Community members pay tribute to Mi’kmaw elder, author, advocate Daniel Paul

Members of the Mi’kmaw community are sharing tributes and reflections on the life of Daniel Paul, after family announced the author, academic, and elder passed away Tuesday after battling terminal cancer.

”He's made people understand who were are and where we come,” says

Pam Glode Desroches, executive director of the Mi'kmaw Native Friendship Centre.

She remembers meeting Paul when she first started at the centre 33 years ago.

“When I heard the news that Danny had passed, I was really heavy,” she adds. “I thought if anybody could beat this, it would be him, he was pretty determined.”

“He’s left a lot of footprints for a lot of us to walk in,” she says. “He's made people understand who were are and where we come from.”

Paul was a member of Millbrook First Nation. Millbrook Chief Bob Gloade says he was shocked when he received the news during Tuesday’s band council meeting.

“The biggest thing I’ll always remember him for is as an individual,” he says. “kind, humble, caring, he was a pleasant man to be around and just talk to, and such a wealth of knowledge.”

“But in my role as chief, one of the things that’s going to stand out for me is his work on the Cornwallis file,” explains Gloade. “he advocated for years, that was something he was very dedicated towards.”

Paul’s seminal work, a book first published in 1993 entitled: “We Were Not the Savages,” explores the effects of colonialism on Mi’kmaw communities.

In it, Paul documents the proclamation made by the founder of the city of Halifax in 1749 which placed a bounty on indigenous scalps.

His work inspired others to take up his decades-long fight to remove the name and likeness of Edward Cornwallis from public places.

Paul addressed his feelings on the matter bluntly in a 2016 interview. “Do we need to celebrate a man who decided he would exterminate a race of people?” asked Paul. “I hardly think so.”

His persistence paid off. In January 2018, a statue of Cornwallis was removed from its pedestal in the municipal park of the same name.

Three years later, the park was renamed Peace and Friendship Park.

Canada’s first Mi’kmaw MP, Jaime Battiste, was with Paul when the elder visited the park for the first time after the statue was removed.

Battiste says it’s a moment he will never forget.

“Just the smile on his face, when he walked out, and saw that there was no statue of Cornwallis there and he told me he never thought he'd live to see that that statue was removed,” he recalls.

“He used his writing to influence change,” says Battiste. “And he wasn’t scared to talk about the dark history of Nova Scotia, and to talk about the experience of the Mi’kmaw during those chapters.”

“He was the first person that I ever read as an indigenous scholar who talked about genocide, and what that meant,” says Patti Doyle-Bedwell, Mi’kmaw lawyer and associate professor at Dalhousie University.

Paul’s book is required reading for courses she teaches, and she credits Paul for progress made decolonizing history and education.

“That was one of the things that he has been a mover and shaker on, to make sure that all of us learn about our history, and he opened the door for us to do that, even though there was a lot of resistance in the beginning.”

Mi’kmaw creator and author Brian Francis of Elsipogtog First Nation says Paul paved the way for future generations.

“He dared to say a lot of things that a lot of people didn't dare say, things that needed to be said,” he explains. “And he inspired a lot of younger Mi'kmaw people to look at that, to look at where and how our communities are where they are, and what we’ve gone through throughout history.”

In December, Paul spoke to CTV Atlantic about his cancer diagnosis, facing it with his signature determination.

“I fully intend to live until I die,” he said. “I don't intend to live a life of living dead, waiting for it.”

Over the decades, Paul was granted numerous honors, including the Order of Canada and an honorary doctorate from Dalhousie University.

Paul was 84 years old at the time of his passing.

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