May 6, 2025 • 35 mins
Mary Two-Axe Earley: A woman of flint
This episode of 'She Changed History' delves into the life of Mary Two-Axe Earley, who fought against the discriminative laws of the Indian Act in Canada. How a shreddies grandma can change the world. Mary, born in 1911, faced the harsh reality of losing her rights and status upon marrying a non-indigenous man, a result of oppressive legislation that affected countless indigenous women. Highlighting her personal tragedies and unwavering determination, the script narrates her journey from being a silenced widow to a relentless activist. Her efforts culminated in the passing of Bill C-31 in 1985, which restored status to thousands of indigenous women and their descendants. The episode also touches on her wider influence on the Canadian feminist movement and the ongoing struggles of indigenous communities.
Other episodes mentioned: bell hooks
Sources today are:
1) The Canadian Encycolpedia
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mary-
two-axe-earley
2) Canadian History Ehx
https://canadaehx.com/2021/09/11/mary-two-axe-earley/
3) a blog by Clarissa Peterson called Badass Women
https://www.clarissapeterson.com/2017/02/mary-two-axe-
earley/
4) a blog called Feminism is for everybody
https://gwst1501.wordpress.com/2022/03/14/spotlight-mary-
two-axe-earley-indigenous-women-pioneering-for-equality-and-
a-better-future/
5) the website of Elections Canada
https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=res&dir=eim/iss
ue9&document=p10&lang=e
6) …and a special thank you for the pronunciation of native
words, which comes from a video made public by the
Indigenous Student Ambassadors at Champlain College Saint-
Lambert https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmHR5leIYGE
00:00 Introduction to Korean Milk Melon Soda
01:27 Welcome to 'She Changed History'
01:56 Mary Two-Axe Earley's Early Life
07:54 The Impact of the Indian Act
15:40 Mary's Activism and Legal Battles
30:53 The Legacy of Mary Two-Axe Earley
34:42 Conclusion and Call to Action
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
audio1149095103 (00:07):
I've opened it so I'll finish it.
But it is a.
Um, milk based Korean soda thatsays it's melon, melon flavor,
milk melon.
It's exactly as delicious as youwould expect.
Uh, it's got little lady on itwith an umbrella.
It's very, a lots is going on.
(00:29):
But if I grimace.
Close to share house somebody,somebody said that they had
heard of this drink and it waslike a cream soda, and then all
in typical enthusiastic fashion.
Yeah, got great.
Found a supplier and just boughtlike a palette of it so he
didn't just get the one flavorthat everyone was like, oh, that
sounds kind of nice.
(00:50):
He got all the flavors.
So we've got all this wacky shitleft over.
Yes, poorly.
I don't wanna do food waste, soI'm determined we.
It is a cream soda.
Oh, that makes it, it soundbetter than milk.
You were like milk with melon.
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah.
(01:11):
My, my Korean isn't exactly upto scratch, but I have to just
go.
It says soft drink, Milky melonis what it says.
So there you go.
That's what we're having.
M yum, yum, yum.
I am so excited about this storytoday.
Hi, Vicki.
(01:32):
Hi.
Three times a charm.
We did it.
Yes.
How are you?
I am, I'm well, thank you.
I think I'm a little too excitedabout today's, about today, uh,
episode.
I'm, yeah.
I'm jumping the gun.
That's brilliant.
Well welcome everyone to, sheChanged History, lovely.
Kara is pumped to give us, astory today.
So take it away.
(01:53):
Karara.
Just let's hit the groundrunning.
Let's go.
Alright, let's go.
So today we will be talkingabout Mary two Acts early and
our little intro is as follows.
Imagine living in a time andplace where marrying from
outside of your culture meantexpulsion from home and from the
(02:14):
company of the people you hadalways known.
Now, imagine if this happenednot because of the beliefs of
your own society, but because oflo laws foisted onto you by
people who had taken control ofyour land.
This was the reality faced byindigenous women in Canada who
married non-indigenous men.
After the Indian Act of 1876 wasmade law by the Canadian
(02:38):
government, the system of lawsoverturned centuries of culture
around inheritance and tribalmemberships being handed down
within families alongmatrilineal lines, and one woman
affected by these laws.
Was married to X early and todaywe're going to find out what
happened to her and how herresponse changed the world for
(03:01):
so many others.
You, you know what?
My only Canadian history is AnnaGreen Gables.
That is it.
Oh.
I mean, I don't have anythingelse.
That's a pretty great.
Not, not hugely useful in, oh,this specific, but it's, it's
just so lush.
(03:22):
I mean, yeah.
It's little lush.
Love it.
Did you watch the Netflix?
I didn't.
Oh.
Watch the Netflix.
It's beautiful.
Oh.
Oh, okay.
I think it's, oh, that'll be.
It was really little cozy andthey canceled it.
And I was gutted.
Yeah.
That, no, that was one of mypandemic watches was that I'm
sure it exactly.
The pandemic.
So, um, maybe she's just toowholesome for our times.
(03:42):
Maybe that's why they canceledit.
That's true.
Alright, so sources for todayare not Anne of Green Gables,
sadly.
Damnit They are.
Yeah.
The Canadian encyclopedia.
A website called CanadianHistory, a, which is kind of a
Canadian joke if we have any sum, a blog by Clarissa Peterson
called Badass Women.
(04:03):
Mm-hmm.
A blog called Feminism is foreverybody.
Uh, the website of ElectionsCanada.
Oh, and a special thank you forthe pronunciation of Iroquois
words, which comes from a videowhich was made public by the
indigenous student ambassadorsat Champlain College St.
Lambert.
(04:24):
Um, anything I get right isthanks to them.
Anything I get wrong is all me,so I will give it same.
Okay.
So we begin, Mary to Acts early,is born in 1911 on the Gaga
Reserve on Montreal South Shore.
Uh, she was a Ghana GAA woman.
(04:48):
And these are the people thatoutside of North America or even
within it we might know asMohawk.
So, um.
Like a lot of the women that wetalk about, uh, her early life
was sort of a mixture.
She had this deep.
Family connection, deep sense ofcommunity.
And she also faced sadness.
(05:09):
So when she was very young, shewould help her mother to care
for sick people in theircommunity.
Um, she learned a lot ofpractical skills at her mother's
side.
She.
Learned her values about beingof service, and she went along
with her mom to work with peoplewho were really quite sick until
(05:31):
her mother herself, uh,tragically died of Spanish flu,
which you probably will know,claimed so many lives around the
world after World War I.
Crazy, isn't it?
We were never taught aboutSpanish flu at school.
It was only, um, I found thatout on my own kind of just
interest, but it's, it was init.
Too many, too many vibes to theSpanish flu.
(05:53):
Extraordinary.
And I only know about it becauseof the novel Life After Life
they mentioned it.
Okay.
And I was like, wait, wait, whatwas, oh, so yeah.
Massive, massive, um, pandemic.
And Mary's mother was one of thepeople who unfortunately died.
Mary was only 10 years old atthe time, so that's very, very
(06:14):
sad.
And you know, for the rest ofher childhood, she lived on the
reserve and was surrounded bythat community and they kind of
were her family and that was thestate until she was 18, and then
necessity took her to Brooklynin America.
