"Arts, Faculty of"@en . "Anthropology, Department of"@en . "DSpace"@en . "UBCV"@en . "Dertien, Kim S."@en . "2008-10-03T13:59:09Z"@en . "2008"@en . "Master of Arts - MA"@en . "University of British Columbia"@en . "The identities of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal descendents in British Columbia is as varied as it is complex. In this paper I examine what caused some people of mixed Native and non-Native ancestry not to identify as Aboriginal while others did. The point of fracture for those who identify with their Aboriginal origins and those who do not can be traced to a specific time in our history. More importantly, specific variables were instrumental in causing that divergence of identity, spurred by a pervasive social stigma in colonial society. For many of mixed ancestry, the disassociation from their Aboriginal identity led to generations of silence and denial and eventually to a 'complete disappearance of race'. It was a deliberate breeding out of cultural identity through assimilative ideology and actions in order to conform to European norms.\nDetermining what factors caused this divergence of identity for mixed-descendents entails considering why many Aboriginal women married non-Native partners in B.C. during the mid-19th century, how intermarriage affected identity formation for offspring, and what the multi-generational effects have been on the identities of mixed descendents. Today, this leaves a dilemma for those in-between who are eligible for status, and for those who are not but who choose to reconnect with, acknowledge and learn more of their ancestry. Both assertions of First Nations identity and choices to reconnect with a First Nations heritage while maintaining a non-Native identity, challenge the assumed inevitability of assimilation, and the federal government's continuing reluctance to understand the cultural significance of identification as 'Indian'."@en . "https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/2466?expand=metadata"@en . "3163000 bytes"@en . "application/pdf"@en . "IRREVOCABLE TIES AND FORGOTTEN ANCESTRY: THE LEGACY OF COLONIAL INTERMARRIAGE FOR DESCENDENTS OF MIXED ANCESTRY by KIM S. DERTIEN B.A., University of Victoria, 2003 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Anthropology) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April, 2008 \u00C2\u00A9 Kim S. Dertien, 2008 Abstract The identities of mixed Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal descendents in British Columbia is as varied as it is complex. In this paper I examine what caused some people of mixed Native and non-Native ancestry not to identify as Aboriginal while others did. The point of fracture for those who identify with their Aboriginal origins and those who do not can be traced to a specific time in our history. More importantly, specific variables were instrumental in causing that divergence of identity, spurred by a pervasive social stigma in colonial society. For many of mixed ancestry, the disassociation from their Aboriginal identity led to generations of silence and denial and eventually to a 'complete disappearance of race'. It was a deliberate breeding out of cultural identity through assimilative ideology and actions in order to conform to European norms. Determining what factors caused this divergence of identity for mixed-descendents entails considering why many Aboriginal women married non-Native partners in B.C. during the mid-19th century, how intermarriage affected identity formation for offspring, and what the multi-generational effects have been on the identities of mixed descendents. Today, this leaves a dilemma for those in-between who are eligible for status, and for those who are not but who choose to reconnect with, acknowledge and learn more of their ancestry. Both assertions of First Nations identity and choices to reconnect with a First Nations heritage while maintaining a non- Native identity, challenge the assumed inevitability of assimilation, and the federal government's continuing reluctance to understand the cultural significance of identification as 'Indian'. ii Table of Contents Abstract^ ii Table of Contents^ iii List of Illustrations iv Acknowledgements^ v Introduction 1 Methodology^ 4 Mary's Story 6 The Constraints of Colonial Ideology^ 10 The Fraser Canyon: Zone of Cultural Confluence and Clash^ 13 Agency and Strategy^ 15 Hidden Identities 20 `Selective visibility'^ 22 The maintenance of maternal kinship ties and with community^23 Discontinuity of cultural practice and knowledge^ 25 Changing parent-child relationships^ 27 Public school versus residential school 28 Adoption of another ethnicity 30 Non-European and Aboriginal relations^ 30 Descendents' Divergent Identities 33 Reclaiming and acknowledging ancestry 36 The ethics and politics of recognition^ 38 Conclusion^ 40 Endnotes 43 References^ 45 Appendices Appendix A: Certificate of Approval Behavioural Research Ethics Board^50 Appendix B: Minimal Risk Renewal Behavioural Research Ethics Board 51 iii List of Illustrations Boothroyd Family^ 44 iv Acknowledgements There are many people to thank for their guidance, knowledge, time, and support. First I would like to gratefully acknowledge The St6:16 First Nation and Tribal Council without whose permission this endeavour would not have been possible. Co-Director, St6:16 Research and Resource Management Centre, Albert (Sonny) McHalsie and Archivist, Tia Halstad have been invaluable in their guidance, help and patience. I also gratefully acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their Canada Graduate Scholarship towards graduate school and this project. Deepest thanks, respect and gratitude to my committee members Dr. Patrick Moore and Dr. Bruce Miller, I thank you for wanting to be a part of my journey, for your wealth of experience and knowledge, your expert guidance, patience and perseverance with me. I owe many thanks to the participants who agreed to speak with me and appreciate the time they gave. I would also like to thank Chief Phillip Campbell of the Boothroyd Nation, for his encouragement. To my friend and colleague, Oralia Gomez, thank you my sister. We went through this time together, offering support and encouragement to each other, and much needed laughter. Great love and gratitude goes to my parents and my partner Christopher Loubert, who were my frequent 'financiers', and my most ardent supporters. Thanks to the rest of my family and friends, who were my sounding boards for the difficult times. I must extend much gratitude to Kerry Officer, one of my new found relations, whose genealogy on the Boothroyd family inspired me to take up this topic in grad school. I would also like to thank scholar Jean Barman for her thoughts, the archive sources she shared with me, and for paving the way on settler intermarriage and mixed-race families. A big thank you goes to genealogist Lynn Ross for her wealth of resources, contacts and her perspective. To Irene Bjerky and Clara Chrane, a heartfelt hug for your gracious hospitality, warmth, and humour and for sharing your knowledge with me. Thank you to the Museum of Anthropology Collections Manager, Nancy Bruegeman, for keeping me employed through graduate school. Finally, a special nod goes to my undergraduate mentor, Dr. Andrea Walsh of the University of Victoria, who unbeknownst to her inspired me and set me on this path. \"We must know where we've come from to know where we are going.\" \u00E2\u0080\u0094anonymous Indigenous wisdom Introduction Mary Ann Yale was the matriarch of a mixed Native and European family, the Boothroyds (Boothroyd, G.W and family n.d.; see appendix). She was my great-great grandmother, just one of the many Aboriginal women in British Columbia who married non- Native settlers in the mid to late 19 th century, and who are largely invisible in historical records. Family knowledge of Mary's origins was purposefully kept from her grandchildren, her origin a liability and explanation enough for her anonymity. Within one generation any significant connection to Mary's natal family, community, and culture vanished. Within two generations, Mary had been reduced to a racial 'other' to her mixed-blood grandchildren and their white spouses. For Native women whose marriages with non-Native men endured, their lives and their identities, and those of their female children, were mostly hidden behind their husband's (Barman 1999a:175). This had long-term consequences for the identities of their descendents, some identifying as Aboriginal, and others not, even within the same family. What would cause some people of mixed Native and non-Native ancestry not to identify as Aboriginal while others did? Answering this question meant examining external colonial pressures and constraints of the time, the motivations of Aboriginal women who married non-Native partners, how intermarriage affected identity formation for offspring, and what the multi-generational effects have been on the identities of mixed descendents. Women were motivated to intermarry for their own and their family's security, for access to material goods and a 'better life' than conditions on reserve allowed. Intermarriage was a way to circumvent the rules and regulations of the Indian Act, a strategy to secure land and access to liquor. Some people of mixed ancestry do not identify as Aboriginal as a result of the social 1 stigma their ancestors experienced, which led to strategic disassociation from that identity over generations. Being unable to maintain maternal relationships with kin and community; discontinuity of cultural practice and knowledge; changing child-parental relationships; a public choice of identity alignment through enrollment of children in residential or public school, adoption of another ethnicity; and as Barman (1999a) reveals and research supports, divergent gendered experiences of children, consequently affected identity formation for mixed offspring. This is not an exhaustive list of all the possible reasons, but emerged as common patterns in interviews, literature, and archival documentation. For those of mixed ancestry who did identify as Aboriginal, maintenance of a connection to kin and community was key. The processes leading to this realignment of identity deserve closer examination. The simple explanation of 'colonial assimilation' is part of a continuing colonial discourse that obscures the magnitude of the processes of colonialism and assumes its inevitability. More importantly, this privileging of one identity has been at the expense of descendents' heritage. The cultural identity of those descendents who have not remained connected with Aboriginal communities has been replaced by a generic Canadian identity that relates to a mainstream consciousness that supports `multi-culturalism', but still has difficulty with Aboriginal sovereignty, self-determination, and government-to-government relations. Something else was denied along with Mary's identity\u00E2\u0080\u0094her agency. Histories of colonial British Columbia during settlement show that Aboriginal women were the group most socially and politically marginalized by non-Native society (Barman 1997-98, 1999a, 2005; Brown 1980; Brownlie 2005; Carter 1993; Drake 1978; Ellinghaus 2002; Grimshaw 2002; Lawrence 2004; McClintock 1995; Moran 2001; Perry 2001; Stoler 2002; Strobel 1993; Van Kirk 1985, 2002; Young 1995). During the early days of settlement in British Columbia there were few European women in the colony in proportion to men. It was common for non-Native men to seek Indigenous women for sexual gratification, domestic support, and for some, long-term 2 companionship. Instances of violence against Aboriginal women in relationships with non- Native men were common, yet many women still chose to participate in interracial relations. Their choice to engage in these relations demonstrates the agency Aboriginal women displayed (Barman 1999a, 2004a, 2005; Brown 1980; Peterson Del Mar 1995; Van Kirk 1980). Mary's story, and those of other families like hers, reveals the varied experiences of intermarriage between First Nations women and non-Native partners in British Columbia during its early settlement in the mid-19 th century. Her life, and the Boothroyd family's growth, is a window into the province's colonial history. Embedded in these stories are responses to the social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics at work during this time. Administrators, missionaries, miners, settlers, and developers, who were complicit in the expropriation of First Nations' lands, brought to what is now British Columbia a convergence of pressures in a very short period of time. The southern interior of British Columbia, specifically along the upper Fraser River and Fraser Canyon, is where non-Native, Coast Salish, and Interior Salish worlds met. A cultural, geographical, and political borderland and area of fusion between Aboriginal cultures and non-Native cultures, the territories of the St6:16, Tait [Yale], and Nlaka'pamux Nations' territories was a crucible for the sometimes violent melding of Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. Cultures met and hybrid forms arose, intensifying the concurrent social transformations