For the most part, when I do need to refer specifically to “the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority,” I’ve decided on the term settler. I feel it is the most accurate relational term and helps to keep the conversation more focused than the term White.
The history of the category of White is a powerful and complex one, and although it is still very much officially recognized,3 it seems to invite more argument than any other term. I do not agree that White is a pejorative term or that it can be equated with racist terms for other groups because, frankly, there is no history of systemic oppression that has been enforced against people included in the category of White in Canadian history. However, give and take is needed. In the last chapter, I asked us to agree not to use certain terms. In my experience, the term White bothers many people, so, in the spirit of give and take, I will use a different term as much as possible. This is not an attempt to avoid naming Whiteness as a system of power and privilege; I will still be speaking to that very much as we go.
I pointed out that I feel settler is a relational term, rather than a racial category, which is another way in which it is more useful. Since I have chosen this term, I suppose I do need to explain what it means, or at least what I am using it to mean. For me, it is a shortened version of settler colonials. Settler colonialism is a concept that has recently begun to be explored in-depth,4 and it essentially refers to the deliberate physical occupation of land as a method of asserting ownership over land and resources.5 The original settlers were of various European origins, and they brought with them their laws and customs, which they then applied to Indigenous peoples and later to all peoples who have come to Canada from non-settler backgrounds. This does not refer only to those European people with sociopolitical power, but also to those of lower classes who settled here to seek economic opportunity.
The term settler has also been used to refer to people who continue to move to Canada and settle here. This is often done to highlight the fact that settlement, as a facet of colonialism, continues. In that way, it is a useful term, but it also obscures the way in which colonialism outside of Canada has created conditions that have given many peoples little choice but to seek homes elsewhere – including in Canada. Like European-descended peoples of the lower classes, who were more pawns than power-brokers in the early years of colonization in Canada and the United States, non-European peoples displaced by colonization in their own lands are folded into the settlement process when they arrive here – even as they are often denied equal social privileges. However, non-European migrants do not have the power to bring with them their laws and customs, which they then apply to the rest of the peoples living in Canada – no matter what some alarmists like to claim. The dominant sociopolitical structures in place remain European in origin and, as Indigenous peoples are well aware, they are not so easy to change.
While a strong argument can be made that non-European-descended peoples who come to live in Canada are also settlers, I am going to eschew the term here in favour of non-Black people of colour. This term will not be completely satisfactory either, because some non-European peoples are also able to access Whiteness, but it is a heck of a lot better than the term newcomers, which completely erases the history of communities that have existed in Canada for hundreds of years.
I want to be very clear that the term settler does not, and can never, refer to the descendants of Africans who were kidnapped and sold into chattel slavery.6 Black people, removed and cut off from their own indigenous lands – literally stripped of their humanity and redefined legally as property – could not be agents of settlement. The fact that slavery has been abolished does not change this history. Although Black people are not all indigenous to the Americas, the Americas are home to the descendants of enslaved African peoples.7
We are left with three broad, unsatisfactory, but possibly usable categories: settlers (the non-Indigenous peoples living in Canada who form the European-descended sociopolitical majority), non-Black persons of colour (hereafter, non-Black POC), and Black people. These categories will be used when necessary to point out the different ways in which peoples experience power and/or oppression in Canada. When I am referring to all peoples who are non-Indigenous to the Americas, of any background living in these lands today, I will use the term Canadians. However, the fact that this book focuses most of its attention on colonial structures of power means we don’t get to explore Indigenous/Black/non-Black POC relationships in great detail.
If this is boring the pants off you, please put them back on if you are reading this in public, and be comforted by the fact that this conversation is going to get more interesting soon. I promise. I just want to make one more point before moving on to more excellent discussions.
Frank Wilderson III points out that it is too simplistic to think of oppression in binaries: settler versus Indigenous, settler versus Black, or settler versus everyone else.8 The complexities involved become more obvious when one considers that Indigenous is not really a racial category; there are many mixed-race Indians.
These oppressions can overlap, and this is important to understand in the context of settler colonialism. Just as it is true that Indigenous peoples can participate in anti-Black racism, and reinforce oppressive structures based on that racism, it is also true that other non-Indigenous peoples can buy into and reinforce settler colonialism by supporting the occupation of land and exploitation of resources as a method to achieving greater civil and social equality. Reinforcing anti-Black racism or settler colonialism does not undo the marginalization faced in other aspects of life, but the complexity of the relationships between all peoples living here is something we cannot lose sight of.
The point is it’s messy, complicated, and I’m not going to solve it in this chapter; all I want is to highlight the fact that just as terms are needed to refer to Indigenous peoples, terms are also needed to refer to settlers. I’m not trying to be a jerk here; I just can’t keep using really long descriptive sentences to dance around calling people “settlers.” I do have a lot to say about power, names, and who gets to decide who is called what, but to be honest, even I’m bored at this point. The only reason I brought up this unsatisfying conversation was to reiterate what I said in the Introduction. I am not trying to be deliberately provocative, and I mean no disrespect when I use the term settler. I cannot prove this to be true, so it has to be taken on faith, and read in that light.