Um.
(06:34):
There were jobs to be had inhealthcare because a community
of Mohawk people wasestablishing itself in New York
City, filling roles in thebuilding trade as the city grew.
So all these skyscrapers goingup, massive community influx of
workers.
Mary goes along to to work incare, got, um, yeah, kind of use
(06:56):
the skills she'd learned fromher mother.
it's like, um, here today, isn'tit?
I think it's not, to my mind,it's not a low skill job at all.
It's probably not hard.
No.
It's the highest of skillsreally, to It is, good on her.
Intense and special work.
And it takes a special kind ofperson, I think, to do it.
And Yes.
Yeah.
So you know the kind of personwe're dealing with here.
(07:19):
I hate you.
Sensible, serious, hardworking,skilled.
That's who we've got.
And obviously it's not just uswho thinks so because she meets
this fella, uh, Edward Early,who's an Irish American, and
they fall in love.
Oh.
And they get married.
It's gorgeous.
They have two children and it'sall, everything's lovely here.
(07:41):
Right.
Okay.
My.
Nice and Roy living their livesworking hard, getting on with
it, and we are going to put themdown there in that happy time
for a moment, and we're gonnatalk.
A little bit about the historyof how indigenous people like
Mary and her mother aim to beliving on reserves in Canada in
(08:01):
the first place.
So a little background, in the18 hundreds, European settlers
were increasingly coming intowhat is now Canada.
And of course they wanted landto farm.
They wanted to build towns.
But the land was not empty.
The indigenous people had livedthere since antiquity.
They had their own cultures,their own systems of government.
(08:26):
the incoming new Canadiangovernment sort of took a.
Belief from the book of, Britishcolonialism and took the view
those British, ugh.
Yes.
Well, we get all fingers ineverything.
We're the most annoying.
It is, uh, one of the areas inwhich Britain were, was, a world
(08:46):
leader.
And, so in this case.
The Canadians kind of took theview, as the British often did,
that the indigenous people andtheir beliefs were obstacles to
progress like, you know, comingin and viewing it as.
Hours for the taking.
So, ugh, in the late 18 hundredsand the early 19 hundreds, that
(09:07):
government introduced a seriesof treaties, which, was called
the numbered treaties, and theywere set up as kind of
partnerships.
So the indigenous leaders agreedto share the lands of Canada
with the settlers in exchangefor things like education,
healthcare tools.
(09:28):
And crucially, they werepromised, dedicated, areas of
land to, to live on.
in Canada.
Those are known even now asreserves.
And if you studied Americanhistory or if you watched
Yellowstone, you will know inAmerica those lands are
generally known as reservations.
So I did think that when yousaid reserve earlier in my mind,
(09:50):
yeah.
My mind would take, goesYellowstone again.
Um, yeah.
So is this, assuming that theindigenous people didn't have
education, didn't havehealthcare.
Well, so that's a really goodquestion and it kind of leads on
to the other side of thismm-hmm.
Story, which is the game israked.
(10:10):
So the indigenous leaders.
They kind of signed thesetreaties in good faith.
They thought that they, whatthey were getting for their
people was peace and survival.
And I, I am not in a position tosay whether the leaders
uniformly believed that theEuropean education and
healthcare and so on wassuperior to what they had
(10:31):
already been cracking on withfor millennia.
my instinct is probably not, butthey sort of saw.
Which way the wind was blowingand thought, look, these people
are here.
We have to find a way to makethis work.
Let's be pragmatic.
What can we do to safeguard ourown future as much as possible?
And if we get some extra stuffout of it, so much, the better.
(10:56):
You know?
So they were, they were tryingto be good leaders.
but unfortunately.
The government didn't alwayshonor its promises.
And what, yeah, that's a shock.
I know governments, governmentsare like that sometimes, aren't
they?
Uh, so in, in specific, thereserve, the lands that were set
(11:17):
aside for the, the reserve wereoften.
Not particularly desirable,smaller than Anticip.
Oh, so they gave them the happyYeah.
Just like, oh yeah, you guys cannow have that bit at the back,
which is less fertile Christielayer.
Some of the research suggeststhat the treaties were sometimes
signed under duress or there wasa bit of like bait and switch
(11:40):
where one thing would bepromised and something else
would actually take place.
At the same time, the governmentis using some of these policies
like the education offer to sortof europeanized the indigenous
population and that was one I, Iwould say of the examples of how
(12:00):
it was intended to function forOkay.
And furthermore, they werecontrolling the indigenous
community by limiting theirabilities to hunt, fish, travel,
do all the things that were sortof part of their.
Indigenous culture and it alsojust survival activities.
(12:23):
Being able to sort of feedyourself in the way you always
have done.
Changes if you are restricted toonly working a certain parcel of
land.
it's death by a thousand cuts,isn't it?
It's the classic of, I'll justtweet this a little bit.
I'll just cut that corner offfor you there, and I'll just
Yeah.
And then suddenly you wake upone morning and your whole, the
(12:44):
gut of your culture has justbeen ripped from underneath you.
And before you know.
You're in the snare becauseyou're kind of thinking, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Uh, I'm making, I'm not thrilledabout this, but I have to be
pragmatic and times are changingand I need to get with it and
get as much out of it as I can.
And so I'm going to go alongwith this in on the
(13:06):
understanding that it's the, theleast worst, right?
but an actual fact.
It was a massive disruption, amassive trauma, and it laid the
groundwork for a lot of thechallenges that indigenous
communities still face now of,of course.
I've got a little aside here.
Um, that in the, the Iroquoislanguage, Montreal, the major
(13:28):
city where Mary early lived inQuebec mm-hmm.
Was, known in Iroquois as.
Jo Jaga, which translates towhere our group broke apart, and
I thought, oh, that isheartrending.
But it kind of, I don't know,maybe that name predates
everything I've just said, butit feels so on the nose for what
(13:50):
we're talking about that yeah,that it's the breaking open of a
way of life and sort of for allof that, the counterpoint is, as
I say.
The leaders are trying to besavvy and get what they can out
of the situation.
They see it perhaps as the leastworst option.
(14:10):
They also see it as one lastplace where the first peoples
have got their own, um,community, their own rules.
It's a consolidated place wherethey have rights to property
that is enshrined in law.
Okay.
However, in all of thesepolitical machinations, it's
(14:34):
women who pay the price.
We are thinking about it on sucha big scale, aren't we?
We're thinking about it in avery binary that all that and
yeah, actually underneath that,how many layers of, it's what we
were talking about last week atBell Hooks, isn't it?
It's like every layer meanssomething different until you
(14:55):
get to either the bottom of thepile or is in bell hooks, hooks
case, the top of the pile.
'cause she twisted it into anadvantage, you know?
So, yes.
I am so glad you mentioned that.
That is exactly, exactly the wayto think about it, because
you're.
When you get down to thegranularity of individual lives,
that's where you see that's thepointy end of these kind of big,
(15:15):
sweeping policies and okay,that's where we're going to
rejoin Mary early because she,for most of her life, she was
just cracking on just a normalworking, married mom, doing her
thing, quiet and unassuming.
