HISTORY POEM

In 1906 Duncan Scott was an Indian affairs Administrator and Native poet.
He was canoeing around Canada making rules to better ‘Indian’ life, but all he really wanted from the ‘savages’ in his boat was for them to row it.

It helped shape the current state of affairs as we know it.

Sitting with his painter and critic by the fire and lake.
Making plans for the "savages" and the road for their future they will take.
Although to educated readers today, he was just an ignorant cupcake.
When Duncan Scott came over to settle he already had a formed preconception.

He forgot his ancestors were only here because they lost their direction.
When they got here with scurvy and were ill prepared, they needed our protection,
all this early European Historians forgot to mention.

It’s taught in today’s “Images of North American Indians”, Native Studies section.
Because when settlers jumped the big pond like Kanevil.
The things they did to a whole continent of people were evil.
They tried to force ways upon people and make them live civil.
But the things they did would someday make the rest of the world's head swivel.
Our traditions were oral.
When settlers came, food, clothing, tools, and shelter they all had to borrow.
Soon after they would force upon us their moral.
So in their eyes we can have a better tomorrow.
But all it brought this continent's people was sorrow.
When settlers arrived they forgot to mention that killing, stealing, kidnapping, spreading disease, sexual, and mental abuse just suddenly got legalized.
Roman Catholic values were also imported.

I think you might have heard how that turned out, what the priests taught our children, took a long time to get reported.
They put ‘Indians’ into a colony called File Hills,

where they forced them to learn new skills.
But the ways and lessons forced upon them gave the generations to come the chills.
It left more damage than a thousand oil spills.
But the government didn’t care, just let those "Indians" work the field with the tills.
Indian agents stealing to make sure they can die someday with money in their wills.
They expected the ‘Indians’ to just swallow everything down like some good ole government prescription pills.

After contact, over 90% of North America's Native population died.

For centuries the government lied, ethical and human rights denied.

Resist the change? Some tried, but all that survived were still traumatized.
From the neck up, paralyzed, minds colonized.
So this is the result of the Canadian government's hard work to get Native people civilized.