Book Review: For King and Kanata

For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War

Reviewed by: Christine Smith (McFarlane)

Published By: University of Manitoba Press

Pages: 224

In “King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War” author Timothy C. Winegard takes a comprehensive look at the history of First Nations people and their experience on the battlefield and home front during the First World War.

Winegard speaks about the Indians and the Settler-State experience and states early on that “warfare played an important role in the political, social, cultural, and genetic frameworks of Indian nations,” and “in pre-contact warfare, raiding parties which were led by proven war chiefs and usually numbered less than 200 warriors, were sent to settle scores, to acquire provisions, or to avenge the deaths of or replace deceased clan members (known as mourning wars).

But despite earlier warfare that was noted within First Nations, and First Nations pledging to the Crown, that their men would fight to honour their long standing tradition of forming military alliances with the Europeans during times of war, the Canadian government was of the opinion that “status Indians were unsuited to modern, civilized warfare.”

The Canadian government believed this because it was under the British North America Act and the Indian Act that Canadian Indians did not have the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, and the government of Canada did not expect or need Canadian Indians to take up arms in what they saw as a foreign war. Another apprehension that the Canadian government had was that including Indians in “an expeditionary force could violate treaties, as evidenced by the position of the government during the Boer War.”

Canada’s stance of how First Nations soldiers could be involved in the First World War changed when Britain intervened in 1915. Britain demanded Canada to actively recruit First Nations soldiers to meet the increasing need for more manpower on the battlefields. It is interesting to note just how many First Nations participated in the First World War because the numbers of how many First Nations soldiers participated have never really been fully disclosed. This is due to the fact that “there were undoubtedly cases of Indian enlistment which were not reported to the department,” and most “status Indians were not recorded as such upon enlistment, as attestation papers did not record race.”

After Britain intervened and demanded that First Nations Indians become a part of the First World War, complications arose between the national and international forces that influenced the more than 4,000 status Indians who served in the First World War. Winegard relays that subsequent administrative policies affected First Nations soldiers at home, the battlefield and as returning veterans.

  

For history buffs, the account of just how much Canadian First Nations participated in the First World War, why they participated and what happened to them after the war, this book is a must read for scholars, students, and the general public when it comes to understanding First Nations participation in the First World War and the major Canadian policies that forever changed the Canadian landscape.

 (previously published in Windspeaker)