by Peter Duffy, Halifax Citadel Army Museum
Stephen Toney.
Even though it wasn’t their fight, when the British Empire went to war in 1914, Canada’s Aboriginal People didn’t hesitate to answer the call to arms and did so in numbers that were quite astonishing, considering how relatively few in number they were.
In all, more than 4,000 male Status Indians volunteered for service during the First World War with 300 of them making the ultimate sacrifice for Canada, a nation which didn’t even consider them citizens at the time.
An enlistment level of that kind represented 35 percent of Aboriginal People of military age at the time. This equaled and, in some cases exceeded, the scale of volunteering recorded elsewhere in Canada. In one band in ...
Tags: Army Museum Halifax Citadel, Belgium, British Army, British Columbia, Cameron Brant, Canada, Canadian Expeditionary Force, Cape Breton, Chief Joseph Brant, featured, First World War, France, Halifax Citadel Army Museum, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq, Mi’kmaq Confederacy of Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, newfoundland, Peter Duffy, Pictou County, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Prince Edward Island, Royal Canadian Engineers, Royal Newfoundland Regiment, Sam Gloade, Six Nations, Stephen Toney, Sydney, The Road to Vimy and Beyond, Ypres