And just practicing.
(15:37):
She was a Catholic, she just wasliving her life.
Mm-hmm.
But in the 1960s, Mary saw atragedy that she couldn't
ignore, and her kind of quietand hardworking nature found a
new focus.
sorry, how have we jumped from18 hundreds?
(15:57):
Oh.
'cause she was born When was sheborn?
Mary was born in 1911.
So the laws, the laws thatunderpinned this were ratified
in, I wanna say it was 18.
Yeah, 1876.
Yeah.
1876.
And now it is.
She was born in 1911.
She's, she got on with it,living her life.
(16:18):
We are now zooming all the wayup.
This is my grandmother'sgeneration.
Basically, we're zooming all theway up into.
Of the last century.
Um, so.
Dramatic over there.
Ah, you know I was born Isomething the last century.
Yeah, that's what people aresaying now.
(16:39):
Anything like, um, what'sconsidered old?
Oh, well if you were born inthe, in the 19 hundreds.
Okay, mate.
Alright, so here we are in the19 hundreds, right in the
middle, 1960, um, 1966, to bespecific.
Okay.
But yes, we have a quote here.
Um, quite in 19 66, 1 of Mary'sfriends, Florence, died of a
(17:00):
heart attack in her arms.
Mary believed that being deniedproperty rights on gge reserved
that had been a contributingfactor In Florence's death, Mary
began a series of writing andspeaking campaigns to raise
awareness of the detrimentalimpact that the Indian Act had
on indigenous women who losttheir status.
What happened to Florence and toall native women who married
(17:24):
non-indigenous men at the time,was that under the rules of the
Indian Act, they were deemedthose women were deemed no
longer to be members of theirindigenous community.
And that's what is known aslosing status.
As part of that loss of status,they were stripped of every
right, that status entailed,including the right to live on
(17:45):
the reservation.
So those status laws enshrinedin the Indian Act affected
thousands of women early, wouldalready have been aware that
this was happening.
And then it happened to herfriend and she saw in, in real
terms, the human cost of thoselaws, Having seen it happen to
(18:06):
Florence and to other women inher community marry herself, she
had already begun trying tochange things and then in 1969,
her own husband died.
Right.
Got it.
And now suddenly she herself wassubject to those same laws.
So her grandmother's home on thereserve, which she'd grown up
(18:30):
in, inherited, moved back to,she no longer owned under the
Indian Act.
Wow.
Just.
No home for you, and this is somuch to happen in just three
years as well, like Right.
You're your best friend in 66,losing your husband in 69.
Yeah.
So you're bereaved and you'rehomeless and you no longer have
access to the community.
Yeah.
They did.
(18:51):
Quite a bit of quick thinking.
They realized that becauseMary's daughter had married an
indigenous man, they couldtransfer the house into her
name, which saved the familyfrom losing the house entirely.
Mm-hmm.
However, she was lucky.
To be in that position.
not everyone had that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a, you know, the bestoption she had and she was
(19:12):
fortunate to have had it.
However, she was still strippedof her right to vote on reserve
matters, which would impact thefuture of the community that she
loved.
She had her daughter notmarried, an indigenous man.
Her grandchildren, anydescendants of her daughters
would've lost their rights totheir ancestry property
(19:33):
community, the right to live andwork on the land.
So for Mary's son, for example,he was shit out of luck and any
children he had, you are nolonger part of the community in
a legal sense.
Right?
Again, was not an accidentalside effect.
That was the intended effect.
That taking people out of thecommunity and out of the reserve
(19:58):
system and their descendants outof the community and out of the
reserve system by kind ofsnaring the women out like this,
if they marry right outside.
Allowed the government to winnowaway at the indigenous
population and the indigenousculture because it was not going
to be passed on anymore By thatbranch of, of, yeah.
(20:20):
So it's like through the backdoor almost.
It's not a direct hit, is it?
But I mean, it's, it's so nastyfor the people who experienced
it and I know, um, from thereading that early in
particular.
It really hit her hard that sherealized she was not going to be
allowed to be buried on herfamily's cemetery plot because
(20:41):
the Catholic cemetery that herfamily used was it on the
reservation and it's, but everypart of her life and even her
death every from, from, fromthat moment forward.
And you know, she herself said,when I married I was just in
love and I just married thisman.
(21:01):
And yeah.
So you don't think, what am Itrading off?
You think, well, that'sridiculous.
Nobody's gonna hold that.
You know?
Yeah.
Standard for, that's that, justcan't.
And yet, here we are.
And also she probably feltpressured to marry, like even if
she did understand that.
(21:21):
You know, unmarried women, Iimagine didn't get a very good
reputation in the sixties.
Like, no, you know, there wasthat societal pressure to at
least be married on top ofeverything else, wasn't there?
Yeah.
And she was a Catholic woman, soYeah.
You know, she, she's veryimportant.
Probably, probably prioritizedhaving that, that kind of
traditional family.
(21:41):
But then with her historicalcultural beliefs and the way
that people would hand downlegacy along female lines.
What a slap in the face to betold, oh no, we're changing that
you can't have things becauseyou married out.
It's just as ridiculous asrecently as the sixties as well.
Like this is why as recently asthe sixties.
(22:05):
Living memory and so beingstrict to those rights.
Yeah.
So you're, you're quite righttoo that she's facing a lot in
her personal life.
She's lost her dear friend.
She's lost her spouse, she'slost her home, and she's having
to go through legal challengesaround that attempt by the
government to personally controlher, get her off the
(22:28):
reservation, but she still seesit as.
A way to try to engage with andchange the entire system.
Oh, she doesn't.
She's young system.
She does system.
Yes she does.
Because she is Mary God, two xearly and she is not taking the
shit laying down.
(22:49):
I love, I love it.
So she doubles down, she getsbusy, she's writing letters,
she's giving speeches, she'sraising awareness, she's making
connections.
She reaches out.
To other first people's groupsin Canada because she knows that
other women are out there beingaffected by this, working
against this organizing tooverturn the laws.
(23:10):
So Mary Forms alliances and in1974, she and some of the other
women, founded the Quebec NativeWomen's Association.
So like a focus group, anactivist group, to really get
involved with these matters.
And in 1975, she and 60 otherwomen from the community went to
(23:35):
the International Women's YearConference in Mexico City.
Yeah.
And oh, you're, I think you'regonna like this.
I've got another poetry.
I wanna be there, Rick.
It's so cool, isn't it?
There's an excellent quote aboutsomething that I think really
highlights her, her personality,and her spark.
Would you read that quote?
Yeah.
Quote, while at the conference,two Ax Hurley received a phone
(23:57):
call informing her that the ggeBand council had served the
women in attendance at theconference.
Eviction notices a brilliantstrategist to Ax Hurley use this
event to highlight the racistand gender discrimination she
and other women faced in Canada.
In light of the negativecoverage garnered by this move,
(24:17):
the band council withdrew theiroriginal eviction orders.
So, so this happened at theconference?
Yeah.
She's like a judo master.
They attack her, she uses theirattack and throws them on the
ground and amazing, the mediasavvy of it.