during this period in B.C. history. Externally imposed religion, education, land pre-emption, competition for resources and changes in Aboriginal local economies, the rapid influx of a large foreign and transient population during the Fraser River and Cariboo gold rushes, diseases, building of roads, bridges and railways, implementation of reservations, et cetera, all impacted the lives of Aboriginal people and shaped the choices First Nations women made in adapting to their rapidly changing environment. Mary lived in this zone of intense interaction between Native and non-Native peoples. Our family was created in this turbulent colonial confluence of peoples and cultures. This is 3 precisely why our story and others like it are relevant today. We were created in the context of an unequal, colonial relationship between peoples, which links us inextricably to the discourses of colonialism that still resonate in the relationship between First Nations, the government, and the general public today in the form of unresolved land claims, social injustice, and legislated identity. There are now many stories of mixed families being written for theses, or published using genealogical resources and family oral histories (Barman 2004a, 2004b, 2005; Bonson 1997; Sterling 1997; Sterling 1998; Keras 1997), yet for generations stories like these were kept quiet. Why are mixed descendants now excited to talk about their ancestry? This change in attitude demonstrates a major shift over time in the desire for those of part-Aboriginal ancestry to align themselves with that heritage. Methodology In this thesis I will focus on Aboriginal and mixed-blood women who married non- Native men because, as Friesen suggests (2006:57), Indigenous women related to newcomers differently than did Aboriginal men. At the time, this type of intermarriage between Native women and non-Native men was more common than the reverse of Native men marrying women of European descent (Ellinghaus 2002). Aboriginal women were easily subsumed into their husband's social world, whereas Aboriginal males operated, at least partially, in the same public sphere as non-Native men, and thus in direct competition with them (Barman 1999a: 173). Intermarriage between Aboriginal women and non-Native settlers has also received more attention from feminist historians because past historical analyses have typically ignored Aboriginal women. Despite their racial visibility resulting from marriage to a non-Native man, Aboriginal and mixed-blood women were still made invisible in the written record, and remained at best on the margins of colonial history. 4 This thesis is based on two case studies of families of mixed Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal origins, as well as fourteen interviews with participants of mixed ancestry, two from one of the case studies, addressing the extent to which they do or do not identify themselves as Aboriginal. The fourteen participants, nine women and five men, were largely contacts recommended by Co-Director, St6:16 Research and Resource Management Centre, Sonny McHalsie, and a mixture of acquaintances and kin. Permission was granted by the St6:16 Tribal Council to conduct research on St6:16 territory with community members and to access St6:16 archive resources. Field research was conducted on Vancouver Island, in Vancouver, the lower mainland, and in the southern interior as far as Boothroyd in the Fraser Canyon, just past Boston Bar. Archival research was conducted through Anglican, provincial, city, and tribal institutions in Victoria, Vancouver, Surrey, Chilliwack, and Yale. In discussing the nature of colonial society, I focus mainly on newcomers who were of European descent, as this group formed the politically dominant majority of the colony whose government operated on race-based policies representative of the ideology at the time, which was especially marginalizing for Aboriginal women. For a more thorough examination of non- European newcomers to British Columbia, see Freisen (2006). This study builds on the foundational scholarship of authors such as Sylvia Van Kirk (1980) and Jennifer Brown (1980) who have given in-depth analyses of fur trade intermarriage, and Jean Barman (1997-98; 1999a; 2005) who has written extensively on the intersections of sexuality, race and gender, and issues of identity for Aboriginal and mixed-blood mothers and their offspring during early settlement. My research uses their analyses of intermarried settlers and Aboriginal women and hybridity as a backdrop to my question of why some mixed descendents today do not identify with their Aboriginal ancestry as they do their non-Native heritage. I want to place these Native women at the forefront of an ethnohistorical analysis of long-term relations with non-Native men in the colonial context, to examine their agency and the 5 problematic constructions of identity for offspring and descendents. The construction of identities is temporally contingent as social identities are constructed in specific historical contexts. These identities are complex, multi-sited, and problematic as they can shift according to necessity or personal gain. For a description of the use of terminology throughout this work see endnotes. 1 Mary's Story \"Commonly called Mary\", \"spinster and concubine\", \"Indian mother\", \"Indian woman\", and 'Mary Anne [of] Yale' are some of the ambiguous, anonymous, and derogatory monikers by which my paternal great-great grandmother from Yale was known, according to her marriage certificate and some of her children's baptismal records (British Columbia, Vital Events 1872; 1872-1873; Diocese of Cariboo 1867; 1872). Though her life was only recorded through her husband, George Boothroyd, and her children's records, it encapsulated the colonial history of what is now British Columbia. Mary was born in the early to mid-1840s, before the founding of the colony of Vancouver Island. Her youth was likely spent helping her family in the Fraser Canyon fishery, utilizing their inherited rights to a fishing spot and a drying rack site. She knew where to pick berries and bulbs and perhaps helped gather cedar roots for basket-making. She likely knew the territory through experience and was taught place names and sacred sites. Her family may have traded at Forts Yale, Langley, and Hope. In her teens at the creation of the colony of British Columbia in 1858, she witnessed approximately 30,000 non-Native men coming through her community in one season and the rapid changes that followed. She saw other women from her village go with non- Native men, experienced the creation of the Yale reserve, met Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries proselytizing in Yale and the Fraser Canyon, experienced the displacement of First Peoples by land-hungry settlers, and saw her community, and possibly her family, decimated by 6 foreign diseases. Later, Mary and her children were affected by the federal Indian Act. By the time the railway was completed in 1885, they were living on the coast. The indigenous side of Mary's life has been left out of the Boothroyd family stories. Though the \"pioneering\" aspect of the story has survived in newspapers, and biographic literature on early settler families, it has been at the cost of the memory of Mary's identity, and those of her children (Surrey Leader 1947; Waite 1974:46; Whiteside 1974:24). \"Family narratives and obituaries increasingly highlighted the pioneering role of fathers; if the mothers were mentioned at all, there was no reference to their being Native,\" (Van Kirk 1997-98:178). Barman (1999a) discusses how their ancestry was overshadowed and generalized by the nationalistic and Eurocentric myth of the 'pioneer settler family'. My great-great grandfather, George Washington Boothroyd, left England with his brother William to join the California gold rush and later, the Fraser River gold rush in 1858. Both men were in Yale by the fall of 1858 (Anonymous 1858). George and William purchased pre-empted land for sale in the Fraser Canyon in the fall of 1862, near the Indian village of Skopalk, in Nlaka'pamux territory (Williams n.d.; Carlson 2001:131). 2 They built a roadhouse called `Forrest House'. The area soon became known as `Boothroyd' to non-Natives, and the name was given to the reserves next to the roadhouse by the federal government (see Harris 2002, appendix of Indian Reserves, Yale District). References to the roadhouse were made in newspapers, such as the British Columbia Examiner (1866), of New Westminster, \"Forest House. 36 MILE POST between Lytton and Boston Bar. Travellers [sic] will find every accommodation at this Hotel. Excellent Cooking. Good beds. Stabling for horses. Hay and Oats. Boothroyd Bros., Props.\" The vague details of Mary's personal life are only known through her husband's records. She either met George in Yale during the early years of the Fraser River gold rush, or was hired as domestic labour for the roadhouse, 36 miles up the canyon from Yale. In either case, it is not known if she became intimate with him while working in the household as happened in other 7 colonial situations such as the Dutch West Indies (Stoler 2002), or if her family was approached for, or arranged, a 'marriage' first. Whatever the case, George and Mary's parents, or father, likely arranged or agreed to the marriage. They became 'Indian married' (without Christian or civil ceremony), and were among the small number of long-term relationships in a period characterized, according to Barman (1999a:165), by numerous short term relations. Either Mary or her parents must have considered George, a businessman, farmer, and religious man, as a worthy and wealthy potential husband, and agreed to the union. They had six children before moving to the coast; three boys and two girls while at Boothroyd, one boy born in Yale while on their way to the coast, and two more boys and a girl while living in Surrey. The first two sons, James Forrest and his brother George Arthur, born 1863 and 1864 respectively, were not baptized until May 6th, 1867 (Diocese of Cariboo Yale 1867). Baptism records show the ambiguous identity Mary had as an 'Indian mother'. This may indicate she was not baptized and given an Anglican name. They also show the contradiction between their non- Christian union and George's need to establish paternal legitimacy and identity of his children through the Christian rite of baptism. Concern for surname and parentage was important for employment and inheritance and it was in the best interest of the sons to have their father's surname legitimized. Baptism was a popular strategy for securing legitimacy during the fur trade, gold rush, and early settlement period for men who did not want their children recorded as 'half- breeds', but who did not wish to legally marry their Aboriginal wives or who found it difficult to obtain a marriage license due to early bureaucratic disorganization (Brown 1980:211; 1999:204, 209, 211; Perry 2001:98). Ten years after their first son was born, and six children later, George and Mary became officially married on Oct. 21 st, 1872. 3 They may have married under pressure from Anglican missionary Rev. John Booth Good who began his mission in Lytton in 1867 and made it his 8 business to travel frequently up and down the canyon to proselytize (Christophers 1998). The marriage was held at the Boothroyd roadhouse and presided over by Rev. Good. One of the witnesses was another settler by the name of William Voght, a German living at Yankee Flat across the river (which would eventually become the town of North Bend), who wed his Aboriginal wife, Theresa Klama, a daughter of the Chief of Boston Bar, at the same service (Diocese of Cariboo 1872; British Columbia, Vital Events 1872). 4 William and Klama already had William Jr., born in 1862, Sophie in 1864, Christina in 1868, and Matilda in 1870 before they were married, and added Tim in 1877 when they were living in the Nicola Valley (Laing 1939:424; Sterling 1998:34). 