Daniel N. Paul is an esteemed Mi’kmaq elder. He first came to my attention while writing the script for my video, Tintammare, 2022. From time to time I came across quotes from Paul’s, We Were Not The Savages, 1993 (4th edition, 2022) They were used to assert the moral superiority, from the perspective of modern non-traditional indigenous commentators of indigenous peoples on Turtle Island generally, and more particularly with respect to native participation in the various conflicts of the French and Indian wars and other engagements in Acadia. This conflation of the Turtle Island/Garden of Eden narrative with our Native people‘s struggle for survival in the 18th century seemed incongruous to me and self-serving on the part of present day non-traditional indigenous commentators who employ the trope.
Intrigued by this obviously non-historical perspective I conceived the comfortable racist idea Daniel N. Paul was a biased amateur historian. A primitive apologist for the contemporary non-traditional Turtle Island paradigm. With this in mind I requested the book at the Ottawa Library. The OPL had only one copy in its holdings, it took four months to get hold of it. Contrary to my initial idea, the book was and is a revelation to me. I am lost in admiration for Daniel N. Paul and his work. As a descendent of Philip and Marie-Anne Pinet, both Mi’kmaq persons and Marie Mi’kmaq, wife of Philip Muise and other unknown Mi’kmaq grand-mères. I take our Mi’kmaq, Sang-Mêlés Acadien history very seriously. Like so many of my so-called Acadian peers I grew up a white racist, a victim of the colonial Land of Evangeline myth. Another similarly employed Garden of Eden trope.
After discovering my mixed blood indigenous identity in the late 1980’s I endeavored to reconcile the apparent hatred and denial that existed on one hand between the Land of Evangeline Acadians and the Mi’kmaq and the Mi’kmaq and the Sang-Mêlés Acadien of Western Nova Scotia, our clan the mixed blood people of the Chebake.
Reading into Daniel N. Paul’s amazing polemic. I was struck by both the history and perspective. I looked for evidence denied by Darryl Leroux and his non-traditional indigenous followers of the reality of the Sang-Mêlés as a mixed race people similar to the Métis of the west. Far from reading between the lines as I had to with much of Bemish Murdoch and his 18th century sources. Daniel N. Paul right from the beginning acknowledges the profound mixing of French and Mi’kmaq blood in the 17th and 18th century. I won’t give detailed excerpts. But please see:
all from the third edition
page 23, paragraph 3
page 29, paragraph 3
page 73, paragraph 2
page 106, paragraph 2
pages 120-121-122
If Daniel Paul’s polemic is correct, either all the mixed blood Mi’kmaq/French people living in western Nova Scotia were absorbed into the Sipekne’katik First Nation in 1876 when the Indian Act was put into force, or some mixed blood Acadians continued to live as a people beyond the control of the Indian Act in the Chebake. This is a difficult question because of the philosophical mischief posed by the idea of blood quantum. Presumably if all mixed blood Acadians were absorbed into the new First Nations in the 19th century, then possibly the First Nations of western Nova Scotia, including the recent Acadia First Nation are in fact not racially pure by blood quantum standards, but mixed blood like the Métis of the west. I believe this very real historical concern drives the unending hostile reaction between the Mi’kmaq of Nova Scotia and the Sang-Mêlés Acadien of the Chebake in our present day.
Beyond my necessary polemic I have to return to the excellence of Daniel N. Paul’s wonderful rendering of our living history. On one level Paul’s history is as biased as any other, but what sets his work apart is its larger themes. The idea that the Mi’kmaq and other indigenous peoples were as competent socially as the immoral invaders who subdued them, is really a new idea today, just as it was in 1993. This moves Daniel N. Paul’s larger polemic into the realm of moral philosophy.
As chance would have it, Paul republished a fourth edition of We Were Not The Savages in September 2022. I’ve purchased a copy and cherish the work. I send my profoundest respect to the elder Daniel N. Paul.
Eric's note 7/9/2023
Daniel Paul left the scene on June 27, 2023. We offer Thanks and Praise to the Creator for sharing this spirit with us. He has influenced Generations.