It's amazing to me that she knewinstead of getting overwhelmed
(24:39):
and just shutting down, oh God,I have to deal with this.
I have to go home.
Which is what they.
Clearly wanted.
She thought, alright then let'sdance.
Um, I love it.
There's, you know, even if youwould've rehearsed a speech a
thousand times, you'd still benervous, right.
Getting up there and then throwna curve ball.
Yeah.
Just the eyes of the world uponyou.
(24:59):
Exactly.
And it is, it is like theEminem, you only get one shot,
like Yeah, she's.
She's going for it.
Absolutely.
Stepping up and taking thatmoment and it, it just
exemplifies the kind of activistthat she was.
She tirelessly for 20 years andmore noticed a growing sense of
(25:22):
public unease around thisinjustice and kept on asking the
government to repeal the partsof the Indian Act that stripped
status from women who marriednon-ST status men.
And she's just at this timegaining the momentum she needs
to make that final push.
And what's super helpful is thatshe wasn't.
(25:45):
Reluctant to engage withpolitics when she had to.
So, right.
She's not a politician and she'snot trained for this, but she
knew something was wrong andsomeone had to do something
about it.
So her approach of just beingcommonsensical and steady and
relentless gained her support.
(26:05):
There's this story about in1983, this big constitutional
conference, whatever that maybe, I'm picturing like Prime
Minister's question time.
I don't know.
Okay.
But Sheets thought I want tospeak about these issues.
I would like to have a timeslot.
And yeah, she was, she wasrefused.
They said, no, no, no.
Classic.
Classic.
However, the premier of Quebec,may, we remember his name, Rene
(26:31):
Leki.
Leki Leki.
Beautiful.
Yielded his time slot to Mary.
He gave her his own time slot.
Yes, he did.
Which I just love.
So allies, this is what theworld needs.
And she was able then to speakher mind.
On the public record.
And would you read a quote fromthat speech?
(26:52):
Oh my gosh, yes.
Quote, please search your heartsand minds.
Follow the dictates of yourconscience.
Set my sisters free.
Oh, wonder how long that slotwas as well.
'cause I imagine it's only likethree minutes, it would've been,
it would've been moments.
You're right.
So she needed to hit thatbullseye.
(27:13):
It me and not Miss and I, Idon't know.
I mean, this is just my personalreflection here in that, but
what is extraordinary to me isthat after everything she's seen
she's still.
Sees the decency and thepotential for cooperation.
Yeah.
she's doing it through the rightchannels.
(27:34):
Right.
She's doing it throughincredibly generous channels.
Yeah.
She's not saying, I'm squaringup to you.
She's saying your heart has itin it to see that this is wrong.
Your conscience knows this iswrong.
And you know what?
It only blueman worked becausein 1985.
After all of her many, many,many decades that work paid off.
(27:58):
And the bill that she had beenchampioning, which was called
Bill C 31, received royalAscent.
Okay.
Through that bill, the IndianAct was amended to restore
status rights to women andchildren who had had their
status removed under the pastlaw.
And it also set as law that infuture women would not be
(28:20):
stripped of status based on whothey married.
Great.
So it was backdated and it wasgoing forward.
Yeah, exactly.
And that meant that on the daythat it passed Bill C 31
restored status to 16,000 women.
46,000 descendants.
So who knows how many millionsof people will have benefited
(28:44):
between 1985 and now, and Mary'sown reserve, for example, was
able to restore access to over2000 women and their
descendants.
That was, that was just herreserve.
She herself was one of them.
And in fact, she was the firstperson who status was,
reinstated by the Minister forIndian Affairs as was.
(29:06):
And could you read the words hesaid?
And then her response, which is.
I could find no greater attribute to your long years of
work than to let history recordthat you are the first person to
have their rights restored underthe new legislation.
Mary had this to same reply.
Now I'll have legal rightsagain.
(29:26):
After all these years, I'lllegally be entitled to live on
the reserve to own property,die, and be buried with my own
people.
She's very gracious.
And a gentle soul.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think so.
MTAE had lots of public rerecognition alongside with the
restoration of the rights thatshould have been hers in the
(29:47):
first place.
Shall I whiz you through a listof her, big gongs that she see?
Yes, let's go.
So in 1979, she was given theGovernor General's Persons Case
award in 19 Strong 81.
Yeah, sounds good.
1981.
She got an honorary doctorate oflaw from York University in
Canada.
(30:08):
Doctorate.
Excellent.
Yeah.
In 1985, she was inducted as anofficer of the Order of Quebec.
In 1990, she, along with twoother First Nations activist
women, received the Robert SLivic Award from McGill
University to recognize theircontributions to the defense of
(30:28):
the rule of law and theprotection of the individual
against arbitrary power.
I love that they, I don't meanthe heavy words.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
19 96, 2 acts early was giventhe Inspire Award, which is, a
National Aboriginal AchievementAward, and that was specifically
(30:48):
to recognize her efforts inmaking Bill C 31 happen.
Okay.
And.
In addition to all of that, adocumentary called I Am Indian
again, tells the story of herlife and its title was taken
from a moving quote from earlytalking about how it felt to
have her identity stolen away,and then reclaimed.
(31:10):
And the director, is a womancalled Courtney Montour, who
herself is a Mohawk from Ghana,ga.
Gay, just like Mary.
So yeah, she's part of the samecommunity and gorgeous.
When Mary two x early, sadlydied in 1996, at the grand age
of 84.
(31:32):
It was thanks to the work thatshe herself had done and the
changes that she herself hadbrought, that she was able to be
buried as she wished in theCatholic cemetery at, the UAA
Reserve.
So the lasting legacy then ofMary two x Earlys work, work
resonated in her own life.
(31:54):
But also is the restored,rightful status and rights and
properties of so many women andtheir descendants.
And I'm glad you mentioned Bellhooks earlier, because that's
the other piece here that herwork lives on in the
understanding it brought to thewider Canadian feminist movement
(32:15):
and Canadians in general.
About the kind of specificchallenges that being an
indigenous woman brought andit's that intersectional
thinking that you talked aboutin that episode.
And I think Bell Hooks wouldreally have approved of Mary
Early and the fact that.
She clearly saw that whilstthese challenges were happening
(32:39):
to her, they also brought herunique opportunities.
We need to put them together atour dinner party.
Oh, yes, please.
Oh, I'd love, love to see it.
So I'm gonna end with a bit ofcheese and I can, you know, I
can't help myself, but here wego.
So the name of the communitythat Mary grew up within is the
(33:00):
Ganaga, which translates roughlyto the people of the Flink.
And I think Mary early in herpersistence and strength and her
determination lives up to thatname.
She's a woman of Flint.
Yes, Cara?
Absolutely.
(33:21):
Yeah.
Why was she called two Acts?
Is that her name?
Like literally two acts Mary?
That was, that was her familyname.
So like my surname is Gardner,her, her, her maiden name.
I didn't know if she wielded atsomeone like, what was that?
I'm not really sure how, I don'tknow enough about Mohawk culture
to understand where certainfrom, but that just shows my
(33:42):
lack of understanding of thatculture, doesn't it?
