- English
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About this book
In 1890, Harry and Mary Ann Foote arrived on Coast Salish territory and purchased Jedediah - a private island. Starting with the simple question "Where am I from?", this narrative traces one family across Canada and through hundreds of years to share a personal lens on the lived experience of settler colonization. Drawing on original letters, transcripts, and oral histories, the book weaves connections between the stories of specific ancestors and their connection to land, treaties, and Indigenous peoples at that time. Accounts include colourful stories of homesteading on Jedediah Island, in what is now known as British Columbia, construction of the parliament buildings on Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island), life during the so-called "Indian Wars" of the 1700s, and homesteading on the shores of Ouentironk (Lake Simcoe). The earliest stories go back to the 1600s, when a settler with the unlikely name of Peter Rambo was one of the earliest founders of a settlement called New Sweden in what we now call Pennsylvania.
In the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this book tells evocative stories of place, possession, and people from the 1600s to the 1930s.
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Table of contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Dedication
- Prologue: Kenya, Another British Settler Colony
- Introduction: Answering a Canadian Question
- Background: A Place-Based Family History
- Part 1. Journeys to One Small Private Island
- 1. Unceded Territories: And the Place Called Jedediah Island
- 2. One Small “Private” Island, 1890–1910s
- 3. Ouentironk (Lake Simcoe): And Treaties
- 4. East End London to Ouentironk (Lake Simcoe), 1870s
- 5. Portage la Prairie
- 6. Harry and Mary Ann: Ouentironk to Métis Land, 1880s
- 7. The Jelly Connection: Jellyby, Ontario, 1800s
- Part 2. Way Back: 1640–1800s
- 8. Epekwitk (PEI): Its Original Inhabitants
- 9. “The First Bain”: William Bain of Epekwitk, 1760s–1890s
- 10. Francis Bain and the Fossil Fern of Epekwitk, 1842–1894
- 11. Wabanaki Confederacy and Pemaquid
- 12. New England Settlers, 1635–1740s
- 13. Lenape and Susquehannock of the Delaware River
- 14. ‘We Ye Ancient Swedes’: Peter Rambo and Brita Mattsdotter, 1640–1680s
- 15. Strathroy’s “First Settler,” Daniel Springer, 1780s
- 16. 61+ Crossings: “It’s complicated”
- Part 3. Arrivals on Coast Salish Territory, 1890–1920s
- 17. Coast Salish territory and Snauq
- 18. A Flood of Settlers
- 19. Bain Aunts in Kerrisdale: Mabel and Nell, 1910s–1920s
- 20. Will Bain: From War to Treaty 5, 1915–1920s
- 21. Letters from Vancouver in the 1920s
- 22. Stó:lō territory: Fort Langley, 1920s
- 23. Mt. Pleasant, 1910s
- 24. A Sojourn Down Under, 1908
- 25. 1909: Winnie and Morris of Mt. Pleasant
- 26. Jedediah Tragedies: Life and Death in the 1910s
- 27. The Ancestor I Hope to Be – and an Invitation
- Epilogue: The Families
- Related Reading