5 Also like Mary, Theresa Klama and other Aboriginal women and their children lost their status when they officially wed a non-Native man, according to federal law, the Act for the Gradual Enfranchisement of Indians, Statutes Canada 1869, c. 6, subsection 6, which became applicable to those residing in British Columbia when it joined Confederation in 1871 (Venne 1981:12). These women may not have understood the implications or felt the impact of loosing their Native rights and status, especially in cases like Mary's where her environment and kin networks really did not change much. A year later, the Boothroyds moved to New Westminster then Surrey, in St6:16 territory, where they settled and had three more children Financial difficulties at the roadhouse, the selling off of part of their acreage, and speculation of his brother William's opposition to George's marriage to a Native woman, may have prompted the move (Patenaude 1995:39). The Boothroyds farmed, raised cattle, were members of agricultural committees, and walked to the Methodist church in Langley every week for Sunday Service. It must have been a change for Mary with more white neighbours, more public scrutiny, and her family quite a distance away. Mary died in 1894 at approximately 50 years of age of 'consumption' (tuberculosis) which she suffered with for over a year (British Columbia, Vital Events 1894). George died in 1904. It seems almost all the children married white spouses, some a couple of times. The youngest son, 9 Josiah (Joseph), my great grandfather, inherited the house. He married Nell Fairweather, a Euro- Canadian woman from a wealthy Ontario family. They had four children, three girls and my grandfather, none of whom found out about their grandmother's origins until middle age. The Constraints of Colonial Ideology Many authors have identified race, class, and gender as key variables that were central to the colonial mindset and expansionist efforts that affected Indigenous peoples' lives (McClintock 1995; Moran 2001; Stoler 2002; Strobel 1993; Young 1995). Several authors in particular have focused on the intersection of these variables in a Canadian and British Columbian historical context and for Native women specifically (Barman 1997-98, 1999a, 1999b, 2004a, 2005; Brown 1980; Carter 1993; Perry 2001; Van Kirk 1980). These key variables establish the framework of colonial attitudes and ideology that structured the constraints on, and influenced the identity of, Native women and their mixed-blood offspring since mid- 19 th century British Columbia. Racial theorists in 19 th century Victorian England believed in the biological inequality of races and the hierarchical categorizing of humans on a scale from savage to most civilized, placing the white Western European, specifically the British male, at the top. Though there were opponents to this racial hierarchy, such as those opposed to slavery, the theory, \"gained scientific credibility as a result of Darwinian evolutionism,\" (Trigger 2005:113). Racial theory grew in popularity and gained legitimacy through its presentation in pseudo-scientific terms. Though Darwin himself did not support the exploitation of non-Western peoples, his theory was \"popularized and reinforced racist views inherent in colonial situations\" (Trigger 2005:114, 145). It became the justification for colonial expansion, surpassing the initial imperial impetus of economic gain or Christian missionary work (Young 1995:92). Race was further defined in terms of culture and gender differences, and tied intricately to class in the British empire. The working class included many immigrants, who were deemed of the 'lower ranking races' on the racial scale. Given the lowest jobs, they were perceived as 10 degraded and degenerate, living in the slums of England. Fearful of polluting their blood through miscegenation, the upper classes justified the exploitation of the lower classes (McClintock 1995:43-47). Racial theorists advocated avoiding hybridity through sex. 6 The threat was greater in the colonies because of the distance from the imperial homeland, and as McClintock (1995:25) suggests, \"men on the margins had a license to act anti-socially and without consequence.\" Colonial administrators made efforts to discourage metissage (interracial unions). Concubinage, keeping a lover in residence, was a prevalent problem in the British West Indies and for the French and Dutch empires, with live-in housekeepers and maids filling domestic and sexual service, and producing children fathered by their European employers (Stoler 2002:2). The casual sociability with colonized people flew in the face of associations and beliefs about European masculinity, class distinctions, racial membership, sexual morality, and the management of empire (Stoler 2002:6). If fear of hybridity was at the heart of racial theory, both Young (1995) and Stoler (2002) agree that gender and sexuality, lay at the heart of colonial discourse. Imperial perceptions of Indigenous female sexuality were analogous to their expansion into 'virgin', 'wild' lands, needing to be subdued (McClintock 1995:22-30). This ideological framework formed the socio- cultural lens through which European men viewed Native women. In the colony of British Columbia, far removed from England, racial plurality coupled with a huge disparity in the ratio of European women to men, meant cross-cultural sexual relationships were common between Native women and non-Native men. In fact, men from the middle and upper classes also took part in these relationships, and had since the time of their involvement in the fur trade. Among noteable mixed families are Sir James and Amelia Douglas, Govenor Simpson and his many 'country wives', 'Gassy' Jack Deighton and his wife, and the founding families of Victoria, the Works, the Tods, the McNeills, the Rosses, who married Aboriginal women, and their sons-in-law Helmcken, Finlayson, and Tolmie who married their 11 mixed-blood daughters (Van Kirk 1997; Adams 2001; Jackson 1995). Missionaries viewed these mostly unsanctioned, unofficial unions as un-Christian and immoral, while middle class reformers and officials saw them as a threat to the cultural purity and racial identity of the colony, challenging the desired ideal of a dominant white settler colony in British Columbia (Christophers 1998:60; Perry 2001:48, 49, 71). The contention was that interracial sex and the hybrid progeny produced blurred the colour line, making identities ambiguous and harder to distinguish (Moran 2001:43; Perry 2001:75). Race and gender also drove political policy, creating rules and regulations that restricted the lives of Aboriginal peoples through exclusionary and segregationist practices (Perry 2001:111-113). The most comprehensive and racist of these was the Indian Act 1876, a federal amalgamation of previous Ordinances and Acts. The Act legislated how and where Native people could live, based on reserve creation, and legislated who was Native through status. The criteria of Indianness' was based on culture, obvious phenotypical characteristics, linguistic attributes, and gender. The Act specifically marginalized Aboriginal women. In keeping with the European patriarchal system, an Indian woman was indirectly defined in the Indian Act as being a child of, or being married to, an Indian male (S.C. 1876, c. 18, section 3, subsection 3, Venne 1981:24). Their disenfranchisement for marrying non-Native men was to have repercussions that continue today for their descendents. These women and their offspring ceased to be [recognized as] Indian in any respect within the meaning of the Act and as such, were restricted from living on reserve with their non-Native husband and children (S.C. 1876, c. 18, section 3, subsection 3, Venne 1981:25; S.0 1876, section 11, Venne 1981:27). Native men did not endure the same consequences when they married non-Native women. In fact their wives were then considered Indian. The Aboriginality and hybridity of Native wives and children was thus erased through loss of status and by proxy of their non-Native husband's/father's national identity. 12 The geography of British Columbia also impacted its social realities. The size and the rugged topography of the land made it difficult to administer effectively from the few urban centers. With many people passing through rural areas and the close proximity to more visible Native neighbours, there was a more relaxed, mixed-race sociability between different peoples. Mixed couples living in rural areas received less scrutiny than in urban areas (Perry 2001). Historically, the Fraser Canyon was one of the rural areas where interracial relations and intermarriage was common. The Fraser Canyon: Zone of Cultural Confluence and Clash The territories of the St6:16, Yale and Nlaka'pamux Nations are located in southern British Columbia. The boundary zone, with Yale at the centre, is an area of cultural overlap and resource exchange between coastal and interior worlds. Families wanting to increase their resource wealth sought marriage alliances between these nations to secure rights of access to the best resource locations (Carlson 2001:27). The Fraser Canyon, to which Yale stands as the gateway, has provided the best fishing and drying sites in these territories. Keith Carlson (2001:27) argues that, \"Families with valuable canyon fishing and processing sites sought marriage alliances with families who owned complementary valley or ocean resources.\" Intermarried relations from the surrounding St6:16 and Nlaka'pamux territories would then access their extended family members' sites. According to St6:16 community member, Mr. Edward Lorenzetto, in an interview at Ohamil with Wilson Duff in 1950, Yale has long been an established village site, rich in resources (Duff 1950:83, 85). Though claims to the traditional territory are contested today between Yale and St6:16 Nations, it is clear that the Fraser Canyon near Yale was central for subsistence for many people. It was an area where extended relations would fish, gather food, and find marriage partners, and maintain alliances between neighbouring nations for food, trade, and safety before and after newcomers arrived. 13 Historically these regions were also areas of cultural confluence, intermarriage, and clashes between Aboriginal and non-native cultures. The pre-contact custom of intermarriage of peoples from different nations to secure alliances for peace and for trade was extended to the early fur traders. Fort Langley, one of the first trading posts established in St6:16 territory in 1827, and later Fort Hope, were centers for trade between St6:16, Yale, and lower Nlaka'pamux peoples and Europeans. Relations at these forts also facilitated intermarriages between Hudson Bay Company (HBC) elites and employees and local St45:16 people (McNeill 1982). Authors such as Van Kirk (1980:75, 77, 80) and Peterson Del Mar (1995), discussing HBC traders from Rupert's Land and the forts in the northwest, have observed that this mutual instrumentality ensured good prices and sources for furs for the traders through their wives' kinship networks, and gave the women, whose families benefited in social status and access to wealth, more autonomy than they would normally have in their society. 7 Women were instrumental in this mediator role for the success and survival of their husbands, providing food, clothing, shoes, transportation and knowledge of the land (Lawrence 2004:83). Employees, gentlemen, and the chief factors of the forts were seen by ranked societies of the coast to be in proper social standing and class for upper-class Native women (Harmon 1999:30). However, Darren Friesen (2006:57) also suggests these intermarriages provided an opportunity for lower status women to bypass local social protocols and class to attain wealth and better social position. Children produced during the fur trade maintained ties with their mother's kin, and some sons participated in their father's trade as well (Brown 1999:214; Applegate Krouse 1999:75). The agenda of newcomers changed as the fur trade waned and the discovery of gold in the Fraser Canyon in 1858 brought an influx of 30,000 foreigners through St6:16, Yale, and Nlaka'pamux territories. Europeans, Euro-Americans, Chinese, Mexicans, Chileans, Hawaiians, and African-Americans already resident in the colonies were among the diverse people present. Chinook, the fur trade jargon, was the predominant language used between non-Native and 14 Indigenous peoples (Hills 1860a:17). Miners who were starving during the fall and winter of 1858 were called Xwalitem by St6:15 people, meaning 'hungry ones' (Carlson 2001:163). Fed and sheltered by local people, they engaged in sexual relations with Aboriginal women and produced children. Some men lived with women at their homes and followed local custom (Bierwert 2007:196). This was often a short lived arrangement, however, as many newcomers wanted to settle permanently and ownership of land became the priority for the colonial government and early settlers (Yale and District Historical Society 2007:6; Knight 1996:250). Governor James Douglas allowed men to pre-empt 160 acres of unsurveyed land in 1860, without any treaties on the mainland having been negotiated (Perry 2001:126). 