Well, here we are, babe.
The system is functioning asintended.
Our educations did not encompassthis, So there's a reason we
don't know this stuff and thatwe have to go out and do this
research and find out cool shitabout amazing people.
Oh my gosh, she's so cool.
And the picture of her as well.
I know it's just her face, but Ican totally see her with her
(34:04):
handbag on this stage, the vibe,the fashion, and that, iron fist
in a velvet glove.
Yeah.
Like I am so kind and gentle,but do not.
Across me.
I love that photo of her somuch.
It's like the nuns of the shredsadvert for people who can't see
(34:25):
the photo, we know they werebadass in the shreds factory and
she know Mary is the same.
Be more mery, be more merry,
audio2663295054 (34:42):
Thank you for listening to this episode of She
Changed History.
If you enjoyed it, please like,subscribe and comment below.
Find us on our socials,Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube.
If you've got any ideas of womenyou'd like us to cover in a
future episode, please commenton the socials or email us at
She Changed history@gmail.com.
I've opened it so I'll finish it.
But it is a.
Um, milk based Korean soda thatsays it's melon, melon flavor,
milk melon.
It's exactly as delicious as youwould expect.
Uh, it's got little lady on itwith an umbrella.
It's very, a lots is going on.
(00:29):
But if I grimace.
Close to share house somebody,somebody said that they had
heard of this drink and it waslike a cream soda, and then all
in typical enthusiastic fashion.
Yeah, got great.
Found a supplier and just boughtlike a palette of it so he
didn't just get the one flavorthat everyone was like, oh, that
sounds kind of nice.
(00:50):
He got all the flavors.
So we've got all this wacky shitleft over.
Yes, poorly.
I don't wanna do food waste, soI'm determined we.
It is a cream soda.
Oh, that makes it, it soundbetter than milk.
You were like milk with melon.
Well, yeah, I mean, yeah.
(01:11):
My, my Korean isn't exactly upto scratch, but I have to just
go.
It says soft drink, Milky melonis what it says.
So there you go.
That's what we're having.
M yum, yum, yum.
I am so excited about this storytoday.
Hi, Vicki.
(01:32):
Hi.
Three times a charm.
We did it.
Yes.
How are you?
I am, I'm well, thank you.
I think I'm a little too excitedabout today's, about today, uh,
episode.
I'm, yeah.
I'm jumping the gun.
That's brilliant.
Well welcome everyone to, sheChanged History, lovely.
Kara is pumped to give us, astory today.
So take it away.
(01:53):
Karara.
Just let's hit the groundrunning.
Let's go.
Alright, let's go.
So today we will be talkingabout Mary two Acts early and
our little intro is as follows.
Imagine living in a time andplace where marrying from
outside of your culture meantexpulsion from home and from the
(02:14):
company of the people you hadalways known.
Now, imagine if this happenednot because of the beliefs of
your own society, but because oflo laws foisted onto you by
people who had taken control ofyour land.
This was the reality faced byindigenous women in Canada who
married non-indigenous men.
After the Indian Act of 1876 wasmade law by the Canadian
(02:38):
government, the system of lawsoverturned centuries of culture
around inheritance and tribalmemberships being handed down
within families alongmatrilineal lines, and one woman
affected by these laws.
Was married to X early and todaywe're going to find out what
happened to her and how herresponse changed the world for
(03:01):
so many others.
You, you know what?
My only Canadian history is AnnaGreen Gables.
That is it.
Oh.
I mean, I don't have anythingelse.
That's a pretty great.
Not, not hugely useful in, oh,this specific, but it's, it's
just so lush.
(03:22):
I mean, yeah.
It's little lush.
Love it.
Did you watch the Netflix?
I didn't.
Oh.
Watch the Netflix.
It's beautiful.
Oh.
Oh, okay.
I think it's, oh, that'll be.
It was really little cozy andthey canceled it.
And I was gutted.
Yeah.
That, no, that was one of mypandemic watches was that I'm
sure it exactly.
The pandemic.
So, um, maybe she's just toowholesome for our times.
(03:42):
Maybe that's why they canceledit.
That's true.
Alright, so sources for todayare not Anne of Green Gables,
sadly.
Damnit They are.
Yeah.
The Canadian encyclopedia.
A website called CanadianHistory, a, which is kind of a
Canadian joke if we have any sum, a blog by Clarissa Peterson
called Badass Women.
(04:03):
Mm-hmm.
A blog called Feminism is foreverybody.
Uh, the website of ElectionsCanada.
Oh, and a special thank you forthe pronunciation of Iroquois
words, which comes from a videowhich was made public by the
indigenous student ambassadorsat Champlain College St.
Lambert.
(04:24):
Um, anything I get right isthanks to them.
Anything I get wrong is all me,so I will give it same.
Okay.
So we begin, Mary to Acts early,is born in 1911 on the Gaga
Reserve on Montreal South Shore.
Uh, she was a Ghana GAA woman.
(04:48):
And these are the people thatoutside of North America or even
within it we might know asMohawk.
So, um.
Like a lot of the women that wetalk about, uh, her early life
was sort of a mixture.
She had this deep.
Family connection, deep sense ofcommunity.
And she also faced sadness.
(05:09):
So when she was very young, shewould help her mother to care
for sick people in theircommunity.
Um, she learned a lot ofpractical skills at her mother's
side.
She.
Learned her values about beingof service, and she went along
with her mom to work with peoplewho were really quite sick until
(05:31):
her mother herself, uh,tragically died of Spanish flu,
which you probably will know,claimed so many lives around the
world after World War I.
Crazy, isn't it?
We were never taught aboutSpanish flu at school.
It was only, um, I found thatout on my own kind of just
interest, but it's, it was init.
Too many, too many vibes to theSpanish flu.
(05:53):
Extraordinary.
And I only know about it becauseof the novel Life After Life
they mentioned it.
Okay.
And I was like, wait, wait, whatwas, oh, so yeah.
Massive, massive, um, pandemic.
And Mary's mother was one of thepeople who unfortunately died.
Mary was only 10 years old atthe time, so that's very, very
(06:14):
sad.
And you know, for the rest ofher childhood, she lived on the
reserve and was surrounded bythat community and they kind of
were her family and that was thestate until she was 18, and then
necessity took her to Brooklynin America.
Um.
(06:34):
There were jobs to be had inhealthcare because a community
of Mohawk people wasestablishing itself in New York
City, filling roles in thebuilding trade as the city grew.
So all these skyscrapers goingup, massive community influx of
workers.
Mary goes along to to work incare, got, um, yeah, kind of use
(06:56):
the skills she'd learned fromher mother.
it's like, um, here today, isn'tit?
I think it's not, to my mind,it's not a low skill job at all.
It's probably not hard.
No.
It's the highest of skillsreally, to It is, good on her.
Intense and special work.
And it takes a special kind ofperson, I think, to do it.
And Yes.
Yeah.
So you know the kind of personwe're dealing with here.
(07:19):
I hate you.
Sensible, serious, hardworking,skilled.
That's who we've got.
And obviously it's not just uswho thinks so because she meets
this fella, uh, Edward Early,who's an Irish American, and
they fall in love.
