First-hand accounts of indigenous people’s encounters with
colonialism are rare. A daily diary that extends over fifty years and
two thousand pages is unparalleled.
Drawing on a painstaking transcription of Arthur Wellington
Clah’s diaries, Peggy Brock pieces together the many voyages --
physical, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual -- of a Tsimshian man
who moved in both colonial and Aboriginal worlds. Clah’s birth in
1831 coincided with the establishment of a permanent fur trade post,
and he became student, teacher, and confidant to missionary William
Duncan. Later, Clah’s spiritual voyage into the world of colonial
culture transformed him into a devout Christian and an evangelist for
the faith.
From the goldfields of BC and Alaska to the hop fields of Washington
State, Clah witnessed profound change. His diaries reveal the
complexities of personal interactions between colonizers and the
colonized and the inevitable tensions within a community undergoing
rapid change. They also show how Clah’s hopes for his people were
gradually eroded by the realities of land dispossession, interference
by the colonial state in cultural and political matters, and
diminishing economic opportunities.
Taken together, Clah’s many voyages offer an unprecedented
Aboriginal perspective on colonial relationships as they played out on
the Pacific Northwest Coast.