What histories do the statues erase?
Statues have been in the news a lot lately. Just this past month at the BC Legislature, the statue of Queen Victoria was covered in red paint, canada day was cancelled, and a statue of Captain Cook was toppled and thrown into the harbour. For peaceful actions, they evoked some surprisingly powerful emotions in people. In retaliation, the day after Cook was toppled, a totem pole on the Malahat was burned with the message “one totem — one statue”. Churches are burning across the country, racist uncles are popping off on Facebook, and politicians are scolding us that vandalism only serves to undermine reconciliation. It seems clear that we, settler society, are going through something of an identity crisis as it becomes harder for us to keep ignoring the genocide committed by our ancestors.
The negative reaction to the destruction of statues seems to come from an anxiety that our country’s history is being attacked and erased. Our first prime minister has already been canceled, now the queen, who’s next? I’ve heard a few sympathetic suggestions that rather than destroy the statues we should add plaques that teach us about our dark history. What all these reactions are missing, however, is that history has already been erased. The question we should be asking is: what are the histories that colonial statues (attempt to) erase in the first place? Specifically, I want to ask this question about the statues at the BC legislature.
The conversation about racist monuments at the legislature is nothing new, in 2007 the legislative assembly had a debate on what to do about a series of murals decorating the interior walls. One, titled “Labour”, depicts topless Indigenous women hauling baskets of fish and timber while clothed white men supervise — Songhees elders have expressed hurt and anger at the demeaning and historically inaccurate portrayal, and shared that Indigenous women at the time would have been clothed in public. Another, “Justice,” shows an Indigenous man in regalia standing before Judge Matthew Begbie. The choice to feature Begbie on a mural intended to depict justice is odd, to say the least. During the Chilcotin War, a conflict triggered by the gold rush and corresponding influx of settlers to Tsilhqot’in territories, Begbie invited six Tsilhqot’in chiefs to attend peacekeeping talks. Instead of negotiating an end to the conflict, as promised, Begbie had the chiefs arrested and publicly hanged. For this, his statue was removed from the lobby of the Law Society of BC a few years ago.
During the debate about what to do with the murals in their office building, MLA De Jong shared his opinion that “the Parliament Buildings are not an art gallery with a specialized audience and function. They are, rather, the centre of our system of governance.”
Here’s my thoughts though: The parliament building is an art gallery, and one with a very specialized audience and function. The building and grounds are absolutely chock-full of symbolism, statues, paintings, and murals. The architecture of the building itself is an artistic statement, in direct conversation with the European imperial tradition, intending to convey colonial power and authority. Also, the building is not the centre of our system of governance, but rather the centre of a system of governance, specifically, British colonialism. Let’s not forget that the vast majority of the land that the Legislature claims authority over is in fact unceded, non-surrendered First Nation territories, governed by each sovereign Nation’s own traditional system of governance. The Supreme Court of Canada has called the province’s claims to authority over the land “de facto Crown Sovereignty,” meaning there’s no legal basis for it, but we got the guns so whatcha gonna do?
Back to the idea of the Legislature as an art gallery though. At the center of the building is a stone arch with broad steps that lead to a pair of solid looking doors — the ceremonial entrance, used on special occasions by the Lieutenant Governor, visiting heads of state, and Indigenous Chiefs. I want to talk about the two, larger than life, statues that occupy prominent positions flanking either side of the entrance. To the left is James Douglas, first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, and to the right Justice Matthew Begbie. Knowing what we know about Begbie’s role in the hanging of six Tsilhqot’in chiefs, what message does the artist send to the audience by placing his statue above the front entrance?
What about Douglas on the other side of the door, what message does his presence send? While, for starters, Douglas had originally set aside the land that the legislature building stands on as a four-hectare reserve for the Lekwungen people in 1854. At the time, the inner harbour was a thriving village site and both sides of the shore were covered with the lodges of Indigenous families. Where are their statues? A few years later, without consultation or compensation, Douglas had the land cleared and “moved the Indians to the reserve across the bay,” so that the legislature buildings could be constructed. It wasn’t until 2006 that the canadian government was forced, through litigation, to recognize their theft and settled out of court with the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations. The history section of the BC legislature’s website goes into detail about Hermann Otto Tiedemann, the colony’s first professional architect, but makes no mention of land theft or the displacement of the building site’s original inhabitants.
Through countless similar acts, Douglas was instrumental in transforming the landscape from a thriving Lekwungen community of interconnected villages, into the simulacrum of Victorian England that it is today. During his tenure as Governor, Indigenous people from across the coast were moving to Victoria, displaced from their traditional communities by settler expansion, the smallpox epidemic, or simply seeking new economic opportunities. He believed that this was a “positive nuisance” and wrote to the Colonial Office “that at the present moment there are nearly four thousand Indians in the outskirts of the town of Victoria... with much apprehension felt by the inhabitants... at the close contiguity of a body of Savages double to them in number.”
As documented by The British Colonist (now the Times Colonist), Douglas used the police to clear the Indigenous camps at the edge of town, “but they refused to go.” The article goes on to say that “they (Indigenous people) are a great nuisance, rendering property in their quarter valueless. Their camp is perfect Bedlam and one of the greatest dens of vice and crime ever permitted in a Christian community.”
The statues of Begbie, Douglas, Queen Victoria, Captain Cook, they aren’t just relics from a colonial past that we’ve moved past. I’ll try to use one small example to point toward how the past extends into the present, and hopefully illustrate a bigger picture. A result of historical trauma and structural racism, currently 35% of unhoused people in Victoria are Indigenous, despite making up 5% of the city’s population. To this day, like in Douglas’, when an homeless encampments pop up in the city, settler canadians panic about property values, drugs, crime, and the colonial government files an injunction to clear the camp. The police show up and forcibly evict and displace the residents. Compare this gem that the Times Colonist (formerly the British Colonist) published in 2017, to the one they published in 1859:
“The reality is this: Homeless people have been steadily destroying the park for a decade. Bylaw officers and the police do stop by daily, but the campers rarely leave. And if they do leave, they leave all their crap behind. Dogs have become quite ill eating the “junkie deposits” left in the bushes… I’m sorry these folks made bad choices and now must suffer the consequences.”
To connect the dots just a little more, this past winter Mayor Helps invoked a ruling by Judge Begbie from 1884, on the permitted uses of the park, to justify why the city had to impound truckloads of winter clothing, tents, blankets, survival supplies, and community showers that had been donated to the unhoused community at the Beacon Hill Park encampment.
I could go on, but I’m a carpenter, not a historian. The point is, there’s a metaphorical, unbroken chain linking us from Douglas’ era to the present. We can’t break a metaphor, but we can break statues.