Longhouses, Schoolrooms, and Workers’ Cottages: Nineteenth-Century Protestant Missions to the Tsimshian and the Transformation of Class Through Religion

Abstract

This paper explores the blurring of boundaries among class identities in nineteenth-century Protestant missions to the Tsimshian, Aboriginal people of the northwest British Columbia coast. Through an exploration of the nature of Christian chiefs, Tsimshian demand for literacy and schooling, and finally mission housing, this paper highlights ways in which the class implications of religious association had profoundly different meanings in Native and non-Native milieus. Scholars must take into account historical Aboriginal perspectives not only on conversion, but on their class positions in mission Christianity and more precisely, how their roles within the mission sphere were informed by their own notions of class. While some Native converts undoubtedly utilized conversion to Christianity to circumvent usual social conventions surrounding rank, privilege, and access to spiritual power, other Tsimshian sought transformation by using these new forms of spirituality to bolster their existing social positions.

Intimate colonialisms: the material and experienced places of British Columbia's residential schools

“…Harris 2001; Morris and Fondahl 2002) and, more broadly, as outcomes of colonial powers that constructed and maintained Indigenous peoples as ‘othered’ within the province's landscapes (Blake 1999; Clayton 2000). While there is a growing literature on residential schools in BC (Redford 1979–80; Haig‐Brown 1988; Sterling 1992; Raibmon 1996; Woods 1996; Neylan 2000), little geographic notice has been given to colonialism as it was embedded, embodied and enacted through these schools. In this article, I argue that the relatively small and intimate geographies of residential schools offer important insights into colonial projects in BC.…”

“…The colonial geographies of British Columbia (BC) are well considered, by geographers and nongeographers alike, notably with reference to: the creation of reserves (Harris 2002); tensions between colonial and Indigenous cartographic imaginings of the province (Brealey 1995;Sparke 1998); illness and depopulation amongst Indigenous 1 populations as a function of colonization and contact (Harris 1997(Harris /98, 1999Kelm 1998); missionizing processes and competing ecumenical efforts (Neylan 2003); competing land, resource and governance claims between indigenous and non-indigenous peoples (Tennant 1990;D. Harris 2001;Morris and Fondahl 2002) and, more broadly, as outcomes of colonial powers that constructed and maintained Indigenous peoples as 'othered' within the province's landscapes (Blake 1999;Clayton 2000).…”

Unsettling British Columbia: Canadian Aboriginal Historiography, 1992–2012

“… See Barman, Fiske, Rutherdale, and Perry in Pickles and Rutherdale, eds., Contact Zones ; and Neylan, “Longhouses, Schoolrooms, and Workers’ Cottages.”…”