Conference Poster

The conference Looking Back, Moving Forward: War Resisters in North America took place at Steelworkers Hall in Toronto, Ontario, on Friday September 23 and Saturday September 24, 2011. The gathering addressed the plight of American war resisters who fled to Canada from 2004 to the present by providing a historical context for the roots of war resistance in North America. The conference also demanded action on the part of the Government of Canada to respect immigration and refugee law in Canada by rescinding Operational Bulletin 202 and to grant sanctuary to all American war resisters who fled to Canada during the “war on terror”. “This is of more than historical interest,” said Tom Riley, a Vietnam War resister and activist in the War Resisters Support Campaign. “It’s about learning from the past so we can support resistance today and in the future.”

The purpose of the conference was to offer public education about an aspect of North American history – cross-border migration during times of conflict and war – that is increasingly under attack in Canadian political circles in the early decades of the twenty-first century. The conference deconstructed the role of citizenship, civil disobedience, and conscientious objection during times of war. Moreover, we tried to illuminate the relationship between the Canadian and the United States governments during times of war and what this means for the twenty-first century.

We did this from the vantage point of those who have resisted wars: the veterans, the draft resisters, the family members of resisters, and support campaigners.  There have been other gatherings in 2006 and 2010 and we wanted to keep the cross-border dialogue going. Politicians and pundits try to score points with the public by making fancy statements of indignation towards these, in Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney’s own words, “bogus refugees”.

War Resisters June 2008. Photo: WRSC

We provided a space for war resisters to tell their own stories and for Iraq war resisters a chance to tell the public what information the Immigration and Refugee Board refused to hear up until very recently with consecutive appeals court victories for Dean Walcott and Chris Vassey.

Since January 2004 and the arrival of Jeremy Hinzman – who came to Canada as a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq – the War Resisters Support Campaign has supported hundreds of American war resisters and has mobilized public opinion to support these war resisters (64 percent in 2008, Angus Reid) who refused to participate in the illegal and immoral war in Iraq. “So long as they have wars, there are going to be war resisters,” said Frank Showler, a conscientious objector to the Second World War. “That is the continued importance of this advocacy work.”

Panel Discussions

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The conference featured a variety of speakers – such as Iraq War veterans, war resisters from World War Two to the ‘war on ‘terror’, lawyers, human rights activists, and academics– on five panel discussions. There were also information booths, letter writing campaigns, and a continued determination to see the granting of some kind of sanctuary to American war resisters.

Friday 23 September 2011

Resisting Wars from WWII to ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’

The first panel discussion – “Resisting Wars from WWII to ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’” featured Frank Showler, conscientious objector during World War Two; Lee Zaslofsky, military deserter from the Vietnam War; Bruce Beyer,  draft resister and member of the Buffalo Nine; Carl Mirra, Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm conscientious objector; and Jamine Aponte, war resister from Operation Iraq Freedom. The panel was moderated by Luke Stewart of Historians Against the War.

This panel discussion was design in order to demonstrate that there is a history of resisting war in both Canada and the United States.

Saturday 24 September 2011

Veteran Testimony

L-R: Michelle Robidoux, Chuck Wiley, Dean Walcott, Kim Rivera. Photo: Alex Lisman

This panel featured veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom, including: Chuck Wiley, Dean Walcott, and Kimberly Rivera. By offering firsthand accounts by the war resisters themselves, we can gain a better understanding of how to stop future wars by educating the public about the importance of soldiers’ experiences and their decisions to stop participating in particular wars. Listening to the soldiers’ stories highlights the importance of solidarity work and building support structures. The panel was moderated by Michelle Robidoux of the War Resisters Support Campaign.

War Crimes and the Law of Conscientious Objection:
A North American Context

L-R: Lee Zaslofsky, Staughton Lynd, Michael Mandel, Jeremy Hinzman. Photo: James Swarts

This panel featured Staughton Lynd, radical historian and lawyer from the United States; Jeremy Hinzman, conscientious objector from Operation Iraqi Freedom and first war resister to come to Canada in January 2004; and Michael Mandel, international lawyer and professor at Osgoode Hall law school at York Unviersity. The panel discusses the law of conscientious objection in the United States and how Canada has shifted from a war resister haven during the Vietnam War to a war resister prosecutor in the fabled “war on terror”. The panel was moderated by Lee Zaslofsky of the War Resisters Support Campaign.

