Bilijk

Bear Nicholas, together with her now-late husband, Darryl Nicholas, gathered records and oral histories, including some that had never been shared before, that show how the past plays out as a genocide against the Wəlastəkewiyik. She lets the people who were there during the years she covers (1783-1950) — Wəlastəkewiyik (a.k.a. Maliseets), Loyalists, church and Crown representatives, Indian Agents, settlers and housewives — tell the story. By getting out of the way and relaying their words verbatim, Bear Nicholas has created a map that looks at uncomfortable truths.

As political philosopher Frantz Fanon has  pointed out, colonizers have always worked to erase Indigenous Peoples’ past only to impose their own versions to suit their motives of greed. Bear Nicholas does the opposite. She flips the colonizer’s version of history by foregrounding written records, transcripts and accounts that have been omitted from the narrative. She shows us how colonial racism led to land theft, fraud, lies, murder, environmental degradation and other misdeeds. Bear Nicholas created the book primarily for young W last kokewiyik who have never been taught Maliseet history in school, but it’s as much for those of us who care about what it means to be Canadian. We owe it to Bear Nicholas and the Maliseet at Bilijk to read their version of what really happened — for they’re still here, in uppercase and in bold.