8 Reserves were established, and later the Indian Act prevented non-native men from living with women on reserves. Unlike their fur trade predecessors, non-natives in the gold rush period formed a separate and competing society (Carlson, 2001:2). Though Aboriginal peoples were quick to seize the economic opportunities brought by the influx of newcomers, the negative effects were also keenly felt. Miners were ambivalent towards the local indigenous populace and oblivious to First Nations' rights to the land and its resources. Some brought an attitude of racial entitlement with them. \"By June the terraces that would hold campsites for the St6:16 who came from downriver every year were occupied by white miners who did not question their own right to be there,\" (Laforet 1974:38). Carlson (2001:92) notes the frequency of conflict and violent encounters between Aboriginal men and newcomers, including organized regiments of American militia. Bishop Hills's journal also mentions the mistreatment of Aboriginal women and incidents of abduction by Americans (Hills 1860b:162, 163; Hills 1862, 1863:6). Agency and Strategy Did the mutual instrumentality of intermarriage between non-Native men and Aboriginal women, established during the fur trade, change for Aboriginal women during the early 1 5 settlement period as they adapted to new pressures? The motivations of non-Native men had changed. Men were not intermarrying, as previously, to be part of the local community (Carlson 2001:2). In a colony with a paucity of white women, Barman (1997-98:247) believes Aboriginal women were likely seen for their gender and sexuality first rather than for their Aboriginality. European ideas of Aboriginal sexuality devalued and marginalized First Nations women. They were characterized by media, government, Indian agents, the clergy, miners, and settlers as licentious, wanton, immoral, shameless, unhygienic, and associated with disease and prostitution, the opposite of Western notions of womanhood and respectable femininity (Carter 1993:148, 150; Perry 2001:52, 54, 111). Their independent and assertive behaviour in the traditionally male public domain was viewed as 'sexually transgressive' and 'illicit' (Barman 1997-98:241). Solicitation by Native women, or by their relatives, to arrange a marriage in exchange for money was likely misinterpreted by newcomers in some instances as prostitution, as was the traditional practice of selling slaves (Barman 1997-98:21n). However, in lieu of the traditional cultural practice of gifts to the bride's family, money would have been adequate compensation from an outsider, as alluded to by Methodist missionary Thomas Crosby (1904:71; Perry 2001:66). Once a woman found a partner and the compensation was paid, it was understood by her community she was married. The clergy and reformers viewed this cohabitation as open concubinage, another form of prostitution (Perry 2001:56). \"In British Columbia gender, power, and race came together in a manner that made it possible for men in power to condemn Aboriginal sexuality and at the same time to use for their own gratification the very women they had turned into sexual objects,\" (Barman 1997-98:240). The nature of the relationship between Aboriginal and newcomer had changed and colonial agendas were impacting Native peoples' lives. In response, women's motivations for marrying non-Natives likely went beyond concern for just status and access to goods, especially in egalitarian societies such as the Nlaka'pamux. More to the point, as marginalized women with 16 limited options in a non-Native controlled society, they may have been spurred by a sense of urgency for a safe alliance and future security. They may have thought that marrying into white privilege and lifestyle would ensure a better or easier future for their children. It was also a way they could circumvent the constraints of the Indian Act, secure access to land and resources that were being taken from Aboriginal people, and gain access to liquor. Women may have continued their assumptions from the time of the fur trade about the opportunity newcomers represented. During a visit to miners, Bishop Hills noted, \"they allowed that every man kept an Indian squaw,\" (Hills 1861:88). The instances of violent abuse, and even abduction from Native husbands, may have led some to see intermarriage as a form of protection from those dangers. \"Aboriginal women caught in the tumultuous world that was the gold rush sometimes had to make hard decisions, whether for material goods or personal safety. In such circumstances, a lonely miner's entreaties could be persuasive,\" (Barman 1997-98:246). Because of the restrictive regulations of the 1868/69 Act and the amalgamated Indian Act of 1876, intermarriage may have been a strategic move for some to side step those regulations. Definitely the material differences and quality of life would have been obvious. A description about the lifestyle Tina Voght was accustomed to, growing up in a first generation mixed-race household and in her marriage to a non-Native man, is found in the letters of Jessie McQueen, a teacher at the Lower Nicola school, \"they have a very nice house\u00E2\u0080\u0094nice furniture, organ and sewing-machine\u00E2\u0080\u0094about as nice a place as in the Valley, and the old chap is as proud of his young wife as can be,\" (McQueen 1889 NVA). The work of Friesen (2006), parish marriage and baptism records from Hope, Yale, and Lytton since the early 1860s (Diocese of Cariboo 1867; 1872; 1867-1883), and census numbers from 1881 and 1891 (Census of Canada 1881; 1891), all indicate long-term relationships and Christian marriages in upwards of \"1500 mixed-race households, 500 of these were first generation, headed by a non-Native man and an Aboriginal woman,\" (Barman 1999a:160). 17 These numbers, given by those heads of households who were willing to declare it, represent a larger reality. Barman (1999a) suggests that among other reasons, land pre-emption facilitated the permanency of these relationships, but does not indicate why. As the gold rush was dying down in the mid 1860s, and non-Native men were pre-empting land, the short period in which Native men could pre-empt land closed in 1866 (Perry 2001:130). Reserve creation, loss of land, and restrictions on Indigenous land use, including water rights, and access to hunting grounds and berry and bulb patches because of property boundaries, meant Indigenous people were loosing resources. Though women were not permitted to pre-empt land, a benefit of intermarriage with non-Natives, whether official or not, was access to and use of their spouse's land. This is supported in Bierwert's (2007:190) discussion of how a dual strategy of land and resource use was ensured through the colonial system of private homesteading combined with the Aboriginal system of inherited rights of access. Kinship obligation guaranteed sharing and distribution of resources from these lands to family in times of need. This would have been an immediately realized benefit, and perhaps influenced Native women in their assessment of the non-Native suitor's wealth and suitability. Race-based laws prohibiting Aboriginal people from purchasing or possessing alcohol produced another motivation to bypass Indian Act regulations. According to the S.C. 1876 section 90, Any Indian or non-treaty Indian who makes or manufactures any intoxicant, or who has in his possession, or concealed, or who sells, exchanges with, barters, supplies or gives to any other Indian or non-treaty Indian in Canada any kind of intoxicant, shall, on conviction thereof, be liable to imprisonment for a period of not less than one month nor more than six months or a fine of not less than twenty-five or more than one hundred dollars, or to both fine and imprisonment (Venne 1981:90). Though access to and possession of alcohol by Native people was illegal, it was still obtainable, often from unscrupulous bootleggers. Native women, through their liaisons with non-Native 18 men, had more ways to obtain alcohol than did their male counterparts. If they wanted legal access to alcohol then they could marry a non-Native. However, confusion between the race- based law and legislated identity is evident in a letter, dated Oct. 31 st, 1876, from the Mayor of New Westminster to the Hon. A.C. Elliott, Attorney General in Victoria, discussing the case against a vendor charged with supplying alcohol to an Indian woman who happened to be married to a white man. The conviction was dropped because the Mayor, \"was not aware at the time that an Indian woman marrying a white man ceased to be considered any longer an Indian woman in the eyes of the law,\" (Mayor, New Westminster 1876). Though not seen as an Indian woman legally, a Native woman was still considered Native by most whites and would still have a difficult time purchasing alcohol. A few of the participants in my study, using pseudonyms, shared their observations about the effects of the liquor law on Aboriginal people. Bill*, a non-Native man of European descent, moved to Hope in 1951 as a young man and eventually married into a well known Native family. He recalls the contrary effect alcohol restrictions had for many Native people at this time, When I moved out here I saw how the Natives were treated. So many were drinking The reason for that, they weren't allowed into the beer parlour or liquor store like everybody else. They had to get someone to buy it for them. When they got it they had to drink it right away. If they were caught with it, it would be taken away from them or they'd go to jail. That's why there were so many of them that were impaired all the time. As soon as that [law] changed you saw a big difference right away. Hank*, an active First Nations member of the Stas:16 community, and of Nlaka'pamux, St6:16, and Hawaiian ancestry, recounts the lengths people would go to get around the race-based regulation, \"yeah, my cousin used to buy the booze because he was so white. My cousin said there were some that he knew that disenfranchised just so they could go into the liquor store.\" While the perceived gains made through intermarriage softened the impact of the loss of Native women's rights and status, especially in cases where their environment and kin networks 19 did not change much, they and their mixed-blood children would feel the strain of social stigma in the non-Native society in which they now participated. Hidden Identities Aboriginal mothers may have believed their intermarriage would secure access to the non-Native world for the benefit of her children, but what they could not have anticipated was the difficulty they and their children would have in trying to fit into colonial society. For those existing in the world of their European fathers, the fear of rejection and social stigma of their origins was a constant concern. Pressure to align themselves with Western society led to what Barman (1999a) and Van Kirk (1997-98) have discussed as a submerging of Aboriginal women's and mixed children's Aboriginality and hybridity behind the identities of their husbands and fathers. For instance, in the 1881 census (Census of Canada 1881), Mary's Native origin was scratched out and replaced with 'not given' indicating George or Mary did not want her background disclosed. This omission shows the importance placed on hiding her Aboriginality, making her race disappear from public view, in order to meet the European expectations of the ideal family unit and her role as wife and mother. In Van Kirk's (1997- 98:150) view, this conformity helped maintain their class position. As settler society grew, \"Aboriginal ancestry quickly became a source of shame. Mothers and children were subject to growing pressure to acculturate to the fathers' British heritage. These children could not build an identity that acknowledged the duality of their heritage,\" (Van Kirk 1997-98:150). By submerging their mixed ancestry behind the identity of their father, children could gain more access to white privilege and benefit in ways their mothers could not. If phenotypical characteristics were not obvious, a mixed-blood person could even 'pass' for white and be treated differently but not always better (Moran 2001:43). According to Barman's research (1997-98; 1999a), the 'success' of this submergence strategy for offspring diverged along gender lines, influencing the way first and second 20 generation sons and daughters identified and married. Girls were able to hide their ancestry easier in the private domestic space, becoming 'racially invisible' behind their father's, and then their husbands' identities, like their mothers. They mostly married white men, some married mixed-blood men, but few married Aboriginal men. However, sons were forced to live their lives in the public male domain. If phenotypically unable to hide their mixed-blood origins, they were often pushed to the margins and forced into the few non-racialized occupations available to men of First Nations ancestry, such as farming, fishing, logging, and wage labour on the railroad. They often married Aboriginal or mixed-blood women, but rarely married white women. Some did not marry at all. Ellinghaus (2002:56) explains that the reason for the rarity of marriages between Native men and non-Native women was that marriage outside of a European woman's own religious, class, educational, and ethnic group had serious consequences for her social status. As women were totally economically dependent on the social status of their spouse, marrying below, or outside brought her moral worth and capability as a worthy wife and ideal mother into question. While male mixed ancestry and identities were reinforced socially and by their marriage choices, daughters who married white men or men of mixed ancestry may have kept their origins hidden from future children, to the point where, \"children and grandchildren lost any identification with their Aboriginal heritage.