War Resistance and Canadian Immigration and Refugee Policy

L-R: Patricia Molloy, Alyssa Manning, Gloria Nafzinger, S.K. Hussan. Photo: James Swarts

This panel featured Alyssa Manning, war resister lawyer from Parkdale Community Legal Services; Gloria Nafzinger, refugee coordinator with Amnesty International – Canada; and S.K. Hussan from No One Is Illegal – Toronto.  The panel discusses the implications of not just war resisters from the United States, but those seeking refuge from wars and the 21st century’s humanitarian struggles. This panel discussed government policy, the courts, deportation, and Canada’s downward slide in international humanitarian efforts and what we can do about it. The panel was moderated by Patricia Molloy of the War Resisters Support Campaign.

Building  a North American Antiwar Movement

Photo: James Swarts

The final panel discussion featured Michelle Robidoux of the War Resisters Support Campaign and Sid Lacombe of the Canadian Peace Alliance (speakers were unfortunately unable to make it from Afghans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out). The panel discussed the history of the Canadian antiwar movement and the cross-border relationships with United States peace groups and how to move forward in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The panel was moderated by Jesse McLaren of the War Resisters Support Campaign.

The gathering was able to raise $1422.02 for the War Resisters Support Campaign which will go towards continued legal support as well as to other forms of support the Campaign is able to provide.

The gathering was endorsed by: the War Resisters Support Campaign, Historians Against the War, Christian Peacemaker Teams – Canada, the Canadian Friends Service Committee (Quakers), the Canadian Auto Workers, the United Steelworkers Toronto Area Council, activehistory.ca, the Canadian Peace Alliance, the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War, Afghans for Peace, Conscience Canada, No One Is Illegal – Toronto, WPIRG, OPIRG-Toronto, Amnesty International, Military Families Speak Out, and OPIRG-York.

Luke Stewart is a member of Historians Against the War and is a Ph.D. Candidate in history at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Stewart was the main organizer of the conference.

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Canadian history section of Chapters bookstore, North London, Ontario, May 2010.

ActiveHistory.ca is happy to announce its first paper of 2012: “A Polyphony of Synthesizers: Why Every Historian of Canada Should Write a History of Canada,” by Alan MacEachern.

Here is Alan’s introductory blurb:

The following was my contribution to a 2010 Canadian Historical Association roundtable, “So What IS the Story? Exploring Fragmentation and Synthesis in Current Canadian Historiography.” In it, I tried to a) graphically illustrate the marginalization of Canadian historical scholarship, b) argue why demography is likely only to make this problem worse, and c) suggest a response. All in under 1400 words. As far as I know, only one person was at all convinced, let alone inspired, by my presentation: me. It got me thinking about how one might go about writing a history of Canada that would necessarily cover the entire country from the beginning to the 21^st century, that would treat Canada in global terms, and that would be relevant. Last month, I published a very, very early outline of such a history, “A Little Essay on Big.” In an uncharacteristic fit of confidence, I’ve dusted off my presentation and asked ActiveHistory.ca if they’d like it, largely unchanged. I welcome your thoughts.

You can read Alan’s paper here.

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The Programming Historian

Depending on your vantage point, we have a looming opportunity – or a looming problem. Historical digital sources have reached a scale where they defy conventional analysis and now call out for computational analysis. The Internet Archive alone has 2.9 million texts, there are 2.6 million pages of historical newspapers archived at the Chronicling America site of the US Library of Congress, the McCord Museum at McGill University has over 80,000 historical photographs, and Google Books has now digitized fifteen million books out of their total goal of 130 million. Archives are increasingly committed to preserving cultural heritage materials in digital, rather than more traditional analog, forms. This is perhaps best exemplified in Canada by digitization priorities at Library and Archives Canada. The amount of accessible digital information continues to grow daily, making digital humanities projects increasingly feasible, and for that matter, necessary.

In this post, I will do two things. Firstly, I will give a sense of how much information is out there, and make the case for why Canadian historians need to start thinking about it. Secondly, I will introduce readers to the Programming Historian, a wonderful resources that at least puts you on the right track to a programming frame of mind.

