Scouting For Indians

Recent Photography by Jeffery Thomas

October 12 to November 10, 2001

They stand like sentinels, frozen in time, guarding the country’s heroic past.

The first time I recall seeing a public monument was as a child, from the rear window of my father’s car. A stone soldier stood above the ground on a pillar-type foundation in downtown Buffalo. My fascination with public monuments became part of my photographic practice in 1992, the year marking the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World.’ I felt insulted by the notion of new world, when in fact, an ancient world already existed. There were many monuments of Columbus and other ‘discovers’, but where were the monuments commemorating Aboriginal peoples?

This search eventually led me to the Samuel de Champlain monument in Ottawa. As I walked up the steep incline towards the monument on a cold and windy afternoon, the first thing I saw was Champlain, arm raised confidently setting out to claim the new world. It was only after As I got closer to the monument that I noticed an Indian figure kneeling at its base. The life-size figure was on one knee with an outstretched arm holding a bow, a quiver filled with arrows slung over his shoulder, an upright feather in his hair, and a breechcloth around his waist.

The message the monument told was all too familiar to me—The brave explorer opening the ‘empty’ land to civilization and development, while the simple Indian obsequiously guides him along. The monument was a mirror image of the historical narrative told in schools and recounted in movies.

I chose not to photograph Champlain, rather, I concentrated on the Indian figure. When I had finished taking my photographs, I looked around for a plaque that would give some information on the Indian. But none existed. I stood next to him and surveying the landscape, thought about what it must have looked like in the 16th century and how much the world had changed. I wondered if he would have scouted for Champlain if he knew what would eventually happen to his people. The encounter provoked a new direction for my photographic practice. I made a vow to challenge the monument’s message by scouting for evidence of Aboriginal peoples and using my camera to document what I found.

In 1996 the Assembly of First Nations held a protest at the Champlain monument where they symbolically covered the Indian scout with a blanket to protest against its subservient position and improper dress. While I agreed with these two concerns, I felt that the Indian scout should remain in its original location because it offered an example of how Canadian history had diminished the role of Aboriginal peoples. But I also felt that a plaque should be added to the site describing the Aboriginal position on the monument. The Scout was eventually moved in 1999 and placed across the street in Major’s Hill Park. Now hidden away in a discrete location the kneeling Scout appears to be genuflecting before the Parliament buildings in front of him.

My intention is to keep the Champlain monument and the Scout’s new location as active sites of engagement. The removal of the Scout opened up new opportunities to continue the dialogue, two of which are explored in this exhibition.

1) In 1996 The Ottawa Citizen newspaper revealed that the Indian was originally supposed to be placed in a canoe, but funds ran out before its completion. As a result the Scout has languished canoe-less all these years. Ottawa-based artist Greg Hill symbolically placed his canoe on the spot vacated by the Scout. It was then portaged across the street to Major’s Hill Park and placed before the Scout, who could then complete his journey.

2) The Scout’s new location does not provide the visitor with any historical context and leaves us to focus on the formal aspects of his body with its finely chiseled and bulging muscles, and his classic Indian cheekbones. The Scout has been reduced to an ‘idealization’ that we are familiar with in the Greek statues of western art history.

Ultimately, the nameless and forgotten Indian Scout has come to play a central role in my confrontation with the deeply entrenched ‘Indian’ stereotypes and the absence of a place for Aboriginal peoples in Canada’s historical narrative.

As a young Iroquoian boy growing up in a city, I felt invisible and I wanted to understand how one nourishes an Iroquoian identity in the dominant Anglo society. It was clear that the Anglo world had its own idea of what real Indians looked like; the type of Indian often seen in Hollywood movies, archival photographs and museum displays. But the reality I experienced on a daily basis did not conform to the notion of authentic Indian-ness. Through photography, my objective is to challenge Indian stereotypes and erase the sense of Aboriginal invisibility.

Over the last five years my practice has expanded to include research and curatorial work with archival imagery of Aboriginal people. The invisibility I experienced in my youth stemmed from the absence of Aboriginal history being taught in the classroom. My photographic practice provides me with a bridge to link the past with the present and disrupt the notion that real Indians live in the past.

Jeffery Thomas, 2001.