Join Dr. Kai Minosh Pyle (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) as they discuss how we can use sources written by white settlers to read between the lines and see more full lives of Indigenous people, women, and LGBTQ2S+ people.
Using “A Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner” or “The Falcon,” Dr. Pyle discusses passages that showcase the leadership and power of Indigenous women, including a woman who may be identified as a Two-Spirited person. We talk about the ways history has been written and interpreted to privilege certain versions of power and the ways flipping the perspective of historical sources can challenge the Euor-colonial progress narratives so common in Canadian history.
We also spoke about Dr. Pyle’s writing on Ozaawindib found in The Activist History Review. and looked at this map from 1836. Dr. Pyle’s website is www.Mekadebinesikwe.com.
Helpful Links
More information here:Ojibwe – The Canadian Encyclopedia
Ojibwe People (including map) – Michigan State University
Odawa – The Canadian Encyclopedia
John Tanner – The Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Jean Delisle. 2011. Through the Lens of History: John Tanner, a white Indian between a rock and a hard place – 1/2. (Language Update, 8(2). – Republished on the Government of Canada’s website.
Jean Delisle. 2011. Through the Lens of History: John Tanner, a white Indian between a rock and a hard place – 2/2. (Language Update, 8(3). – Republished on the Government of Canada’s website.
Netnokwa, a Chief of the Ojibwa, and Good Will – Meryl Simon
Black Falcon by Olive Knox (a young adult biography of John Tanner written in 1954)
Additional Archives
Check our other resources here:Indigenous Heritage resources from Library and Archives Canada
Two-Spirit Archives – University of Winnipeg
Archival Sources on Anishinaabe and Ojibwe Peoples – University of Minnesota Duluth Archives