TMI?

Too much information? (Photo of FEMA Publications Warehouse, WikiMedia Commons - http://bit.ly/zjmlYc

Information overload is not new. People have long worried about the impact of too much information. In the 16th century, the German priest Martin Luther decried that the “multitude of books [were] a great evil,” in the 19th century Edgar Allan Poe bemoaned that “[t]he enormous multiplication of books in every branch of knowledge is one of the greatest evils of this age,” and as recently as 1970, American historian Lewis Mumford lamented that “the overproduction of books will bring about a state of intellectual enervation and depletion hardly to be distinguished from massive ignorance.” The rise of born-digital sources must thus be seen in this continuous context of hand wringing around the expansion and rise of information.

Despite the frustrations of microfilm for today’s historians, as well as the pitfalls of separating the wheat from the chaff amongst rising numbers of modern sources, historians have undoubtedly benefitted from these technical developments. This is perhaps disproportionately for those engaged in social and cultural pursuits. Historians will profit meaningfully from born-digital sources. These, however, do present added – albeit surmountable – challenges due to their scope and production processes. Sources do not always have attributable or reliable authorship, are often undated, but in aggregate can give a sense of the zeitgeist of a time.

Library of Congress (Photo from WikiMedia Commons - http://bit.ly/ArU8YZ)

Storage price is falling. For example, James Gleick [in his book, The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood] estimates that the Library of Congress collection is around 10TB (although the LOC itself claims around 200TB). These would previously have been unimaginable figures; I can now pick up 10TB of data storage for under a thousand dollars. Born-digital collections are larger, of course: the LOC’s digital collection is 254TB, larger than their print holdings, and the Internet Archive now has 3 Petabytes (PB) of information, growing at 12TB/month! In Canada, LAC has about 4TB of federal government web information and 7TB in its own internet archive. Information is also being preserved through programs such as the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media’s September 11th Digital Archive, the Hurricane Digital Memory Bank (focusing on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita), and, as of writing, the #Occupy archive. Online content is curated and preserved en masse: photographs, news reports, blog posts, and now tweets. These complement more traditional efforts at collecting and preserving oral histories and personal recollections, which are then geo-tagged, transcribed, and placed online.

What can we do about this conventional and especially born-digital deluge? There are no simple answers, but historians must begin to conceptualize new additions to their traditional research and pedagogical toolkits.

Where to Start: Programming

By the end of the Programming Historian, you'll have a basic know-how of Python and will be able to tackle projects requiring textual analysis.

One important thing we can do with this deluge of information is learn how to interact with digital information on a mass scale. Luckily, we have a tremendous resource available to us: The Programming Historian, by William Turkel and Alan MacEachern, hosted on the Network in Canadian History & Environment (NiCHE) site. Why might you want to open up this free, open-access website book?

• If you were to try to deal with born-digital sources in a traditional manner, you would spend A LOT of time flicking through websites. Much of it hasn’t been curated, and realistically, you could not read every blog comment published on a given day in Canada, navigate the tweets, or so forth. For this, you will need computational analysis.
• The same holds true for the conventional array of information discussed above: if you want to use 2.6 million newspaper pages to their full potential, there must be a way to “distant read” it.
• Digital history is ‘hot.’ The American Historical Association, meeting right now, is full of panels and twitter has been afire with the field. Even if you do not necessarily see yourself using programming languages, it behooves you to be able to understand it.
• And, most importantly, it isn’t that hard, and it doesn’t take that much time. You could move through the whole guide in a weekend, or – better yet – break it into small chunks, spending 20-30 minutes here and there.
• Finally, I believe we’ll also have to equip the next generation of historians, as I’ve written about elsewhere on ActiveHistory.ca.

The Programming Historian is very straight forward, but by the end of it, you’ll be able to do the following:

• In an automated, systematic fashion, you will be able to take a website and extract all of the words from it for further analysis.
• Establish word frequency, similar to what a Wordle word cloud displays (the possibile utility of this is discussed elsewhere on this site). Indeed, you will be able to make your very own tag clouds!
• Move beyond word frequency to see the keyword-in-context – i.e. you see that the word ‘aboriginal’ appears a hundred times in a given site, so why not see where it has appeared. This enables you to move very quickly to the relevant information.
• Download and harvest information automatically. Say you find a large collection of a hundred websites. Rather than clicking repeatedly through each to download the information, a simple script can do it for you!

