Review: Sir John A. Macdonald & The Apocalyptic Year 1885 places the former PM’s many imperfections within the context of the times | Canada Voices

• Title: Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year 1885
• Author: Patrice Dutil
• Genre: Non-Fiction
• Publisher: Sutherland House
• Pages: 300

In 1885, smallpox struck Montreal. Although vaccination was free and compulsory, many refused the vaccine. By the end of the year, more than 3,100 people had died. But in the nearby reserve of Kahnawake, there were few cases, because most of its members had been vaccinated by the federal government.

So writes Patrice Dutil, in his splendid new biography, Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalyptic Year 1885. One of Canada’s most respected political scientists soundly refutes the corrosive, unjust accusations levelled by some today against Canada’s first prime minister.

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In his effort to stave off the starvation of First Nations in the West, in his handling of the Riel rebellion and in his assertion of Canadian sovereignty – all in the space of one year – Macdonald demonstrated his exceptional abilities as prime minister.

Yes, he profoundly misunderstood the identity and aspirations of Indigenous Canadians, which led to the evils of the residential-school system. But as Dutil ably demonstrates, Macdonald was acting in what he and his contemporaries thought were the best interests of First Nations.

Despite his failings, any fair-minded reader of this book will conclude that John A. Macdonald was one of this country’s most enlightened prime ministers.

Dutil focuses on the pivotal year of 1885. The first section is devoted to the Dominion’s relations with Great Britain and the United States. London wanted Canadian support for a military mission in Sudan, while the Americans decided to cancel a fishing treaty.

Macdonald made it clear that the government would play no official role in the Sudan mission, even as he banned American fishers from Canadian waters.

“Macdonald managed to demand of both the United Kingdom and the United States a respect for Canada as an independent country,” Dutil concludes. The year 1885 marked a significant advance in Canadian sovereignty.

This was also, most famously, the year in which Louis Riel led a Métis rebellion in what was then the North-West Territories. Ottawa was able to quickly send troops to quell the uprising because the Canadian Pacific Railway, which Macdonald had worked tirelessly to support and finance, was almost complete.

Macdonald’s decision not to grant clemency to Riel, who was convicted of treason and hanged later that year, deeply angered French Canadians. Dutil argues that leniency would have equally angered English Canadians. There simply was no good choice.

First Nations in the West were starving in the 1870s and 80s. The bison on which they depended had been hunted almost to extinction. Many native people fled into Canada to escape a hostile American government that provided no aid.

Macdonald, Dutil demonstrates, did everything in his power to prevent starvation, making himself minister of Indian affairs to co-ordinate relief efforts. He provided supplies and instructors to encourage Indigenous farming and offered rations to thousands in need.

“The whole theory of supplying the Indians is that we must prevent them from starving,” Macdonald declared. Spending on relief efforts became one of the largest items in the federal budget – twice what was spent on agriculture, immigration, penitentiaries or the post office.

“There is no evidence that food was withheld to kill Indigenous people, as some would charge 150 years later,” Dutil concludes. The very opposite is true: “Even with the financial crash in the fall of 1883 and the economy in deep depression, Macdonald spent aggressively on food.” His government was harshly criticized by the Liberal opposition for what that party considered lavish overspending on First Nations relief.

The Macdonald government initiated the infamous residential-school system. There is no question that the prime minister sought to assimilate First Nations within the settler culture. There is also no question that this attitude enjoyed near-unanimous support among non-Indigenous Canadians. Macdonald and his peers believed assimilation offered the most hopeful future for the first peoples.

“Canada joined the rest of the American hemisphere as it opened a shameful chapter in its history, despite its good intentions,” Dutil writes.

Pushed by strident demands from workers and politicians, the Macdonald government reluctantly passed legislation restricting Chinese immigration, though “it was the lightest restriction against international Chinese migration on the Pacific Rim,” Dutil observes. Macdonald personally preferred few or no restrictions.

In the year 1885, Macdonald introduced legislation that lowered the property qualification for voters, that gave some members of First Nations the right to vote and that extended the vote to single or widowed women. Though Macdonald pushed hard to preserve women’s voting rights, he was forced to retreat in the face of a rebellion by his own back bench. The rest of the bill passed.

“I consider the passage of the Franchise Bill the greatest triumph of my life,” Macdonald declared. Almost 300,000 more people voted in the election of 1887 than in the previous election. Later governments stripped First Nations of whatever voting rights they had.

Dutil makes his case in clean, compelling prose, supported by ample evidence. He never seeks to hide Macdonald’s many imperfections, but he places them within the context of the times. Canada needed this book.