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Universities pride themselves on their founding stories. These stories, however, tend to privilege\u00a0dominant institutional narratives<\/a>\u00a0and reproduce settler memories \u2014 and erase\u00a0institutional participation in the dispossession of Indigenous Peoples from their lands<\/a>.<\/p>\n In our preliminary research\u00a0on Indigenous presence at Western University<\/a>\u00a0with\u00a0Sally Kewayosh<\/a>, a filmmaker and instructor with the Faculty of Information and Media Studies, we find compelling reasons to retrace the history of universities and expose Indigenous Peoples\u2019 ongoing contributions.<\/p>\n Grappling with Western University\u2019s origins, and the origins of all universities, means coming to a deeper understanding of how these origins are steeped in colonial and racist assumptions \u2014 and bolstered\u00a0by networks connecting different branches of colonial education<\/a>.<\/p>\n At the same time, it\u2019s critical\u00a0to acknowledge the agency<\/a>\u00a0of Indigenous Peoples who saw the university as a place of opportunity for their Nations, and to revisit historical promises.<\/p>\n As the country shifts attention to\u00a0the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation<\/a>, we call for universities to revisit their founding stories with a critical eye to how settler colonialism and Indigeneity have shaped them.<\/p>\n Many universities in what we now call Canada were founded within Christian traditions that demonstrated zeal for the assimilation of Indigenous Peoples into Euro-Christian traditions.<\/p>\n Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries,\u00a0universities began to shed Christian religious and denominational aims<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 yet they continued to benefit from appropriated lands and accrued financial capital.<\/p>\n As the Government of Canada ushered Indigenous Peoples\u00a0onto reserves, ramped up the residential school system and imposed other legal restrictions<\/a>, universities contributed heavily to remaking Indigenous Lands\u00a0into the political nation state<\/a>\u00a0and developing white settler prosperity. Universities\u00a0reinforced settler ideologies<\/a>\u00a0in the education of Canada\u2019s political and thought leaders.<\/p>\n Part of our early findings suggest Indigenous Peoples have an enduring presence at Western, despite colonial attempts to overlook them.<\/p>\n As records from the Anglican Diocese of Huron show, on Feb. 20, 1877, an \u201cAssociation of the Professors and Alumni of Huron College\u201d gathered in London, Ont., to encourage\u00a0Isaac Hellmuth,<\/a>\u00a0the Anglican Bishop of Huron Diocese, to work towards building an \u201cundenominational School of Arts, Law, Medicine and Engineering.\u201d A year later, on March 7,\u00a01878, Western University was born<\/a>.<\/p>\n But left out in many accounts is the role settler colonialism and promises of Indigenous education played in securing the university\u2019s early years.<\/p>\n According to the resolution from that 1877 meeting, Isaac Barefoot was one of 42 men gathered to encourage Hellmuth to work towards the new university.<\/p>\n Barefoot was an Onondaga man from Six Nations of the Grand River. As a child he attended\u00a0the Mohawk Institute, Canada\u2019s oldest residential school<\/a>, and later trained to become a teacher\u00a0at Egerton Ryerson\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Normal School<\/a>.<\/p>\n From there, Barefoot went on to teach at\u00a0the Mohawk Institute<\/a>. He was eventually ordained an Anglican priest\u00a0at Western\u2019s founding College, Huron, in 1878<\/a>.<\/p>\n Survivors of the Mohawk Institute, with Six Nations Elected Chief Mark B. Hill at the podium, at a press conference in July 2021, requested a criminal investigation into, and a search for, unmarked graves on the grounds. THE CANADIAN PRESS\/Peter Power<\/p><\/div>\n Barefoot is a complex figure entangled in asymmetrical colonial power relations. His presence at this meeting also reminds us that the vision to train Indigenous Peoples was an early rationale for creating universities: For example, university founders in the United States\u00a0used relationships with Indigenous Peoples to raise funds<\/a>\u00a0for establishing universities that included the promise of Indigenous education deeply entwined with colonial aims.<\/p>\n Researchers at the Six Nations of the Grand River Lands & Resources Department and scholars\u00a0document how McGill University<\/a>\u00a0borrowed government-controlled Indian Trust Funds.<\/p>\n Educational studies researcher Rosalind Hampton references McGill\u2019s use of the Indian Trust Fund and critiques intersections of settler colonialism, legacies of slavery and anti-Black racism at the university in\u00a0Black Racialization and Resistance at an Elite University<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\nEarly Canadian universities<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Western University\u2019s founding story<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Isaac Barefoot<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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Indigenous Peoples and building universities<\/strong><\/h4>\n