I decided I wanted to round this section out with something much more interesting: terms Indigenous peoples have in their own languages for non-Indigenous peoples!
Not all Indigenous peoples have names for Black and non-Black POC. It seems to depend on how much contact there was between these groups before serious language decline began. Some of the names that do exist replicate 19th-century racial essentialism, referring to skin colour (such as the Cree word kaskitêwiyâs or the Lakota term hásapa, both of which mean “black flesh/skin”). In Otoe, the word for Black person is wą’shithewe, which literally translates as “black person.”9 In Hupa, the term is mining’-łiwhin, which means “black faces.”
In the eastern Arctic, Inuit describe Black people as “portagee” or “portugee,” which one linguist believes is a variation of Portuguese, so used because of contact between Inuit and whalers from Cape Verde.10 Other names are more traditionally descriptive, referring to observed characteristics. Where I am from in Alberta, a Chinese person is called “sêkipatwâw,” which means “s/he has braids.” This gives you a fairly good idea of when this name began to be applied to describe the appearance of early male Chinese migrants.11 Another name is apihkês, which actually means “spider.” I have been told this refers to weaving skill. Southeast Asians are sometimes referred to as “nêhiyahkân,” which means “Cree-like” or “almost Cree.”
Indigenous languages, like all living languages, are capable of growth and change. Radmilla Cody is Black and Indigenous, and a former Miss Navajo Nation
winner.12 The Diné (Navajo) word for a Black person is Nakai ?izhinii, which like previous terms listed here, basically just translates to “black.” Radmilla has often discussed how this name was used to tease her when she was growing up.13 She sought out a fluent speaker to find a name for Black people that would be more respectful. That speaker used the word Naahilii/Nahilii, and its meaning is broken down like this: “Na(a) – Those who have come across; hil – dark, calm, have overcome, persevered, and we have come to like; ii – oneness.”14
Some might question why another word is needed, if one already exists. As Jihan Gearon puts it:
Think about this: A young Black and Navajo girl or boy has been teased with the word Nakai ?izhini. It makes them feel bad when they hear it. Still, when they introduce themselves in Navajo, they have to use that very word to describe themselves. I don’t think its a stretch to worry about that little girl or boy’s self image. Furthermore, while our other clans have histories and stories and songs and characteristics and responsibilities associated with them, this word identifies us as a color only.15
In contrast, every Indigenous person has a name, and sometimes a few different names, for settlers. After all, contact with European-descended peoples is something we have all experienced. These names tend to be descriptive of some trait or characteristic witnessed by Indigenous peoples back around contact. Sometimes, people can’t really remember the actual etymology of the word, or have created a folk etymology that makes sense now and is widely understood as its origin, but may not be. Sometimes, an already existing word from a language used by Europeans has been Creecized or Anishinaabecized.
I recently did a roundup on Twitter asking for Indigenous names for settlers. Many of these words I had heard before, but hadn’t heard all their understood meanings before. Any misunderstanding of what was shared with me is my own; I apologize if I have made any mistakes with spelling or translation. I obviously do not speak all of these languages, and this is all anecdotal.
I’ll start with one of my traditional languages, which is Plains Cree (nêhiyawêwin). On the Plains, we often call settlers “môniyaw.” The origin of this term is hotly contested. Some believe it is a Creecization of the French pronunciation of Montreal, where so many Europeans were travelling from. Others believe it is a way of saying “not me” or “not Cree” in our language. These are not the only theories. I am not going to pretend to have the authority to claim any theory above another.
The Cree on the Plains also use the word wêmistikosiw to refer to French people specifically, and it describes the big wooden boats they came on. The Cree farther east often use this term for all settlers – French or not.
Where I’m from, people from the United States are generally called “kihci-môhkomân,” which means “great knives” and refers to the sabres that soldiers used to wear. It probably would have been a name for the British originally, and some Cree might still use it that way.
Our cousins, the Anishinaabe, have a language very related to Cree and have words similar to the ones above. One of the most common terms I’ve seen them use though is Zhaaganaash. It has been explained to me that this word refers to people of dubious character, while another explanation I’ve seen is that it has the same root as an Anishinaabemowin word meaning “to put something outside”; so it means “outsider,” without any negative shading.
Interestingly enough, some Cree people use the word sâkênâs, which, despite the different spelling, sounds very similar to Zhaaganaash when spoken. It also does not have the nicest connotation. A number of times I have heard people say that this word originally comes from sassenach in Gaelic (possibly Scottish Gaelic brought over by Orcadians). It is said that this word may have been a name for the Saxon, and was later applied to the English, developing an unsavoury connotation.