Oh.
And they get married.
It's gorgeous.
They have two children and it'sall, everything's lovely here.
(07:41):
Right.
Okay.
My.
Nice and Roy living their livesworking hard, getting on with
it, and we are going to put themdown there in that happy time
for a moment, and we're gonnatalk.
A little bit about the historyof how indigenous people like
Mary and her mother aim to beliving on reserves in Canada in
(08:01):
the first place.
So a little background, in the18 hundreds, European settlers
were increasingly coming intowhat is now Canada.
And of course they wanted landto farm.
They wanted to build towns.
But the land was not empty.
The indigenous people had livedthere since antiquity.
They had their own cultures,their own systems of government.
(08:26):
the incoming new Canadiangovernment sort of took a.
Belief from the book of, Britishcolonialism and took the view
those British, ugh.
Yes.
Well, we get all fingers ineverything.
We're the most annoying.
It is, uh, one of the areas inwhich Britain were, was, a world
(08:46):
leader.
And, so in this case.
The Canadians kind of took theview, as the British often did,
that the indigenous people andtheir beliefs were obstacles to
progress like, you know, comingin and viewing it as.
Hours for the taking.
So, ugh, in the late 18 hundredsand the early 19 hundreds, that
(09:07):
government introduced a seriesof treaties, which, was called
the numbered treaties, and theywere set up as kind of
partnerships.
So the indigenous leaders agreedto share the lands of Canada
with the settlers in exchangefor things like education,
healthcare tools.
(09:28):
And crucially, they werepromised, dedicated, areas of
land to, to live on.
in Canada.
Those are known even now asreserves.
And if you studied Americanhistory or if you watched
Yellowstone, you will know inAmerica those lands are
generally known as reservations.
So I did think that when yousaid reserve earlier in my mind,
(09:50):
yeah.
My mind would take, goesYellowstone again.
Um, yeah.
So is this, assuming that theindigenous people didn't have
education, didn't havehealthcare.
Well, so that's a really goodquestion and it kind of leads on
to the other side of thismm-hmm.
Story, which is the game israked.
(10:10):
So the indigenous leaders.
They kind of signed thesetreaties in good faith.
They thought that they, whatthey were getting for their
people was peace and survival.
And I, I am not in a position tosay whether the leaders
uniformly believed that theEuropean education and
healthcare and so on wassuperior to what they had
(10:31):
already been cracking on withfor millennia.
my instinct is probably not, butthey sort of saw.
Which way the wind was blowingand thought, look, these people
are here.
We have to find a way to makethis work.
Let's be pragmatic.
What can we do to safeguard ourown future as much as possible?
And if we get some extra stuffout of it, so much, the better.
(10:56):
You know?
So they were, they were tryingto be good leaders.
but unfortunately.
The government didn't alwayshonor its promises.
And what, yeah, that's a shock.
I know governments, governmentsare like that sometimes, aren't
they?
Uh, so in, in specific, thereserve, the lands that were set
(11:17):
aside for the, the reserve wereoften.
Not particularly desirable,smaller than Anticip.
Oh, so they gave them the happyYeah.
Just like, oh yeah, you guys cannow have that bit at the back,
which is less fertile Christielayer.
Some of the research suggeststhat the treaties were sometimes
signed under duress or there wasa bit of like bait and switch
(11:40):
where one thing would bepromised and something else
would actually take place.
At the same time, the governmentis using some of these policies
like the education offer to sortof europeanized the indigenous
population and that was one I, Iwould say of the examples of how
(12:00):
it was intended to function forOkay.
And furthermore, they werecontrolling the indigenous
community by limiting theirabilities to hunt, fish, travel,
do all the things that were sortof part of their.
Indigenous culture and it alsojust survival activities.
(12:23):
Being able to sort of feedyourself in the way you always
have done.
Changes if you are restricted toonly working a certain parcel of
land.
it's death by a thousand cuts,isn't it?
It's the classic of, I'll justtweet this a little bit.
I'll just cut that corner offfor you there, and I'll just
Yeah.
And then suddenly you wake upone morning and your whole, the
(12:44):
gut of your culture has justbeen ripped from underneath you.
And before you know.
You're in the snare becauseyou're kind of thinking, yeah,
yeah, yeah.
Uh, I'm making, I'm not thrilledabout this, but I have to be
pragmatic and times are changingand I need to get with it and
get as much out of it as I can.
And so I'm going to go alongwith this in on the
(13:06):
understanding that it's the, theleast worst, right?
but an actual fact.
It was a massive disruption, amassive trauma, and it laid the
groundwork for a lot of thechallenges that indigenous
communities still face now of,of course.
I've got a little aside here.
Um, that in the, the Iroquoislanguage, Montreal, the major
(13:28):
city where Mary early lived inQuebec mm-hmm.
Was, known in Iroquois as.
Jo Jaga, which translates towhere our group broke apart, and
I thought, oh, that isheartrending.
But it kind of, I don't know,maybe that name predates
everything I've just said, butit feels so on the nose for what
(13:50):
we're talking about that yeah,that it's the breaking open of a
way of life and sort of for allof that, the counterpoint is, as
I say.
The leaders are trying to besavvy and get what they can out
of the situation.
They see it perhaps as the leastworst option.
(14:10):
They also see it as one lastplace where the first peoples
have got their own, um,community, their own rules.
It's a consolidated place wherethey have rights to property
that is enshrined in law.
Okay.
However, in all of thesepolitical machinations, it's
(14:34):
women who pay the price.
We are thinking about it on sucha big scale, aren't we?
We're thinking about it in avery binary that all that and
yeah, actually underneath that,how many layers of, it's what we
were talking about last week atBell Hooks, isn't it?
It's like every layer meanssomething different until you
(14:55):
get to either the bottom of thepile or is in bell hooks, hooks
case, the top of the pile.
'cause she twisted it into anadvantage, you know?
So, yes.
I am so glad you mentioned that.
That is exactly, exactly the wayto think about it, because
you're.
When you get down to thegranularity of individual lives,
that's where you see that's thepointy end of these kind of big,
(15:15):
sweeping policies and okay,that's where we're going to
rejoin Mary early because she,for most of her life, she was
just cracking on just a normalworking, married mom, doing her
thing, quiet and unassuming.
And just practicing.
(15:37):
She was a Catholic, she just wasliving her life.
Mm-hmm.
But in the 1960s, Mary saw atragedy that she couldn't
ignore, and her kind of quietand hardworking nature found a
new focus.
sorry, how have we jumped from18 hundreds?
(15:57):
Oh.
'cause she was born When was sheborn?
Mary was born in 1911.
So the laws, the laws thatunderpinned this were ratified
in, I wanna say it was 18.
Yeah, 1876.
Yeah.
1876.
And now it is.
She was born in 1911.
She's, she got on with it,living her life.
(16:18):
We are now zooming all the wayup.
This is my grandmother'sgeneration.
Basically, we're zooming all theway up into.
Of the last century.
Um, so.
Dramatic over there.
Ah, you know I was born Isomething the last century.
Yeah, that's what people aresaying now.
(16:39):
Anything like, um, what'sconsidered old?
