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Military and cadet training
There was one recreational activity that brought together exercise, brass bands, discipline, and support for the British Empire: military training. Early Canadian public schools provided very little in the way of physical training; few schools even had gym-nasiums. Often, the only training available was military drill provided by officers from local military garrison or police barracks.127 The Protestant churches mixed militarism and Christianity in the Boys’ Brigades they organized.128
By the 1890s, some residential schools had begun to provide students with training in military drill. Even when there was no military drill, life at the residential schools was militarized, as Inspector T. P. Wadsworth observed in his 1884 report on life at the Battleford school: “The boys parade (military style) for prayers morning and eve-ning, for meals, and upon retiring.”129Wikwemikong, Ontario, principal Dominique duRonquet reported in 1891 that “the boys have had military drill, not occasionally, but hundreds of times.” He admitted: “To say that they liked that exercise would be saying too much; nevertheless, it was very pleasing, indeed, to see with what precision and exactitude they could manoeuvre at the end of the year and how military were their mien and appearance.”130
Regina principal A. J. McLeod invited officers from the local North-West Mounted Police barracks to provide the students with instructions in drill. In 1893, he wrote that many boys were becoming quite “dexterous in the different evolutions, and take great pride in their marching. It is a common sight to see a squad of boys somewhere in the grounds being drilled by one of the larger boys, some of whom naturally take their place as commanders.”131
At the Mohawk Institute, the boys were provided with quasi-military uniforms and wooden muskets, and regularly drilled, “forming squares, marching in column and line, Counter marching, and marching in echelon.” On viewing their drill in 1895, Indian Affairs official Martin Benson wrote that he had seen “very few volunteer com-panies that do better.”132
By the 1890s, the federal Department of Militia and Defence was providing supplies to cadet corps that had been organized in public schools. Shingwauk Home principal George Ley King sought to organize such a cadet corps at the residential school in con-junction with the nearby Sault Ste. Marie Rifle Corps in 1899. Departmental secretary J. D. McLean supported the plan, although he stressed that Indian Affairs “is not to be put to any expense in connection with the uniforming or equipment of the company.” McLean asked that the Department of Militia and Defence supply “arms and accoutrements” to Shingwauk Home boys, as was done for the public school cadet corps.133
The Boer War of 1899 to 1902 led to an increase in cadet training in Canadian public schools. Calgary schools, for example, had a cadet program by 1900, and Manitoba introduced a program in 1902.134 However, the spread of cadet training was restricted
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by limits on available funds.135 In 1907, Donald Smith, the former chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company and by then Lord Strathcona, established the half-million-dol-lar Strathcona Trust. The fund, managed by the federal government, was intended to promote physical training and support military cadets in public schools.136 Under the terms of the trust, the military was to train and pay teachers who conducted cadet corps, provide the cadets with arms and equipment, and conduct regular inspec-tions.137 By 1926, the federal government was spending $412,000 a year on the cadet program across the country.138 The cadet corps served as a supplement for teachers’ incomes, since teachers received $140 a year for every ninety cadets they instructed. Some schools also used the program as a substitute for physical education.139
Although Indian Affairs supported cadet programs in theory, it continued to refuse to finance them. Departmental secretary J. D. McLean approved the establishment of a cadet corps at the Elkhorn, Manitoba, school in 1912, stipulating that “no addi-tional expense will be entailed and that the drill will not interfere with the work of the school.”140 Similarly, McLean refused a request from A. K. O. Ockoniy, a teacher at the Stuart Lake, British Columbia, school, for uniforms and “cadet guns” for a cadet corps he wished to organize at the school. According to McLean, “Owing to the war, the appropriation for school purposes has been considerably reduced.” Once again, McLean asked the Department of Militia and Defence to supply the requested equip-ment.141 In 1922, Ockoniy organized a cadet corps at the Fraser Lake, British Columbia, school. He did so “to develop in these boys some notions of patriotisme [sic], some feeling of pride in belonging to the British Empire. In the second place I knew how greatly these boys need the physical drill which is an important part of the cadet drill.”
