Settler Colonialism, Environmental Racism, and Indigenous History in Lianne Leddy’s Serpent River Resurgence

Lianne Leddy’s monograph Serpent River Resurgence is a powerful demonstration of how the historical profession in Canada has changed in the last decades. Many of us remember the time when few Canadian academic historians took Indigenous history seriously, and it is hard to imagine a work like Leddy’s being written at that time, let alone winning the top book prize of the Canadian Historical Association. It is encouraging to see that some of the best work in Canadian history is now being done in Indigenous history. In addition, we are now entering an era when Indigenous historians like Leddy are making a big impact in history departments and in the discipline. Even if there are still too few Indigenous historians, their presence is already moving our discipline in a direction that I believe is helping historians to collectively become more relevant and truthful. In 2009, one of Canada’s few Indigenous academic historians at the time, Mary-Jane McCallum, described in detail a historical discipline that at the time had remained largely isolated from Indigenous scholarly critiques, and which had largely shut out Indigenous historians and their contributions. Historian Allan Downey’s 2023 JCHA article “To Know the Indigenous Other” demonstrated that this neglect and exclusion lead to a century of JCHA publications that often misrepresent Indigenous history and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. Many of McCallum’s critiques still apply to the profession today, but it is still worth celebrating important milestones, such as this book. One of the great strengths of the book is Leddy’s reliance on both colonial archival sources and oral history evidence. While some historians still deride oral history as unreliable and biased, it is widely understood today as an essential primary source-type for many historical topics and that the colonial archives contain massive biases against Indigenous people, outright lies about Indigenous people, and gaping silences rather than Indigenous voices. In Leddy’s work, using these two types of primary evidence (oral and archival) side-by-side, produces a nuanced analysis and convincing narrative. For example, when archival evidence suggests that the community was generally enthusiastic about industrial development since it would bring jobs, evidence from oral history reveals not only the existence of critical voices but also that the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) downplayed opposing points of view and dismissed concerns from concerned community members. Integrating oral history also generally humanizes the story and gives voice to folks who do not have a voice in the archives. There are also numerous instances in the book where Leddy cites oral history to clearly establish community members’ historical relationship with the land and the impacts of industrialization on the health of those who tried to maintain those relationships. In their testimonies, Elders shared their profound sadness and sense of loss resulting from the fundamental changes brought on by the uranium industry, which is another fact and sentiment rarely found in the colonial archive. Another key contribution of the book is Leddy’s discussion of the role of the DIA in foisting dangerous and polluting settler-owned industries onto First Nations in the name of civilization. The DIA, along with settler media and other boosters, equated the construction of the acid plant on reserve with modernity and civilization. The explicit and implicit argument they made was that such industrialization was needed to fill the empty wilderness with culture and wealth and to bring uncivilized First Nations into civilization. A number of historians have written on the DIA’s posture toward the First Nations it supposedly existed to protect, and Leddy gives us substantial additional material for understanding this colonial relationship. In 1955 Noranda Mines Ltd. announced that it …