#william duncan

[citizenscreen]

William Duncan (December 16, 1879 – February 7 or 8, 1961)

[frenchcurious]

Affiche du film ''Fighting Fate'' (Vitagraph, 1921). - Source Heritage Auctions.

[michigandrifter]

Bar 20 Justice 1938

[classicposters]

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Duncan insisted on reading the man's evidence into the record:

White fellows had fired at them in the camp, and that they had shot two black fellows; one Bobby belonging to him, and another named Jackey Jackey. I asked him if it was Bobby, who was a little palsied; he said it was. He said that they had destroyed the camp, and taken away all their utensils and weapons; that all the blacks ran away: that a Mary, whom I understood him to say was his daughter, was taken in childbirth – pickaniny tumbled down – and that she herself was very sick.

"Killing for Country: A Family History" - David Marr

[wanderestless]

I was going through the Tsimshian tag (bc I like seeing what my cousins are up to) and saw your post about how you were researching William Duncan and I have some stories that I thought you might be interested in.

First, There are still Tsimshians who see him in a good light bc he learned our language and stuff(I don't know why either)

Second, apparently back in the old days, when William Duncan was leaving Met to go somewhere else, the village would send some kids to see when his boat left so everyone could take out their regalia and potlach till the sun came up lol

wow, thank you so much for sharing! the second story brings me so much joy, i can't say i'm surprised to hear it given how silly the 'model village' life sounds like. those nights must have been so healing and empowering for everyone. also, duncan was so self-assured ideologically that i'm sure it was pretty easy to move around in his blind spots, and he'd never notice.

i think i can understand how people could view duncan in a positive light, especially considering the way so many other missionaries, government agents, and general settlers behaved. the CMS which sent duncan to the northwest coast was unusual in its insistence that the missionaries learned Indigenous languages and cultures... the standard was at rock bottom, and by that measure duncan was (relatively) culturally openminded.

i stopped commenting partway through the book because the story gets worse and wasn't something i felt i could discuss lightly. however, the other thing that happened is that duncan wound up advocating hard against the Indian Act and Indian Agents, because they were clearly going to disrupt his control over the Tsimshian, and some of his ideology about how Indigenous people should 'modernize' ran counter to the way the reservation system would work under the Indian Act. because of this, a number of Indigenous groups in the region wound up coming to duncan for help while advocating for themselves - which I think may be part of the reason some people still think of him in positive terms. (that said, his motives were just as colonial and racist as the goals of the canadian government. they were just a different flavour. jean usher sucks, but the book does go into a lot of detail about everyone's varying motivations.)

thank you again for sharing these stories! i'm definitely interested in hearing stories like these. i hope my horrified posting about him isn't clogging up the tag too much.

[wanderestless]

"When he was appointed justice of the peace in 1863, Duncan was allowed to keep half the fines he imposed for the benefit of Metlakatla." (71)

no real need for comment here.

[wanderestless]

chapter 4 of jean usher's book on william duncan, in bullet form:

has anyone considered that the poor man was lonely, and overwhelmed by the 'task' of converting whole communities? jean usher literally can't talk about this man without worrying about his emotional state.

duncan learned to speak Tsimshian in order to convert the Tsimshian! diversity win!

duncan used groundbreaking missionary tactics such as 'asking people about their community' to gain trust. this, according to usher, is basically the greatest thing anyone has ever done

have i mentioned that this chapter has someone's fawning notes scrawled on it? specifically, notes that say things like 'give the good word to children first' and 'be interested in culture AND character'

duncan builds a school and proceeds to guilt children for not working hard enough

(anti-semitic interlude)

usher continues to praise duncan for things that are objectively culturally genocidal

usher whines when objectively racist proposals don't become policy

duncan convinces about 50 Tsimshian to return to the site of their old village, away from the 'depravity' of Fort Simpson. in other words, he begins the process of isolation for building his cult

i want to stop reading this, but it's due at the library tomorrow and i can't renew it because it's some kind of special library loan (aka it's old and racist so there haven't been new printings since the 70s). ugh.

source: William Duncan of Metlakatla by Jean Usher, 2nd edition, 1974.

if you don't want to see posts about this book, please block the tag #jean usher metlakatla