Abstract
Between 1884–1885, Britain requested a contingent of boatmen – “voyageurs” – from Canada to assist transport troops and supplies through the Nile's system of cataracts (rapids). The expedition's cross section of participants included Egyptians, Sudanese, roughly one hundred indigenous subjects from Canada and subjects from across Britain's empire. Primary sources authored by four participants are central to understanding how the role of travelogues and their accompanying illustrations and photographs combine with discourses of imperialism to establish a foundational framework for the discursive practice of colonialism. Two authors – Louis Jackson's Our Gaughnawagas in Egypt (1885) and James D. Deer's The Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt (1885) – were members of the Mohawk community of Kahnawake near Montreal, Quebec. This visual essay is interested in the way in which indigeneity is produced through contact and exchange under conditions of imperial conquest. It intersperses maps, historical illustrations, photographs, fragments of musical transcription texts and travelogues that were produced in Canada, Britain, Egypt, and Sudan during the 19th and 20th centuries.
There is something unique in the idea of the aborigines of the New World being sent for to teach the Egyptians how to pass the Cataracts of the Nile, which has been navigated by them for thousands of years.
— LOUIS JACKSON1
I begin with a quote from Louis Jackson's preface to his 19th-century travelogue. These words subtly elucidate the cultural specificity of their author as much as they do the deep temporality that links indigenous subjects across geographies.
As the Nile Flows or the Camel Walks intersperses maps, historical illustrations, photographs, fragments of musical transcription, texts, and travelogues that were produced in Canada, Britain, Egypt, and Sudan during the 19th and 20th centuries. The work is driven by an interest with the ways in which indigeneity is produced through contact and exchange under conditions of imperial conquest. Conceived as devices for managing imperial circuits of labor and capital, the sources in this visual essay betray a provisionality their creators may not have acknowledged. This is where I intervene, by fragmenting, transforming, and intersecting diagrams, texts, and images to reveal the excess these sources contain. My intention is to cast what anthropologist Ann Laura Stoler describes as a “disobedient gaze” at historical documents.
Between 1884 and 1885, English soldiers traveled by modified whaling boats from Alexandria, Egypt, to Khartoum, Sudan. Their objective was to rescue the governor general, Major-General Charles Gordon. The cross-section of participants in the expedition included British, Egyptians, Sudanese, and 379 Voyageurs from across Canada. The Canadian contingent included roughly one hundred indigenous subjects from Manitoba and Québec.2 The sites of transcultural friction/exchange—boats, camel caravans—generated a myriad of interactions, understandings, and misunderstandings. What are the lingering traces that remain from this encounter? Can an event infused with such contradictions produce insights that destabilize neat framings of colonial dynamics and their participants? How can interactions embodying polyphonic confluences avoid being reduced to a singular narrative?
I come to this curious event, which has largely been relegated to minor historical significance, through four primary sources authored by participants in the journey: Louis Jackson's Our Caughnawagas in Egypt (1885); James D. Deer's The Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt (1885); Lieutenant-Colonel F. C. Denison's Diary of Canadian Contingent, Nile Expedition (1959); and Colonel Sir W. F. Butler's The Campaign of the Cataracts: Being a Personal Narrative of the Great Nile Expedition of 18841885 (1887). Jackson and Deer were members of the Mohawk community of Kahnawake near Montreal. Three of the texts begin with descriptions of the departure from Canada and then proceed as the writers traveled via Britain and Gibraltar, before culminating in Egypt and Sudan. Butler's tale embarks from Merawi, on the left shore of the Nile. As a system of representation, the travelogues and their accompanying illustrations and photographs combine with discourses of imperialism to establish a foundational framework for the discursive practice of colonialism.
The Canadian boatmen's work involved guiding and frequently portaging the boats through the Nile's system of cataracts with tracking lines, poles, and the rowing strength of English soldiers. The labor was arduous and vital for the expedition's ability to traverse difficult physical terrain.3 Another critical outcome of this labor was the delimiting of categories for subjects of empire and the establishing of terms for doing so. The French term voyageur, in this context, works to obscure a myriad of racial and cultural boundaries. The role of the indigenous guide represents a decisive, yet highly ambiguous, role in the machinations of empire.4 In the interweaving of African and North American indigeneity generated by this expedition, how do we read its inscribed forms of agency? To act as an agent of empire and to do so willingly implies that the production of indigeneity in this particular context creates an opening into the exercise of power. How might these links allow us to rethink contemporary constellations of diasporic and indigenous subjectivity and cultural production? To what extent can the irreducible constraints of contemporary notions of place, identity, and agency be mitigated when engaging historical sources?
opening apertures
There is something unique in the idea of the aborigines of the New World being sent to teach the Egyptians how to pass the unique cataracts of the Nile, which has been navigated by them for thousands of years…
we made 250 miles we made 250 miles our run was 240 miles we made 266 miles our run was 258 miles the run was 272 miles the run today was 262 miles we made 202 miles we made 202 miles the run was 256 miles the run was 246 miles we made 276 miles the run today was 266 miles the run to-day was 262 miles made about fifteen miles today made about fifteen miles today made about 6 miles we made about 20 miles we heard the native drummers drumming all night tracking and pulling all day then they sang god save the queen…7
streams rush to feed the river8
Distance in Days – llptrard Journey
the distance nearer
orders heavy so we marched
limits of steadfastness
transports loaded
distance reported
Implements
(See footnote, page 63)
The first Arabic word we learned was “backsheesh” which means present or gift and we were told that the word “finish” meant nothing to give…9
What narratives come unraveled at sites of ambiguous encounters?
Notes
Our Caughnawagas in Egypt: A Narrative of What Was Seen and Accomplished by the Contingent of North American Indian Voyageurs Who Led the British Boat Expedition for the Relief of Khartoum up the Cataracts of the Nile. (Montreal: Wm. Drysdale & Co., 1885), 3.
“Appendix 1: Nominal Roll, Canadian Voyageur Contingent and Wheelsmen,” in Records of the Nile Voyageurs 1884–1885: The Canadian Voyager Contingent in the Gordon Relief Expedition, ed. C. P. Stacey (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1959), 256–68.
Sir William Francis Butler, The Campaign of the Cataracts: Being a Personal Narrative of the Great Nile Expedition of 1884–1885 (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1887), I44-45.
The classification of participants in Officer Denison's final report in terms of nationality is telling. The 380 men consisted of 36 English and Scotch, 158 Canadians, 93 French Canadians, 77 Indians, and 16 other nationalities. Numerous instances in Deer and Jackson's texts express a profound deference to the British Crown and its imperial cause. These ambiguous subjectivities and allegiances generated anxieties (and frequent skirmishes) within the contingent. I interpret these as instances that problematize contemporary notions of settler discourse and imperial loyalties. For further insight into the ethnic compositions and roles, see “General Report, Lt-Col. F. C. Denison to Major-General Sir Redvers Buller, 9 May 1885,” Stacey, Records of the Nile Voyageurs, 213.
Louis Jackson, Our Caughnawagas in Egypt, 4.
Butler, Campaign of the Cataracts, 52.
These measures of distance are extracted from the writings of F. C. Denison, “Diary of a Canadian Contingent, Nile Expedition,” in Stacey, Records of the Nile Voyageurs, 93–142.
This illustration converges tributaries of the Red River in North America and the Nile River.
James D. Deer, The Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt (Montreal: John Lovell & Son, 1885), 13.
Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, The Nile, Kitab Surar alard (Book of the Image of the Earth) (Strasbourg: National and University Library of Strasbourg), 1036.
The Canadian contingent in Ottawa was sent off with popular music played by the Governor General's Foot Guards, including “Auld Lang Syne.” “Auld Lang Syne” is a traditional Scottish song by Robert Burns (1759–96).