Conclusion (and a proviso about why we don’t all have to be programmers!)

Don’t be afraid. It’s New Years, so why not make it your resolution as a historian to figure out some of these very basic steps. It could make you a better historian, or in any case, will equip you to figure out what’s going on. In any case, it’s an additional tool in one’s toolkit. Unlike earlier social science histories of counting with computers in the 1970s (which did revolutionize areas of historical inquiry), it is important to remember that we can use broad analysis to find issues, but then move dynamically down into context.

That all said, historians will not all have to become programmers. Just as not all historians need a firm grasp of Geographical Information Systems (GIS), or a developed understanding of the methodological implications of community-based oral history, or in-depth engagement with cutting edge demographic models, not all historians have to approach their trade from a computational perspective. Nor should they. Computational history – to use only a few examples – does not replace close reading, traditional archival inquiry, or going into communities to uncover notions of collective memory or trauma. Indeed, computational historians will play a facilitative role and provide a broader reading context; yet there will still be historians, collecting relevant primary and secondary sources, analyzing and contextualizing them, situating them in convincing narratives or explanatory frameworks, and disseminating their findings to wider audiences.

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Heritage White Oak Tree in Cambridge

- Sergeant Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

While many of us may be familiar with the designation of built heritage properties under the Ontario Heritage Act, recently municipalities have been using the Ontario Heritage Act to designate individual trees as heritage trees.  Municipalities like Burlington, Pelham, Thorold, Cambridge, and most recently Brant, have designated individual trees under the Ontario Heritage Act.

First enacted in 1975, the Ontario Heritage Act enables municipalities to pass by-laws designating individual properties as having cultural heritage value through Part IV of the Act.  This designation provides some protection for the property from demolition, as well as regulates potential alterations to the property to maintain its heritage value.  Larger areas can be designated under Part V of the Act as Heritage Conservation Districts.

In recent years the definition of cultural heritage resources covered under the Ontario Heritage Act has been expanded to include not only the commonly understood Built Heritage Resources, defined as “one or more significant buildings (including fixtures or equipment located in or forming part of a building), structures, earthworks, monuments, installations, or remains that have cultural heritage value,” but also Cultural Heritage Landscapes.  Cultural Heritage Landscapes are defined as a “geographical area that human activity has modified and that has cultural heritage value.”  These areas can include “one or more groupings of individual heritage features, such as structures, spaces, archaeological sites, and natural elements, which together form a significant type of heritage form distinct from that of its constituent elements or parts…villages, parks, gardens, battlefields, mainstreets and neighbourhoods, cemeteries, trails, and industrial complexes of cultural heritage value.”  The addition of Cultural Heritage Landscapes as well as other amendments to the Ontario Heritage Act made in 2005, have included natural landscape features, such as trees, as integral parts of cultural heritage landscapes and built heritage properties that should be protected.

With these changes in the understanding of cultural heritage, municipalities began designating individual trees under the Ontario Heritage Act.  In 2008 the City of Cambridge passed a by-law to designate a 130 year-old White Oak tree under the Ontario Heritage Act.  This tree survived a disastrous flood of the Grand River in 1974.  Several one-hundred year old workers’ cottages in the vicinity of the tree had to be demolished after the ’74 flood, with the construction of a levee system along the banks of the Grand River and the raising of the grade of the land by five feet.  At that time John Kingswood, forester for the City of Cambridge, decided to save the then 100 year old White Oak Tree on the grounds.  He constructed a well around the tree and a system of drainage pipes to feed the tree’s root system.  Today the heritage designated White Oak tree is a center-piece of the Cambridge Sculpture Garden on the banks of the Grand River in downtown Cambridge.  At the time of its designation, Cambridge’s White Oak was only one of ten heritage designated trees in Ontario.

The most recent heritage designated tree in Ontario is a massive Black Walnut tree located in Brant County.  Estimated at more than 150 years old, the tree may have originally been planted as a cultivated nut-bearing tree on a country estate.