\" (Barman 1999a:177). Van Kirk (1997-98:53n) does note, however, that the divergent gender identification and marriage trend does seem to dissipate around the third generation of mixed descendents, at least where sons were able to distinguish themselves professionally or politically. The Voght and Boothroyd families each exemplify, respectively, a divergent gender identification within the same family, and a complete 'disappearance of race'. Of the Voght children, the two sons William Jr. and Tim both married women of full Aboriginal ancestry, while the daughters married non-Native men. The descendents of the Voght daughters identified 21 as white. Deanna Sterling, a descendent of William Jr., states that there has been no contact between those descendents and the First Nations Voght descendents (1998:49). All the Boothroyd sons and daughters became 'racially invisible'. The sons' occupations, according to the 1891 census (Census of Canada 1891), were farmers. As for their marriages, they stand as the rare few first generation mixed-blood men who married white, though one did not marry at all. As for the three daughters, Carrie Boothroyd's first husband may have been of mixed ancestry. His mother's name was 'unknown', a good indicator of a Native mother (British Columbia, Vital Events 1890). Barman (1999a) and Van Kirk's (1997-98) discussions of submergence, gender divergent identities for offspring, and the complete disappearance of race for some mixed descendents, do not delve into the specific factors involved in these processes. Deeper socio-cultural variables have emerged through interview and archival material that not only support Barman (1999a) and Van Kirk's (1997-98) conclusions, but that provide a broader context concerning what facilitated this submergence and resultant effects on identity formation for descendents. The use of `selective visibility' by mothers, the inability for offspring to maintain relationships with maternal kin and community, changing parental-child relationships and expected roles, discontinuity and disassociation of cultural practices and knowledge, a public choice of identity alignment, such as enrollment of children in residential or public school, and adoption of a different ethnic identity, were all factors in whether children formed Aboriginal or non-Native identities. `Selective visibility' It is difficult to know just how public Mary was as George's wife. Descriptions of Aboriginal wives and mothers, such as Theresa Klama Voght, and Amelia Douglas, the wife of Governor James Douglas, painted them as shy, quiet, and modest (Adams 2001; Sterling 1997:161). However, records of the time indicate that they were likely complicit in this 22 perception, choosing to keep a low profile when non-Native visitors were around. They were under constant judgment in their domestic space, about their bodies, their morality and propriety, and hence their representation. References were made to an Aboriginal woman's body as \"clean\" or \"dirty\", \"light\" or \"dark\", and to domestic space as \"orderly\" or \"askew\" and \"messy\". The appearance and behaviour of mixed children was also assessed, Bishop Hills visited Mr. and Mrs. Hall who instruct the Indian children. Their neighbours are a white man, Mr. Cotsford and his Indian wife. She is a nice, clean, and well-ordered person, understands, but will not speak English. You would not know her pretty little girl of seven years from an English girl of superior parentage. The child speaks English, (Hills 1860a:18). Mrs. Theresa Klama Voght is also referenced, \"the mother is a pretty neat little thing but she keeps out of sight when there is company, (McQueen 1888). This 'selective visibility' these women, and others like them, were engaging in encouraged their 'racial invisibility', giving them some form of control over how they were to be perceived by non-Native society. Miller (2003:26) explains that for those people who are stigmatized, persecuted, who exist outside the accepted norms of mainstream, or who have a very public profile, choosing how, when, and where they wish to be publicly visible affords some level of safety and control over their public identity. For Aboriginal women, 'selective visibility' challenged the view, or the gaze, of non-Native society through a safe, supportive, or neutral environment. It was a strategy to manipulate approval and acceptance, along with fulfillment of the domestic role of wife and mother, cultural participation in Western forms, and religious participation. Mary and her family walked a fair distance to church every Sunday, open to full public view and scrutiny. This may have been as much a day to demonstrate her social status and identity as wife, mother, and Christian, as a day of worship for her and the family. The maintenance of maternal kinship ties and with community Proximity to kin and community was a prevalent factor in the maintenance of family ties and cultural traditions. Some non-Native men and their Aboriginal wives settled some distance 23 from the women's kin, making visitation more difficult and less frequent. Though they may still have seen their kin from time to time, their children would not have the benefit of growing up around kin, learning from them, or participating in that community the way their mother had. For instance, having a maternal grandmother live with or raise the first few generations of mixed children during their childhood seems to have been an important factor in the maintenance and continuity of cultural tradition and an Aboriginal identity for mixed children (Ravicz et al 1984:48). In Wilson Duff's interview (1950:41) with St6:16 members, August Jack, Lizzie Joe, Patrick Charlie, and Robert Joe about traditional residence rules, Lizzie Joe explained, \"traditionally, [it] depended on if parents of the girl were wealthier than the man If so then he couldn't take her away. He and his people had to be worth more than the girl's parents to be able to take her away.\" Perhaps with the political and economic power non-Native, especially European, men had, they were considered worthy of taking their Aboriginal wives away from her family. Roberta*, a St6:16 mother of mixed Native and European ancestry living on reserve, noted that Native children were taught from early childhood who their relations were and the importance of maintaining an extended kin support system, whereas the mixed children of the settler nuclear family unit were not familiar with their father's kin who were rarely present, and were likely far from their mother's kin. This disassociation from their mother's relations may have been the greatest factor in the formation of mixed offsprings' identities. For instance, Bill Voght Jr.'s mixed identity was maintained through his marriage to his Native wife, Shannie Antoine, and his relations with his mother's kin, but his sisters married non-Natives, whose children had little to do with First Nations people (Sterling 1997; Sterling 1998:49). Another instance of removal from extended relations and life in the community occurred when the Indian Act restricted mixed families from living on reserve. Margarita*, a St6:16 great- great grandmother now in her 90s, remembers being kicked off reserve for marrying 'white', 24 even though her partner was 'a quarter breed' and could speak the language. However she, like many others, visited her family often and her children maintained their connection to kin and their culture. Discontinuity of cultural practice and knowledge Distance or disassociation from relations, and the pressure to submerge one's Aboriginality or hybridity meant many cultural practices were discontinued. European fathers concerned about their family fitting into colonial society discouraged mothers from passing on distinctive cultural practices and Native ways to their children, \"to obscure heritage to avoid discrimination,\" (Miller 2003:10). Children could not learn about their surrounding environment, or how to survive in it, in the same way their mothers or her relations had. Participation in the community and cultural knowledge learned within that dynamic was lost. The children didn't learn how to survive. Didn't learn about the earth. Their minds were wasted. That's what granny said. Because there was no knowledge being taught or passed on. They became, we called them brainless people because they didn't know any better. They didn't know anything around them. They didn't speak their language (Roberta*). However, some knowledge could be transmitted that was not socially obvious. A few participants discussed how this was done when the non-Native father was not around. Ambiguous activities such as berry picking provided an isolated setting for mothers to teach children about medicinal plants they encountered, important geographic sites, and the stories attached to them if they still lived in their natal environment, and an opportunity for them to speak their language if they continued to use it. Vicki* and her First Nations cousin Deborah* remembered their mothers speaking Nlaka'pamuxcin in secret to them when their fathers were not around. Janet's* father, a descendent of Yale and European ancestry, had the same experience, \"His mother gave them Native names. He has a Native name and so did his brother and sister. She used to sing to them and such in the Native language when their father wasn't around. It wasn't allowed when he was home in the house.\" Another descendent of European and 25 Nlaka'pamux ancestry, Donna*, a grandmother who acknowledges her mixed heritage, remembers being out in the woods with her mixed Nlaka'pamux and European grandmother, \"she took her daughters and granddaughters to the mountains and Frozen Lake. It was the only time she talked about her Aboriginal heritage and taught Indian ways. If she was at home we didn't talk about it.\" Some mixed children who did not identify with their mixed origins chose to ignore it and did not teach their children anything about their ancestry. Bob's* grandmother was in the first generation of mixed-blood children of a St6:16 mother and Chilean father. She did not accept her Indianness in adulthood and wanted to identify with non-Native society. She married an Englishman who was adamant about raising his children as non-Native. She would not speak Halkomelem because she associated it with the past not progress, and she did not teach the language or any cultural teachings or practices to her children. A 'white education' for her kids was important to her. Bob: My grandmother was proud to be accepted into the mainstream society. She didn't participate in the traditional way of life. I think at that time survival was the name of the game and the easiest way to go was to accept mainstream society's way. It was just a matter of survival and putting food on the table. Author: Was she involved in the church? B: Yes, very much so. She looked after the church. The priest asked her to look after the altar. She had a flower garden and made sure there were fresh flowers. However, not speaking the language in a family that does identify as Native does not seem to have been a factor in the formation of identity either. Rita*, a First Nations grandmother of St6:16, Hawaiian, and European ancestry, who was raised on reserve by her grandparents, is an example. My grandparents wouldn't teach me the Halkomelem language because I guess way back it was discouraged in the schools. You would be punished if you spoke the language. My grandmother said, 'you're better off not knowing the language. You are better off being able to find work away from here.' She and grandpa both spoke the language but they didn't want us to know it. 26 Whatever the context, whether wanting to or having to submerge Aboriginal origins and identity, or even for those claiming a Native identity, generations of stigma and pressure to conform led to a discontinuity of cultural practice, and knowledge, including language. Changing parent-child relationships Each generation's social environment provides exposure to different experiences and relations than their parents, affecting how they choose to align themselves in the world. Women who moved out of their family's home and community environment into the settler's house stepped into a very different way of living. Sean* discussed the debates that were raised between his Sto:lo and Chilean great grandmother, who married a strict Englishman, and Sean's* grandmother who married a man of mixed ancestry, concerning child raising practices. \"[My grandmother] used to get into arguments with her mother because she was trying to push the European way, so they had different ideas about how kids should be brought up. My grandmother, she was definitely Native-oriented in her outlook on life.\" For children, acculturation and socialization to their parents' cultural identities can establish a familiarity with those relationship dynamics and reaffirm their dual identity. Crisca Bierwert's (2007) discussion of Estelle Fuchs' interview with Fred Ewen in 1945 demonstrates how some mixed children were socialized to the cultural identity of both their parents. Fred's father was Chinese. Both Fred's younger and older sisters married Chinese men. His St6:16 mother remarried after his father's death to another Chinese man. Fred's wife, Josephine Alec was also half St6:16 and half Chinese. Her father was also Chinese, so Fred and Josephine experienced the same socialization to their parents cultural identities growing up. Yet Fred retained the Halkomelem language, and his mother made sure while he was home from residential school that the elders taught him traditional ways. His mother made sure he maintained his St6:16 heritage, while being socialized to having persons of Chinese heritage close to him in family roles (Bierwert 2007:188). 