In the wee hours of the morning of August 4 anarchist settlers used a ketchup bottle to apply red metal paint to a statue of John Galt in front of City Hall. August 4 was Guelph’s first ever John Galt Day. The town was awash in festivities and celebrations honouring John Galt and the plan he developed for the founding of the city of Guelph back in 1827. But who is this John Galt character?
John Galt was a Scotsman who worked for the Canada Company. The Canada Company was based in England and was the largest single commercial force active in the colonisation of Upper Canada (more or less present day Ontario). The company purchased 2.5 million acres of land from the illegitimate government of Upper Canada and worked to settle and develop it by providing ships to transport new immigrants, by advertising land for sale in the “new world” to Europeans, and by selling land at an affordable price to those looking to escape the horrors of industrial Europe.
Despite its arrangement with the government of Upper Canada the Canada Company did not have a legitimate claim to the land as it was already owned and used by a number of indigenous nations. This fact is often conveniently overlooked.
John Galt’s job with the Canada Company was to explore the area and asses the possibilities for development. However, in 1827 he devised a plan for an ideal city and on April 23 walked many hours into the undeveloped bush in order to found the city of Guelph by falling a tree at what is now the intersection of Wellington and MacDonnell.
In many ways Galt’s plan for the city of Guelph was remarkable for its time, but how did his plan include the indigenous people of this area. The fact remains that it didn’t.
In fact, although not a particularly pious man himself, Galt made sure that the Catholic Church, an organisation infamous for its attempts to destroy indigenous nations through the use of missionaries and residential schools, received a prominent place in the town. From just about anywhere downtown you can see the spires of the Church of Our Lady towering above you.
Some suggest that the special favour shown towards the Catholic Church had much to do with Bishop MacDonnell, who provided a substantial portion of the funding necessary for the formation of the Canada Company and the purchase of the land in Upper Canada.
The Catholic Church and the Canada Company worked to settle and colonise the “new world,” Upper Canada, and Guelph at the expense of indigenous populations. John Galt was actively engaged in that process and helped lay the foundation for genocide of unimaginable proportions.
John Galt’s own words foretold the horrific consequences of the Canada Companies agenda of genocide on the day he ceremonially fell the first tree in the founding of the city of Guelph. He wrote that “the tree fell with a crash of accumulating thunder, as if ancient nature were alarmed at the entrance of social man into her innocent solitudes with his sorrows, his follies and his crimes” (the Autobiography John Galt, P. 58-59). To celebrate John Galt is to celebrate the foundation of colonisation and genocide among other follies and crimes of European men.
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