Oh, well if you were born inthe, in the 19 hundreds.
Okay, mate.
Alright, so here we are in the19 hundreds, right in the
middle, 1960, um, 1966, to bespecific.
Okay.
But yes, we have a quote here.
Um, quite in 19 66, 1 of Mary'sfriends, Florence, died of a
(17:00):
heart attack in her arms.
Mary believed that being deniedproperty rights on gge reserved
that had been a contributingfactor In Florence's death, Mary
began a series of writing andspeaking campaigns to raise
awareness of the detrimentalimpact that the Indian Act had
on indigenous women who losttheir status.
What happened to Florence and toall native women who married
(17:24):
non-indigenous men at the time,was that under the rules of the
Indian Act, they were deemedthose women were deemed no
longer to be members of theirindigenous community.
And that's what is known aslosing status.
As part of that loss of status,they were stripped of every
right, that status entailed,including the right to live on
(17:45):
the reservation.
So those status laws enshrinedin the Indian Act affected
thousands of women early, wouldalready have been aware that
this was happening.
And then it happened to herfriend and she saw in, in real
terms, the human cost of thoselaws, Having seen it happen to
(18:06):
Florence and to other women inher community marry herself, she
had already begun trying tochange things and then in 1969,
her own husband died.
Right.
Got it.
And now suddenly she herself wassubject to those same laws.
So her grandmother's home on thereserve, which she'd grown up
(18:30):
in, inherited, moved back to,she no longer owned under the
Indian Act.
Wow.
Just.
No home for you, and this is somuch to happen in just three
years as well, like Right.
You're your best friend in 66,losing your husband in 69.
Yeah.
So you're bereaved and you'rehomeless and you no longer have
access to the community.
Yeah.
They did.
(18:51):
Quite a bit of quick thinking.
They realized that becauseMary's daughter had married an
indigenous man, they couldtransfer the house into her
name, which saved the familyfrom losing the house entirely.
Mm-hmm.
However, she was lucky.
To be in that position.
not everyone had that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It was a, you know, the bestoption she had and she was
(19:12):
fortunate to have had it.
However, she was still strippedof her right to vote on reserve
matters, which would impact thefuture of the community that she
loved.
She had her daughter notmarried, an indigenous man.
Her grandchildren, anydescendants of her daughters
would've lost their rights totheir ancestry property
(19:33):
community, the right to live andwork on the land.
So for Mary's son, for example,he was shit out of luck and any
children he had, you are nolonger part of the community in
a legal sense.
Right?
Again, was not an accidentalside effect.
That was the intended effect.
That taking people out of thecommunity and out of the reserve
(19:58):
system and their descendants outof the community and out of the
reserve system by kind ofsnaring the women out like this,
if they marry right outside.
Allowed the government to winnowaway at the indigenous
population and the indigenousculture because it was not going
to be passed on anymore By thatbranch of, of, yeah.
(20:20):
So it's like through the backdoor almost.
It's not a direct hit, is it?
But I mean, it's, it's so nastyfor the people who experienced
it and I know, um, from thereading that early in
particular.
It really hit her hard that sherealized she was not going to be
allowed to be buried on herfamily's cemetery plot because
(20:41):
the Catholic cemetery that herfamily used was it on the
reservation and it's, but everypart of her life and even her
death every from, from, fromthat moment forward.
And you know, she herself said,when I married I was just in
love and I just married thisman.
(21:01):
And yeah.
So you don't think, what am Itrading off?
You think, well, that'sridiculous.
Nobody's gonna hold that.
You know?
Yeah.
Standard for, that's that, justcan't.
And yet, here we are.
And also she probably feltpressured to marry, like even if
she did understand that.
(21:21):
You know, unmarried women, Iimagine didn't get a very good
reputation in the sixties.
Like, no, you know, there wasthat societal pressure to at
least be married on top ofeverything else, wasn't there?
Yeah.
And she was a Catholic woman, soYeah.
You know, she, she's veryimportant.
Probably, probably prioritizedhaving that, that kind of
traditional family.
(21:41):
But then with her historicalcultural beliefs and the way
that people would hand downlegacy along female lines.
What a slap in the face to betold, oh no, we're changing that
you can't have things becauseyou married out.
It's just as ridiculous asrecently as the sixties as well.
Like this is why as recently asthe sixties.
(22:05):
Living memory and so beingstrict to those rights.
Yeah.
So you're, you're quite righttoo that she's facing a lot in
her personal life.
She's lost her dear friend.
She's lost her spouse, she'slost her home, and she's having
to go through legal challengesaround that attempt by the
government to personally controlher, get her off the
(22:28):
reservation, but she still seesit as.
A way to try to engage with andchange the entire system.
Oh, she doesn't.
She's young system.
She does system.
Yes she does.
Because she is Mary God, two xearly and she is not taking the
shit laying down.
(22:49):
I love, I love it.
So she doubles down, she getsbusy, she's writing letters,
she's giving speeches, she'sraising awareness, she's making
connections.
She reaches out.
To other first people's groupsin Canada because she knows that
other women are out there beingaffected by this, working
against this organizing tooverturn the laws.
(23:10):
So Mary Forms alliances and in1974, she and some of the other
women, founded the Quebec NativeWomen's Association.
So like a focus group, anactivist group, to really get
involved with these matters.
And in 1975, she and 60 otherwomen from the community went to
(23:35):
the International Women's YearConference in Mexico City.
Yeah.
And oh, you're, I think you'regonna like this.
I've got another poetry.
I wanna be there, Rick.
It's so cool, isn't it?
There's an excellent quote aboutsomething that I think really
highlights her, her personality,and her spark.
Would you read that quote?
Yeah.
Quote, while at the conference,two Ax Hurley received a phone
(23:57):
call informing her that the ggeBand council had served the
women in attendance at theconference.
Eviction notices a brilliantstrategist to Ax Hurley use this
event to highlight the racistand gender discrimination she
and other women faced in Canada.
In light of the negativecoverage garnered by this move,
(24:17):
the band council withdrew theiroriginal eviction orders.
So, so this happened at theconference?
Yeah.
She's like a judo master.
They attack her, she uses theirattack and throws them on the
ground and amazing, the mediasavvy of it.
It's amazing to me that she knewinstead of getting overwhelmed
(24:39):
and just shutting down, oh God,I have to deal with this.
I have to go home.
Which is what they.
Clearly wanted.
She thought, alright then let'sdance.
Um, I love it.
There's, you know, even if youwould've rehearsed a speech a
thousand times, you'd still benervous, right.
Getting up there and then throwna curve ball.
Yeah.
Just the eyes of the world uponyou.
(24:59):
Exactly.
And it is, it is like theEminem, you only get one shot,
like Yeah, she's.
She's going for it.
Absolutely.
Stepping up and taking thatmoment and it, it just
exemplifies the kind of activistthat she was.
She tirelessly for 20 years andmore noticed a growing sense of
(25:22):
public unease around thisinjustice and kept on asking the
government to repeal the partsof the Indian Act that stripped
status from women who marriednon-ST status men.
And she's just at this timegaining the momentum she needs
to make that final push.