Ockoniy believed cadet training would instill in the students a sense of discipline, “teaching them to obey immediately and without murmuring.” The army provided a subsidy of $1.25 for every student who was in uniform at its annual inspection. However, since Ockoniy could not get the money until he had the uniforms, he used his own funds to purchase many of the original uniforms. His wife altered several used uniforms provided by the army so they would fit the students.142
In the 1920s, church and peace organizations began to raise questions about the morality of military training in schools. By the 1930s, they had succeeded in con-vincing the Toronto board of education to disband its cadet corps.143 By the end of the 1930s, many Canadian public school systems were no longer participating in the cadet program.144
In keeping with a United Church policy opposing the cadet program in schools, the church disbanded its cadet corps at the File Hills, Saskatchewan, school in 1931. Russell Ferrier, the superintendent of Indian Education, asked the principal to reconsider his decision. Ferrier thought the church policy of opposition to cadet training was limited to the public school system. “Residential schools,” he argued, constituted “another proposition, and I believe you will find that a cadet corps at an Indian institution will
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assist greatly with both the esprit de corps and the discipline.”145 Principal F. Rhodes responded that military training was not popular with the boys. He said there was already more military discipline in a residential school than in a public school, as File Hills boys were “constantly under supervision.” He went on to remind Ferrier that the school had no facility for drills. It was necessary to remove the table and the benches from the dining room in order to hold cadet drills during the winter. He concluded by pointing out that the school had made several requests in the past for funding for a gymnasium or a playroom, but, to date, nothing had been done.146
It appears that some schools attempted to establish cadet corps in an effort to improve the quality and quantity of clothing they could provide to students. In a 1928 letter asking for Indian Affairs support in establishing a cadet corps unit, Shingwauk Home principal Benjamin Fuller stressed, “Our present system of clothing the boys for sunday [sic] service and special occasions is not as good as it should be. We have nothing uniform for the boys, their suits are of different colors and patterns, and do not look well as pupils of a school.”147 The replacement for J. D. McLean as departmen-tal secretary, A. F. MacKenzie, refused Fuller’s request, saying “it is not the practice of the Department to meet the cost of uniforms.”148
Like the brass bands, cadet corps were used to generate positive publicity for the schools. The Brantford Expositor contained a glowing report of the annual inspection of the cadet corps at the Mohawk Institute in 1920.
The cadets were particularly smart at physical drill. This has been regularly carried on throughout the year and the boys showed the benefits derived from this branch of their training in their steadiness and endurance. The Colonel was surprised to see them carry out the table of exercises such as have made many wish this army instructor a few thousand miles away.149
Many of these cadet corps had but brief lifespans. James Dagg, the principal of the Middlechurch school, had boasted in 1901: “We have a band of thirty instruments, that provides music every evening, which they all enjoy, and our system of military drill, by the cadet corps, and calisthenics for the girls, as well as fancy marching for the smaller children, interest them very much, so that they rarely ask to go home.”150 But, by 1904, a new principal at Middlechurch had put an end to both band practice and the military drill. He thought the time could be better “devoted to those things which will be more beneficial to those having to make their way in the world when they leave the institution.”151 Similarly, the Qu’Appelle school had received a supply of equip-ment from the Canadian military in 1912 when a cadet corps was established at the school. By 1918 and the end of the First World War, the corps was no longer active and the military was making repeated requests for return of the uniforms. School principal A. J. A. Dugas argued the school should be allowed to keep at least the hats and belts,
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which had been incorporated into the boys’ scouting uniforms. McLean supported the principal’s request.152
Some residential school cadet corps competed in provincial competitions. In 1912, Mohawk Institute principal Nelles Ashton noted, “Our Cadet Corps, No. 161, took first place in No. 2 Military District (Central Ontario), a fact of which we are justly proud.”153The Alert Bay corps won the International Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IoDE) Challenge Shield for the best Indian Cadet Corps in British Columbia in 1928. The Alert Bay corps also fielded a rifle team in the Canada Miniature Range Championship in that year.154 The Alert Bay school went on to win the IoDE shield four times in a row.155 The corps from the Anglican school at Cardston, Alberta, won the “Army and Navy Shield for the best rural physical training of Cadets” in 1925.156 In 1933, the school reported that, over the years, the cadet corps had won “four silver cups, three cham-pionships, and three silver medals.” In 1920, it had received the R. B. Bennett Shield, awarded in “open competition with the white cadet corps of Alberta.”157
The cadet core and military service
Despite the obvious military nature of cadet corps training, it was not uncommon for church officials to stress that the cadet corps was not necessarily training boys to be soldiers. A booklet on the Anglican school at Onion Lake said the schools’ cadet programs were meant to “develop the boys to the fullest extent physically, and to give them the alertness of mind, decisiveness of action, and precision of character which perhaps no other form of training can give.”158 In keeping with this argument, in the nineteenth century, Indian Affairs was not receptive to proposals to use the schools as military recruiting grounds. In 1898, William Hamilton Merritt wrote to Indian Affairs, requesting the right to form a permanent militia unit made up of residential school graduates.159 Merritt was a mining engineer with a long and close association to the military and Six Nations, having been granted the position of honorary chief by the Cayuga.160 He suggested the residential school principals be asked to select a “proportion of their boys” to be “drafted into a regiment upon completing their education.” He felt that the training a student received at a residential school “would enable him to make himself extremely useful regimentally.” The plan was rejected because it was thought “it would be a great waste of money to go to the expense of giving an Indian lad both a good education and an industrial training and then allow him to be drafted off as a soldier.”161
