Against Overseas Enlistment
In August 1914 with the outbreak of WW1 there was support for the war effort from Indigenous Peoples of Canada. Only status “Indians” were officially recorded in enlistment numbers by the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF).
However, in 1915 the Canadian government under Robert Borden feared that while British troops would be “proud” to fight along side their “Indian” counterparts that the Germans would treat them inhumanely if in the battlefield [1]. Therefore, they should remain in Canada under the protection of the Dominion rather than go overseas. [2] They were originally discouraged from enlisting, but this attitude soon changed due to the high casualty rate and the need for more troops.
[1]Department of Militia and Defence. Department of Indian Affairs. RG 10, Volume 6766, File 452-13. Item 425[2]Ibid.,[3]Timothy Winegard,For King and Kanata: Canadian Indians and the First World War. (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2012), 9.[4]Alastair Sweeny, Government Policy and Saskatchewan Indian Veterans: a Brief History of the Canadian government’s treatment of Indian veterans of the two World Wars. (Ottawa: Tyler, Wright & Daniel, 1979), 2.[5]Lackenbauer, with John Moses, R. Scott Sheffield, and Maxime Gohier, A Commemorative History of Aboriginal People in the Canadian Military, 128.[6] Department of Indian Affairs Report. RG 10, Volume 3182, File 542, 124-6. Item 160.[7] Department of Indian Affairs Report. RG 10, Volume 3182, File 452, 124-6. Item 383.