Scars of an Empire: A Juxtaposition of Duncan Campbell Scott and Jacques Soustelle

Scars of Empire juxtaposes the lives and careers of the Canadian poet and civil servant Duncan Campbell Scott (1862-1947) and the French ethnologist and politician Jacques Soustelle (1912-1990). The work adopts a transnational approach to intellectual history that involves Algeria, Canada, France and Mexico. It argues that a juxtaposition of these individuals illuminates the struggles of liberal modern nation-states in relationship with Indigenous peoples. The dissertation explores the failures of both French liberal imperialism and Canadian domestic colonization in native policy, in Canada in the half century following the establishment of the Canadian nation state, and in France, during an acute crisis of de-colonization in the conflict over independence for l’Algérie française.

This exploration of Scott and Soustelle features examinations of Scott’s poetry and fictional prose; Soustelle’s ethnological works concerning Mexico; archives of the Canadian Indian Department during Scott’s tenure; Canadian literary archives concerning Scott’s career and the post-Confederation development of arts and letters in Canada; French governmental archives concerning Soustelle’s stint as Governor General of Algeria; archival sources in Mexico concerning Soustelle’s engagement with Mexican colleagues and his role as representative of the French resistance to Nazism while stationed in Mexico; and archives in French museums and academic institutions concerning the history of French anthropology, archaeology and ethnology during Soustelle’s lifetime.

Employing a transnational approach in comparative intellectual history this dissertation puts Canada into a global conversation about legacies of settler colonialism and European imperialism. It argues that national challenges concerning Aboriginal peoples in Canada and in France’s relationship with its former territorial possessions in Africa are manifestations of contradictions and exclusions inherent in the application of liberalism. Scott and Soustelle are juxtaposed in this dissertation in order to better understand the history and ideology of policies directed at Indigenous populations in Canada and in l’Algérie française.