Imperial Canada as a training ground for empire

Abstract

This article uses decolonial methods to examine four monuments in St Paul’s Cathedral which are associated with the settler-colonial state of Canada. It also demonstrates strategies for Indigenizing the pantheon to reassert viewership beyond imperial narratives which have been inscribed into British and Canadian histories. The four monuments are George Edward Wade’s bust John A. Macdonald (c. 1881–92), Sir Richard Westmacott’s monument to Major-General Isaac Brock (c. 1815), Carlo Panati’s monument to John Hawley Glover (c. 1886–87), and Francis Derwent Wood’s monument to John Eardley Wilmot Inglis (1896). Through these monuments, the article wrestles with, and troubles, the mythos of ‘Canadian’ identity as written into settler-colonial narratives and the ongoing pressures of colonialism throughout Canada. Importantly, the article articulates Indigenous presences – the Shawnee, Inuit and Mi’kmaq – and perseverances at the core of each monument, and further demonstrates that the presence of Black refugees in Nova Scotia and the Hausa people of West Africa are key to understanding and witnessing these monuments in St Paul’s Cathedral.