While there are few examples of preserved built heritage in Ontario dating back over 200 years, there are at least two heritage designated trees that have been standing for over 250 years.  Oakville has designated a 250-year old White Oak that was narrowly saved from being cut down for a road expansion project in 2006.  Nearby Burlington designated a 300 year-old White Oak, that for hundred of years appeared on surveyors’ maps as a significant landmark distinguishing borders like Brant’s Block, and the border between Burlington and Aldershot.

The designation of these trees and others in Ontario speaks to a growing realization that cultural heritage isn’t just about old buildings and quaint downtowns, but the preservation of diverse elements of our landscape, including natural heritage and trees, that capture our human history and the history of our environment.

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Montgomery’s Inn, Toronto, ON. Photo by loreth_ni_Balor.

Tom Peace recently published a post on Active History calling attention to the emergence of another round of the History Wars, but the more pressing forthcoming history war may be one between the historical community and the politics of austerity. Budget cuts at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government across the country have targeted cultural and heritage institutions, threatening the integrity of the capacity of Canada to maintain an adequate understanding of its collective past.

Reckless tax-cuts combined with a global economic crisis have conspired at all levels of government across Canada to persuade the country’s political leadership to use ballooning budget deficits to justify substantial service cuts with very little public debate and a tenuous political mandate. During the 2011 federal election, the Conservative Party of Canada made a commitment to balance the federal budget by 2014-15 (one which it recently abandoned), “[t]hrough accelerated reductions in government spending” without raising any taxes. Unfortunately, the promise to balance the budget through spending cuts offered no details except that a Conservative government would continue “specific measures to restrain the growth of program spending” and complete, “within one year, a comprehensive review of government spending” [1]. The most detail on these “specific measures” that the Prime Minister offered to voters during the campaign was that “We know there is fat to be saved.”

Similarly, mayoral candidate, Rob Ford, told Toronto voters there was ample “gravy” to be eliminated from the city budget without clearly defining his meaning of “gravy”. In fact, it was that simple message with no details that probably won over Toronto voters in 2010.

It is clear now that some of the primary targets of government austerity measures in Canada are cultural and heritage institutions, including libraries, archives, and museums. Just as Margaret Atwood helped mobilize opposition to proposed cuts to Toronto libraries, the challenge for active historians who oppose such measures is to make their opposition public.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has taken a leadership role with its opposition to the cuts to Library and Archives Canada through an information and petition campaign called “Save Library and Archives Canada”. The federal government’s “modernization” program for LAC has led to a series of substantial service cuts that have undermined its ability to acquire and preserve a diverse collection of artistic, cultural, and historical materials relating to Canada’s past. Readers who oppose such cuts should lend their names to the petition here.

At the municipal level in Toronto, Councillor Joe Mihevc has revealed that closed-door budget planning proposes to shutter four Toronto museums, including the Market Gallery, Gibson House, Montgomery’s Inn and Zion Schoolhouse. The historical community, once again, is trying to clearly voice its opposition through an information and petition campaign. Again, readers can sign the petition to stop these cuts here.  Canadian historians from Toronto’s universities have also written an open letter [PDF] to city council opposing the museum closures.

As a proportion of the budgets of the federal government and the City of Toronto, cultural and heritage institutions are insubstantial. For example, the proposed closure of the four museums in Toronto is projected to save about $1 million, according to a Toronto Star report. This constitutes just a fraction of the city’s $9.2 billion 2010 budget. In 2010, the federal government spent $124.5 million on the operation of Library and Archives Canada. This constituted 3.5% of all spending by Canadian Heritage that year. To put this in further perspective, the cost of LAC in 2010 was just 0.06% of the total ministerial net expenditures of about $225 billion.[2]

If the proportional cost of cultural and heritage institutions is so low relative to total budget expenses, one can assume then that cuts to these services are ideologically motivated. These services have been targeted for cutbacks not because they constitute substantial expenses for government, but because these governments do not see cultural and historical preservation as a significant public responsibility. If readers disagree with these governments and believe that libraries, museums, and archives are valuable public institutions, signing these petitions will begin to let it be known.