Jumping to the West Coast, I was told the Nl’kapamux, who are part of the Interior Salish, say “sheme,” which is the colour of a drowned person. The Halq’eméylem (Stó:lō) say “xwelitem,” which means “hungry people,” while the Sechelt use a similar word, xwa’lat’en, to refer to White people. Again, I cannot be sure of the true etymology of these words, only what people believe them to mean.
The Mohawk say “ose’ronni,” which I’ve seen translated as just “other people” who are non-Indigenous, but also as “delicate white flower people.”
I was told that among the Inuit of Ikaluktutiak (Cambridge Bay) kapluunak or kabloonak is used to mean “bushy eyebrows,” but I am very uncertain of the correct spelling. In Nunavut and Nunavik (northern Quebec), the word qallunaat is generally used to refer to non-Inuit. Sheila Watt-Cloutier explains that this term is derived from qallunaq, and that it “describes the bones on which the eyebrows sit, which protrude more on white people than on Inuit.”16
In Nimiipuutimpt (Nez Pierce), settlers are called “soyapos,” which was translated to mean “the crowned ones” because of the hats they wore.
The Blackfoot have a trickster character named “Napi,” and I was told that because he was a bit wild and unpredictable, settlers became known as “napikwan.”
The Lakota called cavalry soldiers “míla hanska,” which means “long knives.” This seems like a pretty common description among Indigenous peoples! Another term is wašicu, often translated as “takes all the fat” or greedy, and has variations of use among the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota.
Of course, this is only a tiny slice of the many terms for Black, non-Black POC, and settlers, both neutral and not-so-neutral, that exist in our languages. If none of the English terms I listed above are suitable to you, I would certainly invite you to find out whose Indigenous territory you live in, in order to identify a word in their language that feels more appropriate. As well, it is always good to remember our languages are not frozen in time, and new terms can be created.
Although this entire section is focused on terminology, I have no desire to get overly hung up on specific words, because there are much more interesting topics to explore. So, let’s get to it!
NOTES
1.To reiterate what I said in chapter 1, when I use the term non-Indigenous in this book, I mean people who are not Indigenous to what is now called Canada. I think it is incredibly important to recognize that many people currently living in Canada are Indigenous to other areas.
2.Many Indigenous peoples do not consider themselves Canadians for reasons that will be described in fuller detail later on in this book. While some have no problem with the term, it is best not to assume that Canadian can apply to every person living in this country.
3.Government of Canada. Census (2006), http://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/pub/instrument/3901_Q2_V3-eng.pdf. The 2006 long-form census, for example, allowed participants to identify as: White, Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arab, West Asian, Korean, Japanese, Aboriginal, or other.
4.If you are interested in exploring academic discussions of settler colonialism, you should check out the journal Settler Colonial Studies: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rset20.
5.Eve Tuck, and K. Wayne Yang, “Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society 1, no. 1 (2012): 4–7, http://decolonization.org/index.php/des/article/view/18630.
6.Tiffany Jeannette King, “In the Clearing: Black Female Bodies, Space and Settler Colonialism” (PhD diss., University of Maryland, 2013), http://drum.lib.umd.edu/bitstream/handle/1903/14525/King_umd_0117E_14499.pdf;jsessionid=F60781D31F860A28832010DD5D67A9D3?sequence=1. I freely admit I did not understand this distinction until fairly recently, though it now seems obvious. For more in-depth exploration of the relationship between slavery and colonialism, and the way in which Black people are impacted by settler colonialism, consult the source above.
7.What it means for the Americas to be the home of the descendants of enslaved Africans is not something that has been very well articulated within Native Studies yet. It is something that will hopefully receive more attention academically, as well as
on the ground, through strengthening Black and Indigenous relationships. Here is a piece that addresses this: Eve Tuck, Allison Guess, and Hannah Sultan, “Not Nowhere: Collaborating on Selfsame Land,” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education and Society (2014): https://decolonization.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/notnowhere-pdf.pdf.
For more information on Black Indians, chattel slavery among some Native American peoples, as well as successful Indigenous/Black resistance to slavery: Arica L. Coleman, That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013); William Loren Katz, Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage (New York: Atheneum, 1986); Barbara Krauthamer, Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation and Citizenship in the Native American South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013); Clifford A. Weslager, Delaware’s Forgotten Folk: The Story of the Moors and Nanticokes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006); J. B. Bird, “Rebellion: John Horse and Black Seminoles, the First Black Rebels to Beat American Slavery,” http://johnhorse.com/; Paul Gilory, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).
8.Frank Wilderson III, Red, White and Black: Cinema and Structures of US Antagonisms (Durhman: Duke University Press, 2010).
9.This translation was shared with me by Johnnie Jae, cofounder of A Tribe Called Geek, described as “Indigenerdity for the Geeks at the Powwow.” You should check out their work! http://atribecalledgeek.com/.
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