Hamilton adds Indigenous history signage at historical monuments

The City of Hamilton is currently reviewing four historical monuments and their effects on the Indigenous community. The city has placed signs in front of the monuments as a part of the city’s Indigenous strategy. One of the monuments under review, the Sir John A. Macdonald statue, was torn down last year during a protest.

Signs were installed on Tuesday at the Queen Victoria statue in Gore Park, Augustus Jones in Stoney Creek, United Empire Loyalist on Main Street downtown, and the former place where the Sir John A. Macdonald statue once stood, also at Gore Park following recommendations from the Indigenous community.

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“I think it’s a perfect opportunity for everyone to take a step back and to reflect and to learn more, and to find ways to learn more about the true history, and that’s our intention here,” Shelly Hill from the City of Hamilton said.

The signs read, “The City of Hamilton is working together with the community to provide a broader and more inclusive view of the past which may challenge some to rethink what they held to be truths. There is more than one story here. Each of the stories associated with this monument must and will be told.”

Hill says that the signage project is a work in progress and that the city will be working on how to incorporate more stories near the monuments in the future.

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Cara Krmpotich with the University of Toronto says it’s healthy for cities to re-evaluate history, “…it’s not learning about Indigenous history. It’s actually asking citizens to think about history from an Indigenous perspective, to take a different starting point to how you understand history, not just to learn new facts from a settler perspective.”

The signs up now are temporary and the city says its end goal would be to have something more permanent to tell Indigenous stories and how they shaped the area before we called it the City of Hamilton.

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