And what's super helpful is thatshe wasn't.
(25:45):
Reluctant to engage withpolitics when she had to.
So, right.
She's not a politician and she'snot trained for this, but she
knew something was wrong andsomeone had to do something
about it.
So her approach of just beingcommonsensical and steady and
relentless gained her support.
(26:05):
There's this story about in1983, this big constitutional
conference, whatever that maybe, I'm picturing like Prime
Minister's question time.
I don't know.
Okay.
But Sheets thought I want tospeak about these issues.
I would like to have a timeslot.
And yeah, she was, she wasrefused.
They said, no, no, no.
Classic.
Classic.
However, the premier of Quebec,may, we remember his name, Rene
(26:31):
Leki.
Leki Leki.
Beautiful.
Yielded his time slot to Mary.
He gave her his own time slot.
Yes, he did.
Which I just love.
So allies, this is what theworld needs.
And she was able then to speakher mind.
On the public record.
And would you read a quote fromthat speech?
(26:52):
Oh my gosh, yes.
Quote, please search your heartsand minds.
Follow the dictates of yourconscience.
Set my sisters free.
Oh, wonder how long that slotwas as well.
'cause I imagine it's only likethree minutes, it would've been,
it would've been moments.
You're right.
So she needed to hit thatbullseye.
(27:13):
It me and not Miss and I, Idon't know.
I mean, this is just my personalreflection here in that, but
what is extraordinary to me isthat after everything she's seen
she's still.
Sees the decency and thepotential for cooperation.
Yeah.
she's doing it through the rightchannels.
(27:34):
Right.
She's doing it throughincredibly generous channels.
Yeah.
She's not saying, I'm squaringup to you.
She's saying your heart has itin it to see that this is wrong.
Your conscience knows this iswrong.
And you know what?
It only blueman worked becausein 1985.
After all of her many, many,many decades that work paid off.
(27:58):
And the bill that she had beenchampioning, which was called
Bill C 31, received royalAscent.
Okay.
Through that bill, the IndianAct was amended to restore
status rights to women andchildren who had had their
status removed under the pastlaw.
And it also set as law that infuture women would not be
(28:20):
stripped of status based on whothey married.
Great.
So it was backdated and it wasgoing forward.
Yeah, exactly.
And that meant that on the daythat it passed Bill C 31
restored status to 16,000 women.
46,000 descendants.
So who knows how many millionsof people will have benefited
(28:44):
between 1985 and now, and Mary'sown reserve, for example, was
able to restore access to over2000 women and their
descendants.
That was, that was just herreserve.
She herself was one of them.
And in fact, she was the firstperson who status was,
reinstated by the Minister forIndian Affairs as was.
(29:06):
And could you read the words hesaid?
And then her response, which is.
I could find no greater attribute to your long years of
work than to let history recordthat you are the first person to
have their rights restored underthe new legislation.
Mary had this to same reply.
Now I'll have legal rightsagain.
(29:26):
After all these years, I'lllegally be entitled to live on
the reserve to own property,die, and be buried with my own
people.
She's very gracious.
And a gentle soul.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I think so.
MTAE had lots of public rerecognition alongside with the
restoration of the rights thatshould have been hers in the
(29:47):
first place.
Shall I whiz you through a listof her, big gongs that she see?
Yes, let's go.
So in 1979, she was given theGovernor General's Persons Case
award in 19 Strong 81.
Yeah, sounds good.
1981.
She got an honorary doctorate oflaw from York University in
Canada.
(30:08):
Doctorate.
Excellent.
Yeah.
In 1985, she was inducted as anofficer of the Order of Quebec.
In 1990, she, along with twoother First Nations activist
women, received the Robert SLivic Award from McGill
University to recognize theircontributions to the defense of
(30:28):
the rule of law and theprotection of the individual
against arbitrary power.
I love that they, I don't meanthe heavy words.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
19 96, 2 acts early was giventhe Inspire Award, which is, a
National Aboriginal AchievementAward, and that was specifically
(30:48):
to recognize her efforts inmaking Bill C 31 happen.
Okay.
And.
In addition to all of that, adocumentary called I Am Indian
again, tells the story of herlife and its title was taken
from a moving quote from earlytalking about how it felt to
have her identity stolen away,and then reclaimed.
(31:10):
And the director, is a womancalled Courtney Montour, who
herself is a Mohawk from Ghana,ga.
Gay, just like Mary.
So yeah, she's part of the samecommunity and gorgeous.
When Mary two x early, sadlydied in 1996, at the grand age
of 84.
(31:32):
It was thanks to the work thatshe herself had done and the
changes that she herself hadbrought, that she was able to be
buried as she wished in theCatholic cemetery at, the UAA
Reserve.
So the lasting legacy then ofMary two x Earlys work, work
resonated in her own life.
(31:54):
But also is the restored,rightful status and rights and
properties of so many women andtheir descendants.
And I'm glad you mentioned Bellhooks earlier, because that's
the other piece here that herwork lives on in the
understanding it brought to thewider Canadian feminist movement
(32:15):
and Canadians in general.
About the kind of specificchallenges that being an
indigenous woman brought andit's that intersectional
thinking that you talked aboutin that episode.
And I think Bell Hooks wouldreally have approved of Mary
Early and the fact that.
She clearly saw that whilstthese challenges were happening
(32:39):
to her, they also brought herunique opportunities.
We need to put them together atour dinner party.
Oh, yes, please.
Oh, I'd love, love to see it.
So I'm gonna end with a bit ofcheese and I can, you know, I
can't help myself, but here wego.
So the name of the communitythat Mary grew up within is the
(33:00):
Ganaga, which translates roughlyto the people of the Flink.
And I think Mary early in herpersistence and strength and her
determination lives up to thatname.
She's a woman of Flint.
Yes, Cara?
Absolutely.
(33:21):
Yeah.
Why was she called two Acts?
Is that her name?
Like literally two acts Mary?
That was, that was her familyname.
So like my surname is Gardner,her, her, her maiden name.
I didn't know if she wielded atsomeone like, what was that?
I'm not really sure how, I don'tknow enough about Mohawk culture
to understand where certainfrom, but that just shows my
(33:42):
lack of understanding of thatculture, doesn't it?
Well, here we are, babe.
The system is functioning asintended.
Our educations did not encompassthis, So there's a reason we
don't know this stuff and thatwe have to go out and do this
research and find out cool shitabout amazing people.
Oh my gosh, she's so cool.
And the picture of her as well.
I know it's just her face, but Ican totally see her with her
(34:04):
handbag on this stage, the vibe,the fashion, and that, iron fist
in a velvet glove.
Yeah.
Like I am so kind and gentle,but do not.
Across me.
I love that photo of her somuch.
It's like the nuns of the shredsadvert for people who can't see
(34:25):
the photo, we know they werebadass in the shreds factory and
she know Mary is the same.
Be more mery, be more merry,
audio2663295054 (34:42):
Thank you for listening to this episode of She
Changed History.
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Find us on our socials,Facebook, Instagram, and
YouTube.
If you've got any ideas of womenyou'd like us to cover in a
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She Changed history@gmail.com.
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