Habitats, parks or developments?

The following is a comment I wrote which was published in our local monthly newspaper last year, addressing a proposed development on a two thousand acre property located in the northern part of our island, thus the 'North Lands' references. The developer offered one thousand acres to the community in return for a substantial increase in residential density. The offer was ultimately turned down after great debate among the local population. Some of the most active opponents were a couple of local anarchists who published a number of researched articles, letters and responses and made other interventions at the local community hall meetings.

. North Lands or Dream Lands?

When one thinks about sustenance, one normally thinks of provisions and nourishment. We imagine a plate of food, or perhaps a garden, orchard or an abundance of fish in a net. Food is necessary for life. Yet somehow our relationship to it has become strained, alienated, filled with anxiety around scarcity and possible ill health effects.
Our food has also become increasingly less nutritious. The market, with some government intervention, attempted to address this by a variety of means: organic farming practices, more labeling, exotic seeds, grains and fruit at our tables, vitamins and mineral supplements in convenient tablets.
Our food is also linked to market and political forces in other ways. We drink coffee, eat bananas, pineapples and avocados not because they grow where we live or because they’re healthy, but because colonial empires were funded by the exploited labor and occupied territories of subjugated peoples. This continues to this day.
A recent study claims that if the border with the US were closed, Vancouver Island would be out of food within less than a week. That’s it. Our surplus, in this land of plenty, would last us about three or four days.
But as we dig deeper, it becomes clear that healthy living also involves re-imagining what Denman Island might look like without being governed by private property or the market, including the selling of one’s labour for wages. (And while misanthropy might be a fit philosophy for a spotted owl or a polar bear, it doesn’t offer any real analysis of the causes of the looming global ecological catastrophe.)
Priorities for any society that wishes to be both healthy and happy would, in my mind, be a focus on making the knowledge of local foods and medicines widespread and the process of their acquisition meaningful. For this type of culture to manifest we need access to land without the restrictions of private property or government regulations. Land as part of a habitat, not as surveyed property.
And although we are presently confined to our private lives to a great extent, there are activities that we can pursue now, as part of a set of healthy social practices, while we wait nervously for a collapse of our fragile biosphere or for a social movement that will end this distressing predicament. We can look to hunting, fishing, permaculture, community gardens and orchards, foraging for mushrooms, berries, etc., and helping out our local farmers/gardeners as just a few local examples of sane food practices, as practices that don’t involve exploiting others, don’t involve commodification, or won’t harm our habitats or deplete the nutritional value of the food.
This brings me to the development of the North Lands. The issues in my mind aren’t whether all the players in the proposal are “bad” people or whether the increased density would adversely affect our island culture. I believe neither of the above is true. As far as increased density is concerned, a great many islanders would like to see accessory dwellings, elder housing, affordable housing and other high density solutions to some of our local social problems. It isn’t strictly our numbers, but how we live, (though of course there are limits), that affect ecosystems.
I do have some concerns. Would the North Lands development be populated exclusively by the wealthy or would it be a mixed class neighborhood? Such a dramatic demographic shift would obviously affect the island in negative ways. Will they be clamoring for a police station, increased ferry runs, complaining about pot smoking and nude swimming? Will they actively participate in the community or will they live behind a gate, comfortable in a little enclave? The island is already under attack from demographic trends as it stands (baby boomers cashing in on their first house and settling in the gulf islands where what many consider to be exorbitant real estate prices are still a good deal for them) leading to a gentrifying and suburbanizing influence.
It seems that we are losing no matter whether the status quo prevails or whether the proposed development succeeds. And in a sense we are losing what we never really had: the north lands. We hunted there, camped, we gathered fire wood, took strolls, bird watched, walked our dogs, collected medicines, etc., but the lands were never ours.
Every healthy community has a territory, a habitat within which to live according to the principles and ways that it freely chooses. The people of Denman Island don’t have a territory, aren’t deeply embedded in a habitat that they understand and care about. One can’t even really speak seriously of the “people of Denman Island”, because we are primarily a geographic community not a genuine one, although I am very attached to many of the people here and to the fragile culture that ties us together. I would like to see the North Lands as part of a territory, a habitat, for the people who live here. Not a protected eco-zone, not a park, not a development, but part of a greater vision that aims toward local sustainability and autonomy.

The society of masterless men

The Society of Masterless Men



When I began thinking about outlaws and outlaw history I realized that if outlaw
just means one who breaks the law, then I could write about the lives of
nearly every citizen. So I define outlaw as one who not only breaks the law, but who
survives by breaking the law or essentially lives outside of it. And the more I delve into Canada’s past, the more outlaws I discover, and many of them are worthy of our attention. As an
introduction to Canadian outlaw history, here is the story of a group of Newfoundland rebels who survived without masters for half a century.


The story of the Society of Masterless Men, which included women and children, began in the 18th-century settlement of Ferryland, in Newfoundland. In order to colonize Newfoundland, The British Empire created plantations. These were settlements of primarily Irish indentured servants, many of them very young -thus their name- the Irish Youngsters, abducted from Ireland either by force or guile and brought to the South Shore of Newfoundland where they were literally sold to fishing masters. Their price: $50 a head. In 1700’s Newfoundland the British Navy wielded its authority over its seamen with zero compassion and nothing but discipline enforced by abuse and violence. Because there wasn’t a local police force, they also helped reinforce the authority of the local fishing masters. These masters were essentially the Lords and Ladies of the villages, living in luxury and security while surrounded by dozens, even hundreds, of indentured servants who fished and labored in the camps processing the catch. These village plantations were primarily set up by consortiums and cabals of wealthy merchants in England. British frigates were stationed in the harbors and marines patrolled the town. The workers in these fishing villages were barely a step up from slaves. Corporal punishment was routinely used and everyday life was harsh and brutal. In the small settlement of Ferryland, for instance, there were a gallows and three whipping posts, in separate regions of the town. When a man was sentenced to be flogged for stealing a jug of rum or refusing to work for one of the fishing masters, he was taken to all three posts and whipped so the whole town would have an opportunity to witness the punishment as a warning.

The settlement of Ferryland was founded by Sir George Calvert around 1620, and
was also partly intended as a “refuge for …Catholics.” I’m not sure if this meant
strictly for the Catholic servants or if there were any “free” Catholics as well. This
was a time of penal law in Britain and at least some Irish Catholics voluntarily
came to the New World to escape persecution. Unfortunately the laws in
Newfoundland were the same as in the Old World. The orders given to the governor from 1729 to 1776were: You are to permit a liberty of conscience to all, except Papists, so they
be contented with a quiet and peaceable enjoyment of the same, not giving offense
or scandal to the government

This order wasn’t always strictly followed but around the mid 1700’s there was a crackdown on Catholicism. In 1743 the governor of the time, Smith, wrote to the magistrate in Ferryland, John Benger, instructing him to be mindful of the “ Irish papists” in the area. William Keen the chief magistrate of St. John’s was killed by a group of Irishmen in 1752. Following this penal laws were strictly enforced for the next thirty or forty years. Court documents from the Renews area (the nearest settlement) show there was growing fear among the authorities of an insurrection. In fact about fifty years earlier the French war ship Profound attacked Renews where there were seven ‘residents’ and 120 servant fishermen, many of whom were Irish. These servant-slaves were recorded as not caring who owned the place, that is they didn’t jump up to protect their masters from the attack.
Life wasn’t much better for those in the Navy. Food rations were slim and flogging was common. For instance keelhauling -dragging a seaman on ropes under the keel of a ship, thereby shredding his flesh on the sharp edged barnacles- was still a legal punishment even though it frequently resulted in death.

Some like to refer to the Society of Masterless Men as lore or a traditionally told story, one for which there is little documentary evidence. But there does seem to be a fair amount of facts that are known about the Masterless Men. And, as a matter of context, we know a lot about the injustice of the British Empire and of the cruelty of many of its enforcers. We know that indentured servants were brought to Newfoundland and treated with brutality as were the seamen in the Royal Navy. We also know that one Irish-born Peter Kerrivan was among those young indentured servants and abused seamen. Some say he was a reluctant seaman, having been pressed into service.

Some time in 1750, while Kerrivan’s ship was docked in Ferryland, he escaped ( historians usually choose deserted) . Together with two or three escaped indentured fishermen, he helped establish a lookout and base in the Butter Pot Barrens, a wild area of the Avalon Peninsula, for the outlaws to hide.

