Mohawks on the Nile - Carl Benn

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      MOHAWKS

       on the Nile

      MOHAWKS

       on the Nile

       Natives Among the Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt 1884–1885

      CARL BENN

       Including the memoirs of two Mohawk veterans of the campaign, Louis Jackson and James Deer, published in 1885

      Copyright © Carl Benn, 2009.

      All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

      Editor: Jane Gibson

       Copy Editor: Shannon Whibbs

       Designer: Courtney Horner

       Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens

       Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

      Benn, Carl, 1953-

       Mohawks on the Nile : natives among the Canadian voyageurs in Egypt,

      1884-1885 / by Carl Benn.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-1-55002-867-6

      1. Khartoum (Sudan)--History--Siege, 1884-1885. 2. Mohawk

       Indians--Sudan--History--19th century. 3. Canadians--Sudan--History-

      19th century. 4. Jackson, Louis. 5. Deer, James D. 6. Mohawk

      Indians--Canada--Biography. 7. Nile River--Navigation--History--19th

       century. I. Title.

      DT156.6.B45 2009 962.6’203 C2008-903970-X

      1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09

      We acknowledge the support of The Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

      Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

       J. Kirk Howard, President

      Printed and bound in Canada.

      www.dundurn.com Published by Natural Heritage Books A Member of The Dundurn Group

Dundurn Press 3 Church Street, Suite 500 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaM5E 1M2 Gazelle Book Services Limited White Cross Mills High Town, Lancaster, England LA1 4XS Dundurn Press 2250 Military Road Tonawanda, NY U.S.A. 14150

       Contents

       Dedication

       Chapter 3: Coming Home

       Chapter 4: Mohawks as Workers

       Chapter 5: Mohawks as Allies

       Appendix I: Memoirs of Louis Jackson

       Appendix II: Memoirs of James Deer

       Appendix III: Additional Primary Texts

       Appendix IV: Annotated Roll of the Mohawk Voyageurs

       Appendix V: Canadian Voyageur Contingent Strength

       Appendix VI: Distances in Egypt and Sudan

       Appendix VII: Chronology

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       About the Author

      An extraordinary event in the history of the Iroquois Confederacy occurred in 1884 and 1885 when about sixty men from the Mohawk nation participated in a British military expedition in Sudan, which at the time was a province within Egypt rather than the independent country that it is today. These men, drawn from native communities on the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa rivers, served in a force sent up the Nile River to rescue Major-General Charles Gordon from Muslim nationalists who besieged him in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. To transport the troops, the government of the United Kingdom deployed soldiers from both the Egyptian and its own armies, sailors from the Royal Navy, civilian employees and contractors, and boatmen from West Africa and Canada. Almost four hundred individuals formed the Canadian Voyageur Contingent (or Nile Voyageurs) to pilot specially designed whaleboats upriver, including Iroquois Mohawks from Kahnawake, Akwesasne, and Kanesatake. The aboriginal men proved their excellence on the treacherous waters of the Nile and won praise for their contributions from the army’s senior officers and a range of other observers. Today, the image of North American indigenous people taking part in a Victorian imperial adventure in Africa seems incongruous in comparison to how we normally perceive First Nations history. However, Mohawk service on the Nile fell within a number of important norms in Iroquois cultural practices, work patterns, and alliance relationships, which we will examine in the pages below along with exploring the fascinating events that unfolded between the late summer of 1884 and the spring of 1885.

      This book presents several elements that I trust will capture the richness of the story of the Mohawks in the Sudan War for modern readers. The first and longest section comprises my historical narrative and analysis of the Iroquois adventure, focused on placing native involvement in a larger perspective. The two components that follow are memoirs written by Mohawk veterans of the campaign, Louis Jackson’s Our Caughnawagas in Egypt and James Deer’s Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt, both of which were published in 1885, and which present

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