The question of military service had come up on several occasions during the negotiation of the numbered Treaties. During the negotiation of Treaty 3, one chief told Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris, “If you should get into trouble with the nations, I do not wish to walk out and expose my young men to aid you in any of your
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wars.” Morris assured him that England would not “call Indians out of their country to fight their battles.” During the Treaty 6 talks, he told a group of Cree chiefs, “You will never be asked to fight against your will.”162 As a result of these commitments, when the Boer War broke out in 1899, Indian agents were instructed that “no Treaty Indians can enlist for service.”163 Despite this ban, some First Nations men did enlist and serve in that war.164
When the First World War broke out, Aboriginal leaders and communities declared their support for the war effort, and many young men sought to enlist.165 Initially, the government discouraged the recruiting of Aboriginal soldiers.166 This policy was reversed in 1915 after a British Colonial Office request that all members of the British Commonwealth report on the possibility of raising “native troops in large num-bers.”167 The staggering death rates on the western front led to an intensified recruiting campaign in Canada. By 1917, the government was actively recruiting among First Nations across Canada.168 It is estimated that over 4,000 people with status under the Indian Act—35% of the eligible population—served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War. This is equivalent to the percentage of the general Canadian population that enlisted.169
Among the early First Nations recruits was Francis Pegahmagabow from the Parry Sound Reserve in Ontario. A skilled and daring sniper, he was awarded the Military Medal for acts of bravery on three occasions.170 Aboriginal soldiers served in a variety of capacities and were acknowledged to excel as snipers and scouts.171
Several First Nations soldiers had passed through the cadet corps at the Anglican school on the Blood Reserve in Alberta. In 1908, Principal Gervase Gale reported that he had started a fife-and-drum band at the school. “The boys are intensely in earnest. I have also a cadet corps and have applied for official recognition, which I am likely to receive.”172 The corps continued to operate after S. H. Middleton became principal in 1911.173 After passing through the program, Flying Star (or, as he had been renamed by the residential school principal, Albert Mountain Horse) took a summer training program in Calgary and was appointed a lieutenant in the Canadian militia. He was one of the few First Nations people who successfully enlisted during the early years of the war. He joined the army in September 1914 and was sent overseas the following month. Before leaving, he wrote to Middleton that he was “going forth to fight for my King and country.” He was present at the Second Battle of Ypres when the German army first made use of poison gas.174 After being gassed on three occasions, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was returned to Canada, but died on November 19, 1915, the day after he had arrived in Québec City. He was twen-ty-one years old.175 He was one of approximately 300 First Nations soldiers who died during the war.176
Some members of the Blood First Nation had been distressed at Mountain Horse’s decision to enlist and warned Middleton that he would be held responsible if anything
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happened to the young man. On hearing of her son’s death, his mother, Sikski, had to be restrained from attacking Middleton, who thought he might be driven off the reserve. Eventually, Sikski came to the conclusion that her son had died a hero. Two of her other sons, Mike and Joe, eventually enlisted as well, served overseas, and returned.177A former residential school principal, John Tims, conducted Albert’s funeral service, where Middleton stated he had been “one of the Empire’s greatest sons who fought to uphold the prestige and traditions of the British race.”178 Middleton’s rhetorical flour-ish is a useful reminder of the ways in which the residential schools were an extension of empire and the degree to which Canada remained a colony.
As the need for soldiers grew, Indian Affairs loaned Indian agency inspector Glen Campbell to the Ministry of the Militia, where he had a special responsibility for recruiting from First Nations communities.179 In 1916, Campbell asked Deputy Minister Duncan Campbell Scott for permission to recruit from the Elkhorn and Brandon resi-dential schools in Manitoba.180 With some hesitation, Scott approved the proposal. He thought “there should be some good material at Elkhorn where they have had physi-cal drill for some years.” He also argued that if “the older Indians” tried to discourage students from enlisting, they were “breaking their treaty obligations, as they prom-ised to be loyal citizens and it is anything but loyal to prevent recruiting.”181 Scott also gave permission for a seventeen-year-old orphan boy at the Roman Catholic school in Kenora, Ontario, to enlist. He said that other underage boys at the school could enlist if they obtained their parents’ permission.182 It is not clear how many recruits came from residential schools, but Campbell was able to recruit approximately 500 young First Nations men.183 One of those who were recruited from Elkhorn was Albert Edward Tbompson, a great-great-grandson of Chief Peguis.184 In 1915, five graduates of the File Hills school were serving with the armed forces.185 Charles Cooke, the only First Nations man who was working for the Indian Affairs office in Ottawa, and a former Mount Elgin student, was assigned to assist with recruiting in Ontario.186 Eighty-six former Mohawk Institute students enlisted; five of them died in service.187 One Mohawk Institute student, Foster Lickers, was captured during the Second Battle of Ypres. The torture he received at the hands of his guards left him paralyzed.188