National Day For Truth And Reconciliation: Universities Need To Revisit Their Founding Stories

(MENAFN- The Conversation)

Universities pride themselves on their founding stories. These stories, however, tend to privilege and reproduce settler memories — and erase .

In our preliminary research with , a filmmaker and instructor with the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, we find compelling reasons to retrace the history of universities and expose Indigenous Peoples' ongoing contributions.

Grappling with Western University's origins, and the origins of all universities, means coming to a deeper understanding of how these origins are steeped in colonial and racist assumptions — and bolstered .

At the same time, it's critical of Indigenous Peoples who saw the university as a place of opportunity for their Nations, and to revisit historical promises.

As the country shifts attention to , we call for universities to revisit their founding stories with a critical eye to how settler colonialism and Indigeneity have shaped them.

Many universities in what we now call Canada were founded within Christian traditions that demonstrated zeal for the assimilation of Indigenous Peoples into Euro-Christian traditions.

Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, — yet they continued to benefit from appropriated lands and accrued financial capital.

As the Government of Canada ushered Indigenous Peoples , universities contributed heavily to remaking Indigenous Lands and developing white settler prosperity. Universities in the education of Canada's political and thought leaders.

Part of our early findings suggest Indigenous Peoples have an enduring presence at Western, despite colonial attempts to overlook them.

As records from the Anglican Diocese of Huron show, on Feb. 20, 1877, an“Association of the Professors and Alumni of Huron College” gathered in London, Ont., to encourage the Anglican Bishop of Huron Diocese, to work towards building an“undenominational School of Arts, Law, Medicine and Engineering.” A year later, on March 7, .

But left out in many accounts is the role settler colonialism and promises of Indigenous education played in securing the university's early years.

According to the resolution from that 1877 meeting, Isaac Barefoot was one of 42 men gathered to encourage Hellmuth to work towards the new university.

Barefoot was an Onondaga man from Six Nations of the Grand River. As a child he attended , and later trained to become a teacher .

From there, Barefoot went on to teach at . He was eventually ordained an Anglican priest .

Barefoot is a complex figure entangled in asymmetrical colonial power relations. His presence at this meeting also reminds us that the vision to train Indigenous Peoples was an early rationale for creating universities: For example, university founders in the United States for establishing universities that included the promise of Indigenous education deeply entwined with colonial aims.

Researchers at the Six Nations of the Grand River Lands & Resources Department and scholars borrowed government-controlled Indian Trust Funds.

Educational studies researcher Rosalind Hampton references McGill's use of the Indian Trust Fund and critiques intersections of settler colonialism, legacies of slavery and anti-Black racism at the university in .

Hellmuth applied to the — for funds to start Western. The vision for the funds, according to company records, was“the training of both Indian and white students for the ministry.”

In 1879, of reported, Hellmuth approached Anishinaabe Anglican missionary Henry Pahtahquahong Chase to help him“solicit aid on behalf of the Western University.”

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An Aug. 23 article,“The Indians and the Western University,” detailed how Chase hoped“to get admission for their youth into the institution, so that his people would have a chance of obtaining good learning.”

the newspaper reported Hellmuth worked with another Anishinaabe missionary, Keshegowenene (John Jacobs) to seek more funds for the university. This was while visiting Bkejwanong Unceded Territory.

According to this report, at the meeting, Hellmuth said:“When the Western University is opened, Indians from different parts will continue to avail themselves of the grand privileges of obtaining a university education.”

While Western's founder recruited Chase and Keshegowenene to help with his fundraising campaign, Huron's first librarian, Edward Francis Wilson was involved in the residential school movement.

Common social and financial in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. After attending Huron, Wilson moved to Sault Ste. Marie where he helped establish .

first emerged from where his people and settlers would learn together.

But and the school“ ,” designed to effect cultural genocide.

In 2006, the Shingwauk Education Trust and Algoma University College signed a Shingwauk Covenant — an agreement to and research.

The project involved a“” resulting in a collaborative project to create the .

Our research into Western's history continues. Importantly some of this work and .

We are sharing these early findings because, as our work to date demonstrates, Indigenous histories and how universities intersect with colonial aims often go unrecognized in university collective memories.

We look forward to sharing stories of Indigenous presence in the form of film, a website and publications. Every public institution should embark on similar decolonizing journeys.

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