27 On the other hand, some children of mixed heritage whose parents did not want them to identify as Native and did not teach them the language or material arts still grew up to embrace their ancestry. For many, this came about when their childhood sense of self was negatively challenged by others, who assigned them a different cultural affiliation, whether they wished to identify that way or not. Public school versus residential school Which schools parents selected for their mixed-blood children also reveals their concern about stigma. Parents of mixed children who wished their children's identities to be understood by outsiders as non-Native preferred public schools. Other mixed children attended boarding schools specifically for them, while some attended residential schools, at least until federal policy prohibited non-status children from attending in a focused effort to segregate and indoctrinate Indian children. Some Native children were transferred to public schools because of parents' concerns about their treatment at residential schools. Four of the first generation of Voght children, Bill Jr. age 12, Sophie 11, Christine 9, and Matilda 7, attended public school. The enrollment lists spanning from September 1875 to November 1878 showed that they attended the Forks and Woodward's schools, taught on alternate days, in the Nicola Valley (A. Irwin 1876). Proudly reporting on the progress made by the students from both schools in Nov. 1878, the teacher commented that, \"when the schools first started, few could read and several could not speak or understand English. All of those attending the East end [Forks] school are half-breeds. Many of their fathers are unlearned,\" (A. Irwin 1878). Bill Voght Jr.'s children were encouraged to go to residential school by Father Lejeune, and Bill's wife's mother, who feared they would be subject to hardening racism at public school. They were admitted under the false last name of William. After several bad experiences, 28 however, the children were transferred to public school, where they were racially targeted by white students and faculty (Sterling 1997:163). Every one of the participants I spoke with mentioned they and their elders experienced bullying associated with racism at both residential and public schools from fellow students and faculty. But where residential school recognized Indianness and tried to take it away from Native children through corporal punishment, children of mixed ancestry, who were mostly enrolled in predominantly non-Native public schools, were racialized as Indian or 'half-breeds' and subject to name-calling and physical violence (Ravicz et al. 1984:48). Though Bob's* grandmother did not want to identify as a Native person, her children had to face their ancestry and had their identities challenged at public school. My mom didn't [recognize her ancestry] until she started going to school with other kids. My mom realized the positions the kids were in because there weren't other Native kids around, they were shipped off to residential school. She wasn't, she started fighting back when she would get called names She said she just would start swinging (Bob*). Donna* and her sister were bullied by children at public school for having part Native blood. Physical fights and name-calling, using terms like 'squaw' or `siwash', were typical. To this day Donna's* sister denies her mixed-ancestry. Yet prejudice came from both sides, as Janet* explains about her adolescence, \"my dad was a half-blood. I started noticing things when I went to high school. The Natives didn't want to associate with you because you weren't Native enough and vice versa. I just went my own way.\" Mixed children experienced racism and violence, much like their ancestors, and either accepted their mixed heritage, or distanced themselves from it, perpetuating denial for following generations. These experiences may also have influenced who they chose as marriage partners. For some, even this choice was taken from them. Donna's* grandmother attended All Hallows Girls school for Indian and 'half-breed' girls in Yale, opened in 1885. Besides an emphasis on domestic proficiency and fulfilling their gender role in non-Native society, All Hallows went a 29 step further and married off their charges for fear of their safety and virtue if let out into the world on their own. Donna's* non-Native grandfather went to look for his wife there. \"That was how things were done in those days. It was arranged through the nuns. But [the girl's] family had to know.\" This practice was also carried out at The Sisters of St. Ann and at missionary Thomas Crosby's 'Girls' Home' (Barman 1999a, 1997-98:261). \"Girls were frequently married from the school to men chosen for them either by the sisters or, in some cases, by their fathers,\" (Barman 1999a:175). Adoption of another ethnicity Another strategy that emerged to hide Aboriginal ancestry was the adoption of a non- Aboriginal ethnic identity that fit their appearance, such as Mexican, Spanish, or Portuguese. Having less opportunity than their mixed-blood sisters of hiding their origin, this tactic may have been used particularly by mixed-blood men and their offspring to blend in. It may also be that this ethnic adoption may not have been known about by subsequent generations, just as subsequent generations of 'white' families did not know of their mixed ancestry. Janet* has done extensive genealogical research on her family tree and discovered that her mother's family, over at least two generations, had done just that, Grandpa was a half-breed and grandma was also, mom would have been a half-breed. There was a period in there when they were ashamed of their Native blood. [On] mom's side nothing was passed on because for quite a few years they refused to acknowledge that they were Native. They said they were Spanish, her brothers and sisters. I mean you could just look at them and know the difference, but nevertheless that's what they wanted. Non-European and Aboriginal relations It is important to note that there was a difference between Aboriginal intermarriages with Europeans and those with non-Europeans. StO:16 genealogical researcher Lynn Ross, who is of mixed ancestry remarked that, Marriages of-colour, such as with Hawaiians, Chinese, Mexican, African-American, Japanese et cetera, were different because both partners were marginalized at some level 30 by Europeans. They did not have such pressures to conform to European standards or to deny their own identities and cultures, whereas the European men could not give up the dominance of their ideology, so the women followed and became 'housekeepers'. The fishing and hops industries were also an economic and social way to blend if of-colour. When the Aboriginal side is visible it is more of an interracial society or at least more easily accepted, (personal communication, June 17 2007). Mixed offspring who had non-European, non-Native fathers were more able to continue many of the cultural practices their mothers taught them, allowing their mixed heritage to flourish. Darren Friesen's (2006) thesis discusses race and its role in the conceptualization of otherness from the perspective of Indigenous peoples of the lower Fraser River between 1828 and the 1920s in relations between St6:16 people and Euro-Canadians, Americans, Hawaiians, Chinese, and Japanese immigrants. His main contention is that St6:16 notions of otherness, determined on a socio-cultural level, informed their interactions with different newcomers from the Pacific region. European conceptualizations of otherness operated on ethnocentric and racial perceptions. These contrasting views influenced the kinds of kinship ties established between St6:16 and European and non-European men during the fur trade. In this regard it is not difficult to see how descendents of Native and non-Native ancestry have stayed connected, or identify only, with their Native origins. However, although non- European newcomers never formed a dominant and oppressive competing society with Aboriginal peoples, they were still accorded rights and freedoms that were not extended to Aboriginal peoples. Two First Nations interview participants were of part Hawaiian ancestry. They discussed how today they are proud of this ancestry and are exploring who their Hawaiian ancestors were, but that there was a time in their own families that being of part Hawaiian ancestry was a contentious issue for some members. Rita* talked about how her uncles were at odds over knowing their ancestry better, One of my uncles wanted to know more about his Hawaiian side. The older brother, the middle one would tell him to leave it alone, just forget it. The younger one asked why. The older one said because most of the people back then weren't even married. Of course back then that was terrible. My uncle didn't care, he just wanted to find out what part of 31 Hawaii they were from. Yeah, the other brother didn't want anything to do with it. When the Hawaiian men came over, some of them took up land, many of them married Native women. Rita* believes that the Hawaiian men who 'married' Native women were resented by Native men because they had dark skin and were able to pre-empt land. Hank* tells of how his father and his uncle came to fistacuffs about their ancestry, No, my dad didn't like the fact that there was, because the Hawaiians were darker skinned They actually called them black. He didn't like it for some reason, I don't know why. But I recall him and my uncle, my dad's older brother, getting into fights about it. My uncle told him, 'you gotta accept it. That's the way it is. You can't change it. Be proud of your background.' My dad would just go against it and they'd go outside fighting. Stigma attached to having Hawaiian ancestry may have been for different reasons in different time periods. Early resentment may have been one factor that fueled later stigma associated with skin colour, but Rita* suspects that the early silence concerning Hawaiian ancestry was for another reason, \"you know what it was\u00E2\u0080\u0094I don't think it was only being Hawaiian, but the Indians believed if the government knew say, I was half Hawaiian, I would lose all my rights.\" The implication then is that because most early 'Indian marriages' were not official, women and children did not lose their rights like when they officially married non-Native men. Descendents kept their ancestor's non-Native ethnicity hidden for fear of losing their rights. \"Relationships between Hawaiian men and St6:16 women that began over a century and a half ago, then, continue to play a part in the formation of personal and family identities within contemporary St6:16 society. Differing opinions on the place of Hawaiian ancestry in St6:16 families reflect the contested and fluid nature of Coast Salish identity and notions of race,\" (Friesen 2006:22, 23). 32 Descendents' Divergent Identities What have the multi-generational effects been on First Nation, and Euro-Canadian, identifying mixed descendents in their identity formation? Mihesuah (1998), Lawrence (2004), Bizzaro (2004), and Applegate Krouse (1999) describe the complex nature and politics of Native identity, especially mixed Native identity, as ascribed to and assigned by Indigenous communities and ideas of Indigenous nationhood, but also, external impositions of Indianness by the mainstream public, and legislated identity in the Indian Act by the Canadian government. I address what some of these authors have not, specifically the \"permanent loss\" of Aboriginal identity, the implications of what this means, and its eventual acknowledgement, recognition, and even its celebration by mixed-descendents. Interview participants discussed what their ancestry has meant to them. Many issues were emotional, particularly those focused on: denial of ancestry, divergent identities within the same family, the problematic contingency of appearance, and the challenges of reclaiming and recognition of ancestry. Both First Nations and non First Nations mixed descendents experienced similar feelings of shame, ambivalence, animosity, loss, but as well a sense of regained pride. Stigma was a common element. Lawrence (2004:124) describes how silence has been a long- term strategy in families for coping with difference and as a form of protection, a self-enforced minimization of Indianness. For many, this denial has brought internalized racism and shame, and for others it is has been a way to attain better opportunities. Just like his mom who, as a youth, came to realize her and her siblings' background, Bob* and most of his siblings also accepted it. Only one brother would never accept the fact that he was First Nations. Why I don't know. He denied it. My sisters got interested when mom joined the Coqualeetza Elders group and they saw how much she was growing and just picked it up from her. I have one sister who married a First Nations person and they have two children (Bob*). 