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rfmcdonaldNotwithstanding the survival of sectarian representation in the provincial legislative assembly into the 1990s, and of informally religiously segregated schools into the 1980s, at least by the time I was born Prince Edward Island's historic of sectarian religious conflict wasn't spoken of. A 2006 paper of an Island acquaintance of mine originally published in 2006 in the CCHA Historical Studies journal, Ryan O'Connor, explores one noteworthy manifestation of these tensions I'd not heard of, the attack on the Orange Order headquarters in Charlottetown in 1877. The essay's title? "'…you can beat us in the House of Assembly but you can’t beat us in the street': The Symbolic Value of Charlettown’s Orange Lodge Riot".
At one point, O'Connor notes, Catholic-Protestant tensions were bridged by the common opposition of Islanders to the bizarre system of absentee land tenure that saw absentee landlords own all land and maintain tenants. That the conflicts following the collapse of this pre-modern landholding system suggests that, on the Island as elsewhere, ethnic tensions were worsened by modernization. Here, the creation of a publicly funded school system that at one point included Bible readings in the Protestant tradition without comparable representation from Roman Catholicism was key.
And it was overlooked:
It's true that a community is defined by what it chooses not to remember at least as much as by what it chooses to keep in active memory.
Read the entire essay: O'Connor did great work.
Such [sectarian] violence long bypassed Prince Edward Island. While the neighbouring colonies had all suffered through similar experiences, the diminutive colony of 94,021 entered the 1870s relatively unscathed by such eruptions. This absence of denominational violence is especially intriguing given the colony’s religious makeup: fifty-five per cent Protestant, forty-five per cent Roman Catholic. Such an evenly matched population, one might suspect, would lend itself to the violence endemic elsewhere. However, notes historian Ian Ross Robertson, the “surprising circumstances for a colony so evenly divided was the dearth of religious hostilities.”
Such a peaceful co-existence would not last. On 12 July 1877 the Island’s record of religious non-violence came to a dramatic end when the Charlottetown headquarters of the Loyal Orange Order, its members just returned from a day of recreation, bore the brunt of an angry mob. Why did this unfortunate action occur? Why, thirty years after the peak of Orange-Green conflict in British North America did such an event transpire in Charlottetown?
At one point, O'Connor notes, Catholic-Protestant tensions were bridged by the common opposition of Islanders to the bizarre system of absentee land tenure that saw absentee landlords own all land and maintain tenants. That the conflicts following the collapse of this pre-modern landholding system suggests that, on the Island as elsewhere, ethnic tensions were worsened by modernization. Here, the creation of a publicly funded school system that at one point included Bible readings in the Protestant tradition without comparable representation from Roman Catholicism was key.
From 1856 to 1877 the Island was beset with politico-religious conflict during which the Roman Catholic minority repeatedly failed to have its interests acted upon. Despite spirited Catholic protests, legislation was passed in 1860 that made Scripture readings a mandatory part of a schoolteacher’s job. In the ensuing years, despite the Catholic population’s repeated efforts, the government failed to legislate funding for sectarian schools. This effort died in 1876 when Premier Davies enshrined the non-sectarian nature of the school system in the Prince Edward Island Education Act.
The one victory that the Roman Catholics could boast of would turn sour. Having successfully petitioned the Duke of Newcastle to disallow the Orange Incorporation Act of 1863, this manoeuvre galvanized the Protestant community and led to a rapid expansion of Order lodges. A powerful lobby group that represented all that the papists were not, the Orange Order were an obvious target for Catholic aggression.
The timing of the Charlottetown lodge’s attack is also significant. The centrepiece of the Orange calendar, 12 July marks the annual commemoration of King William’s seventeenth-century victory over Catholic forces at the Boyne. This event represents a claim of Protestant supremacy wherever it is celebrated. Charlottetown’s Catholics would have greeted this annual event with disdain; however, there is no record of violence in the city on this day prior to 1877. Having recently lost the conclusive battle for sectarian education, the culmination of twenty years of public conflict, it appears that by 1877 members of the Charlottetown Catholic community could no longer take reminders of their subjugation without action. That one of the riot’s instigators, Nicholas Collins, was quoted as saying “Damn you, you can beat us in the House of Assembly, but you can’t beat us in the street,” testifies to this connection between political frustration and public action.
And it was overlooked:
Although the 1877 riot was a significant event in the history of Prince Edward Island, it has long been overlooked. A survey of relevant literature reveals only four items that discuss the riot. The first published was Reverend John C. Macmillan’s History of the Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island from 1835 to 1891. While it provides useful insight into the Church’s response to the violence, this partisan account of the riot contradicts contemporary testimony. Andrew Robb’s “Rioting in 19th Century P.E.I.,” summarizes the events of 12 July 1877 in three paragraphs. Likewise, Boyde Beck’s light-hearted Prince Edward Island: An Unauthorized History handles the event in a similarly superficial manner. Anecdotal rather than academic, these works explain what happened on the day in question, but fail to provide insight into why the riot occurred. More significantly the leading academic text on nineteenth-century Prince Edward Island, the Francis W.P. Bolger edited Canada’s Smallest Province, does not mention the Orange Order’s existence. Nonetheless, the book does help shed light on the religio-politico tensions that dominated Island society between 1856-1877, especially as they impacted local elections. However, coverage of “the elemental animosity [that emerged] between [the] Protestant and Catholic” population is largely a backdrop to the book’s central focus – Prince Edward Island’s entry into Canada in 1873. The riot at the Orange lodge is not mentioned in an academic text until Brendan O’Grady’s Exiles and Islanders: The Irish Settlers of Prince Edward Island was released in 2004. Handling the event in three pages, O’Grady connects the event to the tensions between Irish Catholics and the Orange Order elsewhere, but does not establish a local context that explains why the riot occurred.
It's true that a community is defined by what it chooses not to remember at least as much as by what it chooses to keep in active memory.
Read the entire essay: O'Connor did great work.
