Great War, Great Warriors?

The study of Indigenous wartime service in Canadian military forces has expanded significantly since the mid 1990s, when only Fred Gaffen’s venerable, if anecdotal, Forgotten Soldiers complemented a small and eclectic batch of government reports and masters theses. The growing politicization around indigenous soldiers’ access to veterans’ benefits and recognition following the world wars and Korea, including a full chapter in the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, provoked interest in the present and historical issues involved. A good portion of the coverage that has followed since then was drawn to the compelling orthodoxy that Whitney Lackenbauer and I dubbed the “forgotten warrior” interpretation. This approach highlighted indigenous martial prowess, phenomenally high enlistment rates and an intense loyalty to Crown and treaty that went unrequited by a perfidious government that accepted, even compelled, indigenous service and then turned a blind eye to...