33 \"There were definitely times when we weren't proud of being Native. Lots of feelings like that. I don't think my kids go through it though. But people in my generation, like my siblings, there were definitely times back then that we wished we weren't,\" (Hank*). Patricia*, a mother of mixed Nlaka'pamux and European ancestry married to a non- Native man, was reluctant about her heritage all through her youth. She recounts her long journey to finally embracing her First Nations identity. Her grandmother remarried a non-Native man when her mother was six and moved away from their home in the Fraser Canyon as her mother's stepfather was working on the railroad. Her mother and younger aunt were not brought up near the extended family in the Fraser Canyon or Valley like their three older sisters, but they still maintained contact with family on the reserve. Patricia*: Mom had said that her parents wanted the girls to be raised off reserve so they didn't have to go through what they did at residential school. So my mom and her younger sister went through public school. My mom eventually married my father who is non-Native. It was not until I was nine and we moved away from the Fraser Canyon that I realized that I was an Indian. We saw the larger extended family at ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. [These short visits] didn't allow us to really connect or establish a relationship with them. When I looked out from the head table it was just a sea of brown faces, most of whom I knew I was somehow related to. It was just like, oh yeah, this is part of me but could not embrace it. I didn't want to embrace or associate with our culture because of things that happened at school, being treated differently by a number of instructors, many students, and hearing racial comments. I just learned not to recognize it, being a First Nations person. You pretend you are everything else but First Nations. I was Spanish, Scottish, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, French and then amongst that I would say I was part Indian. I didn't grow up saying that I was First Nations. It wasn't something I would be proud of or celebrated. It wasn't till I had my daughter that I finally started recognizing and accepting who I was. Appearance can be problematic for mixed descendents and how they are perceived, regardless of how they identify. Appearance was an issue for most of the participants and their families. Lawrence (2004:173-185) notes that the privileges that come with skin colour change with location and identity affiliation. In white society, those of mixed ancestry with light skin may choose to identify with their Indianness but may be rendered inauthentic, while those with darker skin have little choice in the identity assigned to them. Whether born with light or dark 34 features, prejudice can come from both sides. Where light skinned privilege may be seen as a positive within a prejudiced society, the racial ambiguity of a light skinned First Nations person can become a burden around other First Nations people. Vickie*, who is very fair, revealed the difficulty she has with initial acceptance by other First Nations people, \"I have to show and prove because of my skin and my eyes, prove that I'm different. I've always had that. My sister was very dark, very brown eyes, beautiful complexion but we were treated totally different.\" Roberta's* family have experienced the sting of prejudice from other Native people for their appearance, leading family members to view their identity in different ways, some with shame, others like Roberta* with pride. Her father and his brother brought their two new brides, sisters of mixed ancestry, to their reserve to live. The people here didn't accept my mom and my aunt. My mother was as white as you are. My aunt was maybe a couple of shades darker but not much. Her children came out real fair in colour. My family came out a little darker but had light curly hair. My offspring have curly hair. The Italian really came out in our children. So being fair, they were not accepted. My mother always talked about 'those Indians'. She hated them because they treated her so badly. My sisters are still prejudiced. They said to me, 'oh she's dark.' My mother told me that I was dark. I'm me. I'm a Native. And I believe in my Native ancestry. My sisters don't and they're ashamed of it. Some of my children are kind of ashamed of it. My oldest son isn't, my daughter isn't but my [other] two sons are. They don't want to face the fact that they're Native. So that stigma is still there (Roberta*). Some see a light complexion as a possibility to side-step racism. The kids that don't look like there is any Native in them, I think they lead a different life because they don't have to endure the racism. My niece is like that because my sister is half non-Native and her husband is also mixed, but for the most part you can barely tell they are part First Nations. I can see it the way her daughter carries herself and the way she talks. I don't think she endures the same racism as the rest of us. My sister, you know how light skinned she is, when we were younger we asked her, \"how do you get your skin so light?\" She said, \"I just scrub it lots when I'm washing.\" So we're all in there scrubbing really hard trying to get white skin like her (Hank*)! Patricia's* two daughters have embraced their background, but the oldest has faced discrimination because of her fair skin, and felt the stigma of her mixed ancestry. Patricia* registered her daughter as an Aboriginal student, so she started learning about First Nations studies. However, because of the discrimination taking place in high school, she avoided the 35 program. She felt it was easier to disassociate from it and be as mainstream as possible. Yet, she chose to continue her cultural studies in a culturally relevant setting by working in the summers at the Mission Friendship Center, and then at Xa:ytem'for a few years. She worked in the First Nations world and learned about our ancestry, culture, and practices, but looked very non-Native. So she sometimes dealt with the reverse. There were people that would come in and they'd naturally want to gravitate away from her towards a 'real Indian'. Someone who is of European descent would think, well how can you know all this, well you're really not legit. So we're going to go over here because this person is brown (Patricia*). Reclaiming and acknowledging ancestry Why are descendants now coming out with their family stories about mixed ancestry, or having their feet in both worlds (Bonson 1997; Sterling 1997; Sterling 1998; Keras 1997; Bjerky 2001)? Why is it now felt safe to discuss these personal histories? Four reasons seem prominent. First there is more freedom, and encouragement to do so. There is an environment of acceptance today within our plural society for the complexity of identity and its often multi-sitedness in a multicultural nation-state such as Canada. Descendents have more access to education now than \u00E2\u0080\u00A2 generations past and are becoming familiar with the historic and contemporary complexity of the issue. First Nations studies, formally or informally through oral histories and literature, means positive steps are being taken in adulthood to deepen ties or reconnect in ways that are available to descendents of mixed ancestry (Ravicz, et al. 1984:49, 50). Archival institutions and genealogical societies encourage the public to access information and find out about their lineages. Second, these developments have occurred in the context of Bill C-31, making the reinstatment of status viable for many (Ravicz, et al. 1984:49, 50). Third, First Nations peoples and issues concerning land, resources, reconciliation, and treaties are high profile in mainstream media. They strive to make people aware of their indigenous rights, social injustice, reparations and the culpability of the church and government regarding residential schools, and inequality. They also challenge static concepts of Aboriginal identity through political, social, and cultural 36 demonstrations of resistance to corporations and government, and good will work with the public about cultural pride and continuance. Fourth, there is a sense of urgency as those with knowledge pass, descendents get older, and government regulations, such as the Indian Act and Bill C-31, which only reinstates status up to the grandchildren of a disenfranchised First Nations woman, disqualify unborn generations of their Aboriginal nationality. This is effectively causing what Lawrence (2004:64) describes as a 'bleeding-off of Band membership. Donna's* daughter, Jennifer*, really became connected to her family history at the age of 13, when she had to make a family tree for a school assignment. It became very important to her as she grew up and became connected socially and culturally with her First Nation relations, and members of the Yale and Spuzzum First Nations communities. Though she was raised outside of them and is non-status, she identifies as both Native and non-Native. She has been given her ancestor's name, and has continued with contract, consultative, and collaborative research on geneaology and Interior Salish basketry, including those done by her great and great-great grandmothers. Bob* too believes more people now are wanting to research and connect with their family histories, \"I think a lot of people at this time, this generation, are the ones that are standing up, making a stand and a statement that they are First Nations.\" Author: Why do you think people are standing up now? Bob*: I think it is more the awareness that they are actually losing something and that it is important to recognize the fact that you are First Nations. It is a way of life. A: What about the people who were not acculturated or socially trained and are not First Nations politically or socially, but they are of mixed ancestry, why do think it would be important for them to recognize that and bring that out in their family? B: I think it is important for them to know. I think it is just the awareness now. I don't know who coined the phrase \"know who you are\", but, the past generation, mine, we're going into our 60s pretty quick so it is something that could be lost. All these government things that control your lives, you got to pick it up and do something or shut up. 37 Janet's* grandchildren know their family ancestry. Janet* has her application in for her status under Bill C-31. Author: What do your kids think about it? Do they want to know more? J: Yeah. Some of them think that is pretty good, some don't think about it. A: Why is it important for you to do this? J: [I] want them to know the truth of their ancestral background and to be proud of it and knowledgeable. The ethics and politics of recognition A degree of vulnerability and ethical dilemma still remain however for those who want to either acknowledge their mixed ancestry, reconnect in some way with their origins, or who want to identify legally as First Nations. External judgements from the public, academia, and government regarding the legitimacy of descendents are barriers that need to be navigated, as are well-founded concerns for the misappropriation of a cultural identity. When it comes to culture, identity, and history, there is a, \"gap between scholarly and popular understandings,\" (Miller 2003:41). The majority of the general public is unfamiliar with the full context of colonial history here in British Columbia and the hegemonies and colonial narratives that remain. Public knowledge about what constitutes a First Nations person, or someone with Aboriginal ancestry, is mitigated by authoritative, eurocentric institutions such as the media, unprogressive museums, public school textbooks, and antiquated government agencies such as the Department of Indian Affairs, which 'manages' the 'status' of those who fall under the legislated definition of an Indian. For a descendent of mixed ancestry who has no connection to a First Nation community but who is eligible to acquire status, these two problems of a lack of knowledge about the local history of colonialism and indigeneity, can come together in the form of cultural appropriation, especially if motivated solely by a perceived economic advantage. Miller (2003:40) observed that being, \"raised outside of the influences of Indigenous 38 people and communities, without socialization, training or an obvious source of direct knowledge,\" can lead to a generalizing pan-indigenous view that blurs distinctive peoples and cultures. One is not \"culturally indigenous by birth,\" they need, \"participation in a community\". Hank* provided an example of what some would call a 'card-carrying Indian', a person who is a `new Indian', not socialized or familiar with the cultural practices or obligations, It's hard because there are family members out there who don't know [for instance] the importance of the Swey Xwey mask. I went to a conference in Vancouver and this guy was there and the only way you could tell he was part First Nations was that he was wearing a buckskin jacket and braids. He didn't look First Nations whatsoever. Of course he carried a card and said that was his Indian name and he was selling the Swey Xwey mask, which is totally...nobody sells the Swey Xwey mask. He was making money off of it. It was one he made. I asked him about it. He said his family was connected to the Swey Xwey mask. He said, \"I carved it but it's not been used, we never used it so it's not sacred.