Book Review: Mohawk voyageurs journeyed to Egypt

Reviewed by Karl Hele

Carl Benn’s study of Mohawk voyageurs in Egypt is fascinating. The Sudan, which was part of Egypt, faced an Islamic revolution that sought to expel Egyptian and British authorities. British General Charles Gordon sent to evacuate Khartom, the Sudanese capital, failed to follow orders which necessitated  a military rescue in 1884-5.  British forces reached Khartom but not before it and Gordon fell to the revolutionaries. It is in this grand adventure that 60 Mohawks decided to join.

Benn’s argues that the Mohawks, as well as others who answered the call, did so based on culture and personality.  For Benn, the Mohawk boatmen served based on traditional imperatives, such as those drawn from the warrior ethic where men ventured beyond their communities for long periods in search of adventure and status. Overlying this ethic was the Mohawk linkage to the Queen via the covenant chain.

British representatives directly appealed to the Mohawks lending support to the Iroquois conception of loyal allies and affirming ancient linkages with the monarchy. Benn also shows how the Mohawk voyageurs were complicit in British Imperialism abroad, mimicked Imperial notions of the other, and expressed kinship of feeling with British officers as well as overall support of British colonial efforts in Egypt. An extensive appendix, which includes two Mohawk accounts of their adventures, is a wonderful companion to Benn’s text. With the exception of these two accounts, the reader will not find a “native voice”, but the book does an excellent job of engaging the reader in an Imperial adventure in which the Mohawks played a significant role for their own reasons.

Benn, Carl. Mohawks on the Nile: Natives Among the Canadian Voyageurs in Egypt, 1884-1885. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2009.