Hunted by the authorities, the Masterless men soon learned a way of life based on subsistence skills and sharing.  Apparently, they came into contact with Newfoundland’s aboriginal peoples, the Mi’qmaq and the Beothuk, who taught the rebels survival skills. They learned how to hunt for food based on the caribou herd on the Peninsula.

At the time one could be hanged for running away, but nevertheless many young men escaped from the plantations and took up lives as outlaws. In 1774 for instance, a petition written by Bonavista merchants, justices of the peace and others, and sent to Governor Shuldham complained of a number of “masterless” Irishmen who had gone to live in a secluded cove and “were there building fishing rooms.” But Kerrivan's band of young companions were among the luckiest and best organized.

Naturally word of the well organized free men spread and fresh runaways from coastal settlements came to join them. Eventually their numbers swelled to between 20 and 50 men. There were also women, but their numbers are unknown. The literature I found mention the women simply as “wives”, although I imagine them as strong, rebellious women sickened by the misery and cruelty that surrounded them who also yearned for a freer and better way of life and who joined their outlaw husbands voluntarily.

After a while the group of comrades began trading caribou meat and hides with allies in the remote villages, receiving supplies such as flour, tea and of course bullets. They also organized stealthy raids against the fishery plantations. By this time the British authorities, without a police or militia of their own, were beginning to fear that this group of anarchic rebels would inspire too many others to desertion and ordered the navy to track the freedom loving band down and make examples of them.

However some years passed before the first expedition against the Masterless Men was organized and by then the rebels had become skilled wilderness inhabitants. Anticipating the attack or somehow being forewarned, Kerrivan and his comrades cut a series of blind trails which confounded their pursuers. The party of marines sent to capture them often found themselves lost and dumbly led into bogs and impenetrable thick bush. Eventually the navy did manage to close in on the rebels camp near their lookout, but they found the log cabins deserted, “ with every rag and chattel removed”. Taking advantage of their pursuers confusion, Kerrivan and his friends had moved off towards the north and west. The navy set fire to their little village but had to return to their base without any prisoners. The Masterless group rebuilt their cabins and the navy burned them down again. Over time the navy burned down their cabins three times and each time they were rebuilt.

Two, possibly four, of the rebels were captured and hanged, but the state never did succeed in destroying the Society. In fact the captured young runaways had joined the band only a few weeks earlier and had been taken by surprise away from the main body of the rebels. They were hanged with great dispatch from the yard-arm of the English frigate in Ferryland. No other Masterless Men were ever captured after this incident, presumably because this only made the outlaws more cautious. Some of the tracks that had been carved partly to support their wilderness ways and partly as subterfuge became Newfoundland’s first inland roads. In fact their road system had eventually connected most of the small settlements of the Avalon Peninsula.

For more than a generation the Masterless Men roamed free over the barrens! Over time, perhaps as military rule began to relax or for reasons unknown to this author, their ranks began to dwindle. In 1789, 39 years after escaping, four men gave themselves up on condition that their only punishment would be deportation to Ireland, which was agreed upon. Many of the other rebels settled in remote parts of Newfoundland’s coast and survived as independent fishermen. Kerrivan, who was never captured, is said to have had a partner, four sons and several daughters and is believed to have remained on the barrens well into old age, never returning to civilization.

The children of the Masterless Men gradually drifted out to the coast and settled down in small coves never visited by the navy. They married the children of other outlaws who had settled there generations earlier and together they raised families.

The story of The Society of the Masterless Men is exceptionally inspiring because they succeeded. A group of people voluntarily joined together in common cause and broke free from their masters, most never to be captured or to return to their work prisons.

There is a lot of land out there. It isn’t nearly as overflowing with abundant wild life as at one time, nor are there as many skilled aboriginal people waiting to share useful and perhaps essential survival skills, but a group of people with a similar world view could perhaps leave the brutal, empty world of the civilized behind and live their lives according to principles of voluntary association and mutual aid, supported by subsistence ways.



Sources:

Alexina Reid from The Newfoundland and Labrador archives

Newfoundland by Harold Horwood

SECRET MASSES AT MIDNIGHT:
The Legend of the Grotto in Renews, Newfoundland
by Tammy Lawlor

The Canadian Encyclopedia Hurtig Publishers

The unshackled society by Paul Butler
Originally published in Saltscapes Magazine