“Our Hearts and Brains Are Like Paper, We Never Forget”: Indigenous Petitioning and the World Wars

Abstract

Indigenous veterans have been celebrated for their achievements in the two world wars, adding needed texture to Canada’s half-century at war. However, Indigenous peoples on the home front have remained periphery to the study of Indigenous peoples’ experiences of the world wars, leaving veterans and military eligible men as the main protagonists in the story. Those individuals left on reserve experienced the conditions of war, the mobilization of the Canadian state for war, and the enlistment of Indigenous men into the army differently than enlisted men. Analyzing Indigenous petitioners’ political advocacy during the First World War and the Second World War offers a more textured and complex representation of Indigenous peoples’ experiences during the world wars. By negotiating their place within the settler Canadian state, while also clearly defining their sovereignty and distinct political cultures, Indigenous peoples remained active participants in the political arena during the period from 1914 to 1945. Rather than “awakening” politically on the return of veterans in response to broken promises, Indigenous peoples on the home front deployed and evolved existing political tools and strategies to articulate their responses to wartime policy.