\" I thought Ok, I don't know where he comes up with that. I mean the whole protocol of even coming up with a design of the mask there's a process you have to do. He just thought oh, I'm part of the family so I'm just gonna make this. If he has the right to the Swey Xwey mask he has the right to go and dance at the ceremonies but does not have the right to copy it and sell it. Regardless of how mixed descendents choose to identify, the government has a completely different reaction to those with mixed ancestry who are not 'status' Indian. Bruce Miller (2003:20) discusses this position and the one unrecognized peoples occupy in relation to legally recognized Indigenous groups and the government. Descendents of intermarriages who do not fit with legal definitions of 'Indian', or do not have ties to a community, go unrecognized. Hybridity, and its exclusion by the nation-state through a policy of non-recognition, has been used as a negative to \"disarm contemporary indigenous movements,\" because it suggests, \"no clear boundaries between indigenous and non-indigenous,\" notes Miller (2003:5). This controls the growth of an indigenous ethno-nationalism that threatens the non-ethnic nationalist narrative and identity, which serves the state. Who gets to be recognized, Miller (2003:16, 19) asserts, is the 'divide and conquer' strategy of the nation-state to gain control and exert regulations of exclusion and dissention among Indigenous peoples over who is indigenous, who should be recognized as a band member, and the distribution of entitlement that is ironically now contrary 39 to unbiased determination of who qualifies\u00E2\u0080\u0094the more people, the less money distributed. The majority of the general public is unaware of the manipulation of the concept of 'indigenous' to serve state purposes and absolve the government from the recognition of entitlement or obligations of compensation for resource extraction (Miller 2003:8). Ambiguity in acts, policies, and what constitutes 'Indian' identity is what the state relies on to suit their needs. Conclusion The assertion by Perry (2001:78) that, \"discourses about First Nations women, white- Aboriginal relationships, and mixed-race children never determined the course of peoples' lives. Yet did set some significant parameters,\" is a narrow view that undermines the scope of the effect those discourses had. They placed significant constraints on the choices First Nations women, their European husbands, and their children were making, which indeed shaped the course of their lives and the identities of future generations. Colonial ideology based on race, gender, and class worked together to impose political, social, and cultural constraints on Aboriginal people, especially women, who were the most marginalized, due to their race and gender. A growing settler population and the dispossession of land, the Indian Act, creation of reserves, and pressure from missionaries to abandon cultural practices and beliefs and adopt Christian ways led some Aboriginal women to make strategic choices within those constraints. Though intermarriage with non-Native men was a practice established by Aboriginal people before the settlement period, research suggests the impetus to do so expanded during settlement from the initial social and economic advantage for a woman and her family. Barman (1999a) and Van Kirk (1997) both noted a trend in those intermarriages whereby European fathers encouraged their wives and children to submerge their Aboriginality and hybridity and assimilate to their husband and father's social and cultural background by privileging his origins over their mother's. The different gender roles expected of sons and 40 daughters led to divergent identity formation for the first few generations of mixed-blood offspring. Boys more often married Aboriginal or mixed-blood women and maintained that cultural connection and identity, while girls mostly married non-Native husbands, occassionally mixed-blood men, but very rarely full-blood Aboriginal men. Distancing and denial about maternal origins perpetuated silence about lineage for following generations, descendents identifying as non-Native, culminating in a complete 'disappearance of race' over a few generations, as in the Voght and Boothroyd families. However, looking deeper into the socio-cultural aspects of the socialization of mixed- blood children, interview and archival research revealed the specific factors that led to a submergence, and divergent gendered identity formation, such as not maintaining connections to maternal kin and community, discontinued transmission of cultural practices, changing parent- child relationships, public and residential school as a way to hide hybridity through public identity alignment, and adoption of another ethnicity. These were the variables that mitigated the formation of mixed offsprings', and following generations', identities. The long-term effects for the present generation of mixed descendents has led to a division between those who do not identify with the Aboriginal side of their mixed ancestry, and those who do, in some cases even within the same family. For those who do not identify, the loss of connection to their origins and mixed identities has been replaced for some by a national identity. For those descendents who do identify with their mixed ancestry, the largest change has been the ability to do so through Bill C-31 since 1985, restoring status, through proof of genealogy, that was lost due to gendered, discriminatory legislation. For those mixed descendents who are not eligible to receive status, but have chosen to recognize, reconnect with, and reclaim their ancestry despite criticism of their \"biological and cultural shortcomings\" (Miller 2003:41), acknowledgement, recognition, and discussion may be the only remaining forms of reclamation and involvement left open to them. 41 Regardless, these actions challenge the inevitability of colonial assimilation and present a counter-narrative to the continuing hegemonies hidden within the nationalist narrative. Acknowledgement and reclamation have become a matter of knowledge and choice. It is a site of possibilities, where knowledge and involvement could lead to strengthened relations with and for First Nations political and cultural efforts, as well as a new path for increased knowledge of the general public. However, what remains is a system that is at a loss for how to deal with, or categorize, people who draw on more than biological, 'racial' criteria for their identity. My research seeks to lend visibility to the invisible, those who have been overshadowed and forgotten in the patriarchal processes of colonization that shaped the identities of British Columbians today. Many people in this province, in the country, are intimately and irrevocably tied to the contentious history of relations between newcomers and the Indigenous peoples of this land. The nationalist ideology of Euro-Canadians has grown out of the mentality of entitlement of settler society and the myth of 'the frontier' and the 'pioneer', leading to competing views on the history of British Columbia. Our common history in B.C. is made up as much of the intimate relations between newcomers and Indigenous peoples as the political relations. There is also a lesson in the stories of mixed descendents about the need for balance, for respecting other ways of being. Stories keep us aware of how much things change over time, and perhaps how much they stay the same. For mixed-blood descendants who identify as non-Native, acknowledging and understanding the context of these hidden identities from the past, what has been lost, and how knowledge of the historical context and subsequent realities for people can help in understanding the complexities of the present. 42 Endnotes I The term 'non-Native' covers all the diverse ethnicities of newcomers to British Columbia. `Indian' and 'white' were commonly used in public and private discussion by both Aboriginal and non-Native people, as were contemporary political identities of 'First Nations' and 'Euro- Canadian'. The term 'intermarriage' is used in reference to unofficial and official long-term interracial relationships. The word 'race' is used to differentiate people, and also to separate and exclude. It is a social construction, however, historically, use of the word 'race' was a part of the foundation of colonial ideology and policies, and was used in colonial, academic, and Christian correspondence of the time. As such, I have used this word to maintain that context. 2 According to Bishop Hills, the village of Skopalk became known as Boothroyd. It is spelled Skop-ah on the Indian Affairs map of British Columbia, 1872, the first concerted effort by non- Natives, \"to plot Aboriginal settlements and tribal communities on a province-wide basis,\" (Carlson, et al 2001:131). The Boothroyd roadhouse was in operation two years earlier, according to Patenaude (1995:37). 3 The date may also be Oct. 31 st, 1872 as the writing is difficult to discern. 4 Correct spelling by her descendents, but spelled 'Clummah' on the marriage certificate. 5 Shirley Sterling (1997:161) notes how the Voghts were deemed one of the 'first white settlers' in the Nicola Valley, where the town of Merritt would eventually be. Two First Nations descendents of the Voght family, Shirley and Deanna Sterling, wrote their PhD and MA theses respectively, on their family history, illustrating the social, political and economic dynamics of an interracial marriage spanning from the late 1890s to the late 1900s. 6 Hybridity refers to mixed-race. 7 Rupert's Land encompasses all the HBC company posts from Hudson Bay to the Saskatchewan country (Brown 1980: x). 8 According to Laing (1939:218), the first pre-emption record was issued in the Lytton-Yale district, in Hope on Oct. l st, 1859. 43 Boothroyd Family (Mary Boothroyd, standing left of center) Photograph [170B31], courtesy of City of Surrey Archives. 44 References Adams, John 2001 Old Square-Toes and His Lady: The Life of James and Amelia Douglas. Victoria, BC: Horsdale and Schubart. Boothroyd, G.W. and family N.d [Photograph] 170B31, file 170.9. Surrey, B.C.: City of Surrey Archives. 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DEPARTMENT 0-Anthropology & Sociology NUMBER B06-0528 INSTITUTION(S) WHERE RESEARCI I WILL BE CARRIED OUT UBC Campus , CO-INVESTIGATORS: Dertien, Kim, Anthropology SPONSORING AGENCIES TITLE Irrevocable Ties and Forgotten Ancestry - The Legacy of Colonial Intermarriage: A Study of Agency, Strategy, and Hidden Identities APPROVAL DATE TERM (YEARS) 1 DOCUMENTS INCLUDED IN THIS APPROVAL: JUL 1 3 2006 June 21, 2006, Consent form / Questionnaires CERTIFICATION: The application for ethical review of the above-named project has been reviewed and the procedUres were found to be acceptable on ethical grounds for research involving human subjects. ---- : 7,-7-- -,,.'eandiall,^- .,.... - Approved on behalf if the Behavioural Research Ethics Board by one of the following: Dr. Peter Suedfeld, Chair, Dr. Susan Rowley, Associate Chair Dr. Jim Rupert, Associate Chair Dr. Arminee Kazanjian, Associate Chair This Certificate of Approval is valid for the above term provided there is no change in the experimental procedures 50 Appendix B https://rise.ubc.ca/rise/Doc/O/DUQ9PMABU4K70C8C205MHS5E8/fromString.html 07/09/2007 05:21 PM The University of British Columbia Office of Research Services Behavioural Research Ethics Board Suite 102, 6190 Agronomy Road, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z3 CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL- MINIMAL RISK RENEWAL RINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: - atrick Moore DEPARTMENT: UBC/Arts/Anthropology UBC BREB NUMBER: H06-80528 NSTITUTION(S) WHERE RESEARCH WILL BE CARRIED OUT: Institution^ I^ Site BC^ Point Grey Site \u00E2\u0080\u00A2ther locations where the research will be conducted: A 0-INVESTIGATOR(S): im Dertien \u00E2\u0080\u00A2-PONSORING AGENCIES: /A ROJECT TITLE: Irrevocable Ties and Forgotten Ancestry - The Legacy of Colonial Intermarriage: A Study of Agency, Strategy, and Hidden Identities EXPIRY DATE OF THIS APPROVAL: July 9, 2008 'APPROVAL DATE: July 9, 2007 The Annual Renewal for Study have been reviewed and the procedures were found to be acceptable on ethical grounds for research involving human subjects. Approval is issued on behalf of the Behavioural Research Ethics Board 51"@en . "Thesis/Dissertation"@en . "2008-05"@en . "10.14288/1.0066671"@en . "eng"@en . "Anthropology"@en . "Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library"@en . "University of British Columbia"@en . "Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International"@en . "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/"@en . "Graduate"@en . "Irrevocable ties and forgotten ancestry : the legacy of colonial intermarriage for descendents of mixed ancestry"@en . "Text"@en . "http://hdl.handle.net/2429/2466"@en .