"As one looks at the stone the questions arise": Nativism, Mythologized Histories, and the Conservation of Cultural Heritage in British Columbia

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "What We Make of the West: Historical Archaeologists Versus Frontier Mythologies", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

This presentation will shed light on the Native Sons of British Columbia (NSoBC), an influential 20th century fraternal nativist organization in British Columbia (BC) who in 1925 successfully lobbied for the creation of BC’s Historic Objects Act, the first broad heritage protection legislation in BC. I will discuss how the NSoBC’s intense interest in preserving First Nations heritage, such as sites and belongings, was part of the NSoBC’s advocacy to preserve the heritage of a glorified and mythologized pioneer history. I will explain how the NSoBC used archaeology and pseudoarchaeology to reposition First Nations as “relics of a passing age,” (Leece 1995) against which the NSoBC could measure pioneer progress. Finally, I will discuss how similar themes are still prevalent in North American far-right nativist narratives today, and that archaeologists can destabilize these harmful narratives by confronting how our work is misappropriated to support them.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• What We Make of the West: Historical Archaeologists Versus Frontier Mythologies

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow