Colonial statues as memorial contact zones: Macdonald, Cornwallis and statue removal in Canada

Abstract

In recent years the negative experiences of colonization endured by Indigenous peoples in Canada have gained greater public awareness. As a result, narratives celebrating Canada’s colonial history have been disrupted, and the appropriateness of public statuary honouring figures associated with colonialism is now contested. Drawing on theories of collective memory and Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of the ‘contact zone’, this article examines two statues that were removed from public spaces in 2018: J.A. Macdonald (1982) in Victoria, British Columbia, and Edward Cornwallis (1931) in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The removals occurred in the context of municipal efforts towards reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and represented deeply negative re-evaluations of the legacies of the men depicted. In this article, each statue is examined at three levels of history and memory: the historical basis for honouring Sir John A. Macdonald and Edward Cornwallis as ‘founders’, the conception and commissioning of their statues to embody these positive memories, and the more recent developments that have brought the negative memories of these men held by members of Indigenous communities into wider public knowledge, resulting in the removal of their statues. These removals represent a moderated form of iconoclasm, arising from a long-standing divergence in collective memories that has been given voice in the debate and dialogue in the contact zones that have formed around the statues.