance" in more ways than
one, with "solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty ... pomp and parade ...
shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of
this continent to the other from this time forward forever more."
In Canada,
today, another ceremony will mark the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, the
first permanent settlement in New France. The ancient city has organized a
party that John Adams could not have imagined, with months of festivities,
fireworks and performances. And this morning, at precisely 11, the hour when
Samuel de Champlain and company were thought to have landed at Quebec, bells
will peal across Canada, from Newfoundland to Vancouver.
These
"great anniversary festivals," as Adams called them, are about many
things. They commemorate the founding of new societies and the formation of
cultures that flourish today. But they also celebrate ideas, which are the true
touchstones of our way of life, more than any material foundation. Richard
Hofstadter wrote of the United States that "it has been our fate as a
nation not to have ideologies but to be one." He seemed to think it was a
form of "American exceptionalism," ugly words for an erroneous
thought. Not so. The same might be said in a different way of Canada and
Quebec. In each place, ideas grew from dreams of "prevoyant" people,
to borrow Champlain's word.
In the
United States, July 4 is about a great idea in the Declaration of Independence
— its vision of liberty and freedom, equality and self-government. The
Continental Congress gave Thomas Jefferson a difficult task: frame a vision of
liberty and freedom that all could accept.
Most
Americans believed passionately in liberty and freedom, but they understood
those ideas in very different ways. Town-born New Englanders had an idea of
ordered freedom and the rights of belonging. Virginia's cavaliers thought of
hierarchical liberty as a form of rank. Gentleman freeholders had much of it,
servants little, and slaves nearly none.
Quakers in
Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey believed in a reciprocal liberty of
conscience in the spirit of the golden rule. African slaves thought of liberty
as emancipation. Settlers in the Southern backcountry understood it as a
sovereign individual's right to be free from taxes and government, and to
settle things his own way: Don't tread on me!
In 1776,
Jefferson's job was to bring together these Americans who were united by their
passion for liberty and freedom, but divided by their understanding of those
ideas. With much help from Adams and Benjamin Franklin, he created a new vision
of these principles with many contrived ambiguities, studied evasions and
deliberate omissions on contested questions. Slavery was not condemned and
equality was not defined, nor could they be without disrupting the common cause
in 1776. And yet Jefferson's soaring vision gave these ideas room to grow, and
that great process became the central theme of American history.
WHY WE SHOULD CELEBRATE
QUEBEC'S
400TH BIRTHDAY
What we
might remember today is that Quebec City and Canada grew from another great
idea, different from that of the United States, but just as expansive and
important, and it too will challenge us for a thousand years.
The idea was
Champlain's, the central figure in New France for three decades, from 1603 to
1635. He had a dream that grew from his experiences in France. As a child in
the small seaport of Brouage, he had become accustomed to diversity. As a youth
in the province of Saintonge, he lived on the border between different cultures
and religions, and moved easily between them.
Born in
1567, he came of age in a time of cruel and bitter conflict. From 1562 to 1629,
France suffered through nine civil wars of religion; two million to four
million people died — out of a population of 19 million. Champlain was a
soldier in these wars. He became a devout Catholic who deeply believed in a
universal church that was open to all humanity, and supported Henri IV's policy
of religious toleration for Protestants.
He served
the king as a soldier and secret agent, working for peace and tolerance in
France. He also moved in a circle of French humanists who lived for faith and
reason, science and truth. In a troubled time, they kept the vital impulse of
humanism alive. These forgotten men inherited the Renaissance and inspired the
Enlightenment.
With the
king's encouragement Champlain and other like-minded men turned their thoughts
to the new world. Champlain traveled through the Spanish Empire, and was
shocked by the treatment of Indians. He made a written report to the king with
his own vivid paintings of Indians burned alive by the Inquisition, beaten by
priests for not attending Mass and exploited as forced laborers. With others in
his circle, Champlain planned a New France that would be different from New
Spain. On his first visit to North America in 1603, he went unarmed with one
French friend and two Indian interpreters into the middle of a huge encampment
of Indians from many nations — Montagnais, Algonquin, Etchemin —
near the mouth of the Saguenay River.
He
approached the Indians with respect, joined with them in a long tabagie
(tobacco feast) and made an informal alliance that endured for many
generations. The same thing happened in 1604, when he made peace with the
Penobscot Indians of Maine at a tabagie in what is now downtown Bangor. It
happened again with the Micmac of Acadia in 1605 and the Huron and many
Algonquin nations after 1608.
All this
happened while Champlain was instrumental in founding three French-speaking
cultures in North America — Quebecois, Acadian and Metis. These Frenchmen
did not try to conquer the Indians and compel them to work, as in New Spain.
They did not abuse them as in Virginia, or drive them away as in New England.
In the region that began to be known as Canada, small colonies of Frenchmen and
large Indian nations lived close to one another in a spirit of amity and
concord. This successful partnership was made possible in large measure because
of Champlain's dream of humanity.
Certainly,
Champlain's founding ideas — like Jefferson's — were constrained.
Jefferson's vision of liberty could not solve the problem of slavery, or do
justice to the Indians. Champlain's vision of humanity embraced the Indians but
not his servants. Still, their founding principles define our lives today. As
the celebrations begin in Canada and the United States, the people of North
America are heirs to two great ideas: Jefferson's — and Champlain's.
David
Hackett Fischer, who teaches history at Brandeis University, is the author of
"Washington's Crossing" and the forthcoming "Champlain's
Dream."
* * * * * * *
4) Recent French language origin
reference work
(Grand Merci to Marie-Reine
Mikesell for pointing it out)
D'ou vient l'accent des Quebecois?
Et celui des Parisiens? Essai sur l'origine des accents. Contribution a
l'histoire de la prononciation du francais moderne.
Auteur: Jean-Denis Gendron
Collection: Langue
francaise en Amerique du Nord
312 pages 2007
ISBN: 978-2-7637-8615-5
Presses de l'Universite
Laval:
http://www.pulaval.com/catalogue/vient-accent-des-quebecois-celui-des-9086.html
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webpage created from emails 14 juillet, 2008 [revised 24 juillet, 2008] for mnaatf.org