Francis Pegahmagabow: controversial hero

Reviewed by Karl Hele

Adrian Hayes. Pegahmagabow: Life-Long Warrior. Toronto: Blue Butterfly Books, 2009.

Adrian Hayes’ brief biography of Francis Pegahmagabow from Parry Island First Nation in Central Ontario is a wonderful study of a key figure in Anishinaabe, First Nations political and social history as well as Canadian history.

 The work begins with Pegahmagahbow’s childhood and largely ends in the late 1940s with his involvement in the bourgeoning “Indian” rights movement, including his remarkable First World War service.

A sniper, Cpl. Pegahmagabow was the only enlisted soldier to ever win the Military Medal for bravery three times, and was credited with killing over 300 Germans and capturing the same number.

Joseph Boyden says he based the main character in his award-winning novel Three Mile Road on Pegahmagabow’s life.

The biographer presents material that deal with Pegahmagabow’s his role as band chief, specifically his fights with Indian Agents “responsible” for all the members of the Parry Island band, now known as Wasauksing First Nation. Essentially, Pegahmagabow wanted the decisions of the band council to be followed regardless of the Indian Agents’ decisions and wanted Indian Affairs and their Agents to stop thwarting the will of the community. In modern terms, he wanted band sovereignty and self-determination.

While looking at the heroic side of Pegahmagabow’s life, the biography does not shy away from controversies surrounding him. Hayes includes complaints from community members about the conflictual nature of Pegahmagabow’s chieftainship, and how mental trauma (likely post-traumatic stress disorder) inflicted by war experiences affected his public and private behaviour.

Hayes deftly shows how Pegahmagabow’s personal demons allowed Indian Agents to cast him as mentally unfit, deranged, and incapable in an effort to discredit his efforts to enforce First Nations rights.

Overall the biography does a marvelous job of shedding light on this Anishinaabe warrior and activist. It should be mandatory reading in Ontario schools.

Karl Hele, Garden River First Nation, is director of First Peoples Studies at Concordia University in Montreal.