September 2, 1996
DUDLEY GEORGE - A HISTORY
My apology to the readers of the conference web.announcements for not
including a preamble to my message on the DUDLEY GEORGE MEMORIAL FEAST. My
intimate connections with the struggles of the Stoney Point peoples lead me
to assume that readers would know. Thanks to reader Rhea Menzel Whitehead
for her plea for "a brief history of Dudley George" because that reminded me
how negligent I was.
Stoney Pointers and others interested in Native justice consider Dudley
to be a patriot and this history has been written from that perspective.
Dudley George came to the attention of many because he was murdered,
presumably by the Ontario Provincial Police, during a confrontation at the
Ipperwash Provincial Park on Sept 6, 1995. He was there with other Stoney
Pointers who had occupied the park when it closed for the season to protect
an ancient aboriginal burial ground from desecration.
On March 17, 1957, a little brown baby boy, the eighth "Nagdoonsag," was
born in Sarnia to Reginald Ransford George and Genevieve Pauline Rogers
George. He was given the name of Anthony O'Brien George by mother Genevieve
who thought an Irish name would be appropriate.
Dudley was always in the forefront of the fight for the land. On
September 12, 1993, a group of people occupying the former base walked from
Stoney Point to Ottawa to press the government to recognize their treaty
right. Dudley believed that someone must stay to protect the land so he
remained at home. They stopped at Trent University on the way and arranged
to return to attend the 1994 Elders gathering in Peterborough.
Dudley joined veteran Clifford George and others and manned an
information table. The others were kind of upset because they expected him
to work, taking in all the workshops and the things that were offered.
Dudley didn't seem to care about that. He was in his glory manning that
information table, and coaching younger people how to get the most out of a
large and complicated gathering. He was just enjoying himself. He liked
beautiful women too and he saw one. So it was delightful to have him
there. "So we have a lot of good memories," reported Marcia Simon.
There were record cold temperatures in the winter of 93/94. Neighboring
people were taking bets as to how long the Stoney Pointers would stay in
there once the cold temperatures hit. But they stayed. Dudley had a
trailer right along the highway. They would congregate over there. They
had a wood stove in there and were nice and toasty.
In the spring friends put together a birthday tribute to Dudley on Saint
Patrick's day. The program included references to all his brothers and
sisters. They picked out key things about his childhood that were amusing.
Dudley was game for anything and they joked around with him and had a lot of
fun.
[Never having met Dudley George, this author has gleaned the above
comments from his files containing various reports all prepared since
Dudley's death. On a more personal note Pat Gyenes was asked to report some
personal recollections of her and her family. They made a fond acquaintance
with Dudley as they camped at Ipperwash Provincial Park. Pat's presentation
follows.]
In the summer of 1993, when the people moved back to Stoney Point, they
performed a number of ceremonies to help them in their aim of peaceful and
final reoccupation of their ancestral home land. In conjunction with these
ceremonies they lit a sacred fire. That fire burned through the Summer and
long into the fall. Once, during a tremendous thunderstorm, four of the
fire keepers fought to keep it going through the torrential downpour.
Suddenly, lightning struck the fire and the horrified people sheltering in
other parts of the camp watched the blue flame dance all the way around the
poles that marked off the sacred precinct. Then they rushed through the
rain, sure that the four young men were dead. They found the fire keepers
miraculously unhurt, and the fire still burning brightly. That Summer
seemed to be one made of miracles. It made you feel that anything might be
possible, when you visited Stoney Point then.
It was beside the sacred fire that I first met Anthony O'Brien (Dudley)
George. My friend and I and our children had spoken frequently with the men
on the barricades at the beach and had finally accepted their invitation to
come to the camp and learn more about their struggle. We had spent a couple
of hours speaking with the two fire keepers on duty and I had learned quite
a bit about how to behave around the fire and its ceremonial significance.
Suddenly a pick-up truck pulled in and a group of laughing men spilled out
and came over for introductions. One of them was Dudley.
After our conversation with the fire keepers, we felt completely
overwhelmed by the extent of the injury done to these people. We were
amazed at how well they were doing with so little and how high their spirits
were considering the constant harassment from military and civil
authourities. We asked what we could do to help them. What did they need?
"Women!" grinned Dudley. Then he went off and got us coffee. He may have
had some rough edges, but he knew how to treat company.