Save Library and Archives Canada Petition

Toronto’s Heritage Museums Petition

[1] Conservative Party of Canada. Here for Canada: Stephen Harper’s Low-Tax Plan for Jobs and Economic Growth, 2011, pg. 23.

[2] For details on 2010 federal government spending, see Government of Canada, Public Accounts of Canada 2010, Volume II: Details of Expenses and Revenues, Ottawa: 2010.

Sean Kheraj is an assistant professor of Canadian and environmental history at York University. He blogs at http://seankheraj.com

On Monday November 14th Arthur Bousfield and Garry Toffoli, co-authors of Royal Tours 1786-2010 (Dundurn, 2010) will place this most recent royal tour in the context of those that preceded it, going back to 1786! Nathan Tidridge author of Canada’s Constitutional Monarchy (Dundurn, 2011) believes there’s a crisis in our understanding of the role the Crown plays in our government. He argues that the monarchy is a rich institution integral to our ideals of democracy and parliamentary government. What do you think?

Parler Fort is a series of themed discussions that examines the impacts of past events on our lives today. Featuring novelists, historians, artists and city planners among others, each session explores a topic in a way that sparks dialogue and provides insight into issues that matter today. Fort York National Historic Site is an apt setting in which to enrich our understanding of our city and fortify our connections with one another.

Admission Price $10 ($8.85 plus tax)
Free for students compliments of Dundurn Press
R.S.V.P. to 416-392-6907 ext. 221
Fort York, Blue Barracks. Doors open at 7 p.m.
Complimentary Refreshments provided by Fort York Volunteer Historic Cooks
Presented in partnership with The Friends of Fort York
fortyork@toronto.ca ? www.toronto.ca/fortyork ? Twitter @fortyork ? Facebook.com/fortyork

However, just how the War of 1812 should be commemorated, and what this war actually meant to Canadian history, is being actively contended in the pages of the Globe and Mail.  According to the Department of Canadian Heritage, the War of 1812 was a pivotal event that ultimately shaped the nation that became Canada.  Many point to the “happy aftermath” of the war: the 200 years of peace with the United States, as well as the Rush-Bagot agreement of 1817 that limited military activities on the Great Lakes.  Others argue that the war “was among the dumbest ever fought,” and charge the Harper Government with attempting to use the bicentennial as “contemporary nationalistic propaganda.”  Alan Taylor’s recent book, The Civil War of 1812, also muddies the waters concerning why the war was fought and who was fighting it.  Taylor argues that “national” identities and borders were fluid, and the war shouldn’t be seen as simply an American invasion repelled by the British military and Canadian militia.

While the argument rages about how and why the War of 1812 should be commemorated, there remains a serious silence in the national dialogue concerning the role of the First Nations allies in the war.  As detailed in Carl Benn’s The Iroquois in the War of 1812, “the War of 1812 was a critical event in Iroquois history.” The Iroquois allies were pivotal to British victories in major battles such as Queenston Heights, Beaver Dams, the blockade of Fort George and Crysler’s Farm.  Benn concludes that the outcome of the war, the successful defence of British territory, “could not have been achieved without aboriginal support of the king’s cause.”  Taylor reiterates this point stating by “intimidating American troops, the warriors had done more to foil the invaders than had the Canadian militia, but a postwar myth glorified the militia and degraded the Indians.”  Like they had during the American Revolution, warriors from the Six Nations allied themselves to the British cause.

John “Smoke” Johnson, grand-father of the poet Pauline Johnson, was one of these Six Nations warriors.  He left the Grand River at 21 years old to join Isaac Brock.  Johnson fought at Queenston Heights, Lundy’s Lane and Stoney Creek.  He also claimed to have set the fire that burned Buffalo in December 1813.  The iconic photograph taken in 1886 shows ninety-three year old John “Smoke” Johnson (right) with two other Six Nations veterans of the War of 1812, Jacob Warner (left) and John Tutlee (centre).

While Canadians today view the War of 1812 as a victory for Canada, and two hundred years of peace with the Americans, there was far less of a “happy aftermath” for Britain’s Six Nations allies.  During the war the Six Nations found themselves fighting against their Iroquois kin at battles like Chippawa.  Following the war, despite promises from the Indian Department not to interfere with their affairs, the Six Nations of the Grand River found their territory increasingly threatened by white squatters, and their finances mismanaged by white officials.  In the 1840s the Six Nations of the Grand River were forced to abandon the majority of their territory and were moved into a small reserve along the Grand River.  The two hundred years that followed the War of 1812 was not a time of peace and prosperity for the Six Nations, but marked the end of their independence as allies of Britain, and decline in their sovereignty and territory.

While the Canadian government treats the War of 1812 as a defining moment in Canadian history that led to the creation of the nation of Canada, for the Six Nations of the Grand River the war has very different meaning.  The Woodland Cultural Centre in Brantford is planning an exhibit to raise awareness about the role of the Six Nations Confederacy in the War of 1812.  With all the attention that is being focused in Canada on the bicentennial of the war, hopefully some people will take the time to look beyond the militaristic and nationalistic propaganda to learn more about the important role that Britain’s allies, the Six Nations and other First Nations, played in repelling the American invasion.

This year’s History on the Grand Local History Symposium is being held on Saturday October 22^nd, at Cambridge’s Historic and LEED Gold-certified New City Halls.  The theme “People and Place” explores the history of immigration and migration to Southwestern Ontario, and the ethnic and cultural groups that make up our communities.  Participants will enjoy presentations about different aspects of our local history, as well as presentations and projects by local school children.  The complete program and registration forms are available on the City of Cambridge website.  Local history and heritage groups will have displays and materials for participants to enjoy.  The lunch hour will also feature a walking tour of historic downtown Cambridge,  the resurgence of which was recently covered in  an article in the Globe and Mail.

“It’s a great way for people to learn more about the history of our communities,” says organizer Karen Dearlove, “and the contributions made by different ethnic and cultural groups to the diversity of our region.”

 Registration for the symposium, including refreshments and lunch, is available for $10.00 until October 14^th, and $15 at the door.  Participants can register in advance at the Clerk’s office at City Hall.  For more information contact Lynn Griggs at Cambridge Archives Email: griggslynn@cambridge.ca Phone: (519) 740-4680 ext. 4610 Fax: (519) 623-0058.

History on the Grand: People and Place is sponsored by the City of Cambridge, organized by the City of Cambridge Archives Board and the Waterloo Historical Society, and supported by the Waterloo Region Museum and ActiveHistory.ca.

For media interviews contact Dr. Karen Dearlove: kldearlove@hotmail.com or 519-621-6374

The teaching history workshop Approaching the Past will be holding its first event of this fall on Wednesday October the 5th.  It is being held from 5 – 8 p.m.  The first half of the event will be held at the Toronto Archives and then we will also visit the Spadina House Museum.  The cost is free but participants need to RSVP.  For more information or confirm you attendance visit: https://sites.google.com/site/approachingthepasttoronto/home/event-1”

The Parler Fort series, a forum for citizens exploring Toronto’s Past, Present & Future, is an initiative of the Friends of Fort York.   On Monday October 24th at 7:30 pm at Historic Fort York, Parler Fort presents “Canada Invaded on the Eve of Confederation: The Intertwined stories of the Fenian Invasion and Thomas D’Arcy McGee – journalist, poet and Father of Confederation.”  Join Christopher Moore, David A. Wilson, and Peter Vronsky to learn more about these tense, interconnected Canadian stories that resonate with issues today.  Cost is $10.00 and students are free.  For more information or to register email fortyork@toronto.ca or call 416-392-6907 ext. 221.  Future Parler Fort events take place on November 14th and December 12.  Details will be posted here.

The Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Conference is being held on October 15th, 2011 at York University.  This one-day conference seeks to address important gap areas in public and media perception of modern slavery and human trafficking issues, including post-enslavement rehabilitation, memory and trauma, sex tourism, best practices analysis, preventive measures, partnerships and avenues to counter the ways in which we all are connected to slavery through the consumer goods we purchase and consume on a daily basis.  It also seeks to illuminate a number of lesser known forms of contemporary slavery that are thriving at home and abroad.  These include domestic slavery, debt bondage, child soldiery, hereditary slavery, forced servile marriage and human trafficking for forced labour.

To register for free or to get more information, please visit:  www.allianceagainstmodernslavery.org