We returned to the fire many times that summer and fall. Dudley was
usually close by, after all his trailer, prominently marked "Dudley's
Place", was just a stone's throw away. The last time we saw him that year
was in October, when we brought a gift of tobacco. I had access to some
chemical free plants through work, and had experimented with different ways
of drying the leaves, so that they could be given to the fire keepers. It
was chilly by the lake that afternoon, but Dudley had worked up a real sweat
using a post-holer. He was trying to set the poles for a long house. It
was a thankless job, as every other hole was stopped by a large rock.
Besides, the rest of the work crew had given up and found other ways to
spend their energy. Dudley wasn't convinced it was hopeless yet. A black
puppy was running happily around, chewing the tools and peoples shoes
indiscriminately. Dudley introduced him as the "Sacred Dog". He took the
tobacco gravely. When I mentioned that I had had some difficulty finding a
good drying method, he sniffed it suspiciously, "Not mouldy is it?" Then
he grinned again and set the tobacco carefully aside.
He always seemed to know how to put people at ease. Anywhere you went,
people knew Dudley and his name always seemed to bring a smile. Even in the
Summer of 1995, knowing Dudley seemed to break the ice. There were a lot
more of the people there that year and they had had to close their beach
front to outsiders, for reasons that I now know and fully understand. We
had met only a handful of the people and by that summer, even the few we
knew had become visibly stressed by the hostility of their neighbors and the
campaign mounted by authourities to prevent them from spreading their
story. Dudley became almost a password with people who didn't recognize
us. The adults in our group honored the request of the Stoney Point people
to stay off the beach on their side of the pilings, but the kids traveled
back and forth freely. They saw Dudley frequently. My older son joined the
group of kids who used to make the run to the store in Ipperwash Park to buy
the Bazooka bubblegum that Dudley was addicted to.
We were in the Park camping on July 29 when the people moved back into
the barracks. On our campsite, we had a quiet little celebration for them
and were surprised when about half a dozen of the kids from Stoney Point
drifted onto our site around 7:00 to pick up our young people. They all
disappeared into the dunes to have their own party.
The police presence increased amazingly for the last part of our stay.
Our children were threatened with arrest by the OPP for returning to our
campsite from the reserve. This surprised me, as we had always known that
we could be considered as trespassers and be arrested for going to the
reserve, but we were legally registered at the Park and couldn't be called
trespassers for returning to our campsite. I was very uneasy when we left,
the police were not only hostile but seemed frightened. I was very worried
about what would happen. Like Dudley himself, I never imagined that the
aggression I sensed would result in the fatal assault of September 6th.
The last time I saw Dudley was at his funeral. The gates to the barracks
area, now Auzhoodena, were lowered and there were several people on guard.
We didn't know if they would let us in, considering what had happened. I'm
not sure if it was the newspaper that Dudley had given us or the muffins
that we brought that did it, but the gate was raised and we were admitted.
There were very few non-natives. The tension in the air was the fear that
the OPP massed in the surrounding fields would move again. I never thought
to see that many people afraid that they would die. Most of them didn't
expect to ever be able to leave. I could hardly believe that I was in
Canada.
Dudley's coffin was open for display in the rooms formerly assigned to the
Quarter Master. It was strange to see him in a suit. In the coffin with
him was his pipe, an eagle feather, and his Bazooka gum. I couldn't
understand how it had happened that Dudley, the guy who always had a joke,
was lying there, shot to death even though he had been unarmed. When they
had moved back in 1993, the people had taken an oath not to use violence. I
vowed to his sister that I would work to see that this would never happen
again in Canada and that justice would finally be given to his family and
all of his people. In whatever way I can, no matter how small, I try
constantly to honor that promise. I'll be at the memorial ceremonies, my
husband and children with me and we'll bring tobacco, and Bazooka gum, to
honor the dead. I'll be praying for the legal return of the land belonging
to the people of Auzhoodena and justice for their suffering over the past 54
years and that no more blood will be shed anywhere in Canada.
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Posted by HAROLD P. KOEHLER,
43 NAPOLEON DRIVE, LONDON ON CANADA N5V 4A8
(519)453 5452, Fax 453-3676, E-mail hkoehler@execulink.com
Home Page: http://www.execulink.com/~hkoehler/