Freeman, Barnabas Courtland

DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Nicholas May, “FREEMAN, BARNABAS COURTLAND,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/freeman_barnabas_cortland_16E.html
DCB profile notes:
- Teacher, Methodist and United Church missionary and minister, and author; b. 30 July 1869 in Frontenac County, Ont., son of Barnabas Courtland Freeman and Sarah Lake; m. 28 Dec. 1892 Ida Lawson in Elginburg (Kingston), Ont., and they had three daughters and four sons; d. 17 Dec. 1935 at Cape Mudge Indian Reserve No.10, B.C.
- Barnabas Freeman described himself as having been born of “poor but respectable” parents of loyalist background. The rapid European settlement of the Canadian west at the end of the 19th century attracted many young Ontarian men in search of new opportunities. When a local minister encouraged him to turn his efforts to mission work, Freeman offered to take up a field in the Manitoba and North-West Conference of the Methodist Church. In 1892 he was at Red Deer Hill (Sask.). That summer a letter appeared in the Christian Guardian (Toronto) from the Reverend Ebenezer Robson of British Columbia requesting a missionary for the Haida at Skidegate on the Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida Gwaii). Freeman volunteered for the job despite knowing almost nothing of the people or the area. He was accepted and was hastily ordained a Methodist minister in Winnipeg while en route to Ontario to marry his fiancée.
- Skidegate in 1893 was a Christianized village, and the work that had been accomplished by missionaries during the previous 20 years impressed Freeman. He shared the dominant view of Canada’s late-Victorian society that indigenous people needed to make a complete transformation from what he and others termed “savagery” to civilization. This perspective was reflected in the diverse activities he and his wife undertook during their decade at Skidegate: in addition to preaching the gospel, these tasks included running a day school and co-managing an indigenous joint-stock company that manufactured oil from dogfish. Freeman and his growing family learned the Haida language and won the affection of the people of Skidegate and the other villages among which they itinerated. This relationship is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that at least one Freeman child born at Skidegate was named by the Haida.
- Freeman’s non-fiction and prose demonstrate his extensive contact with the indigenous cultures of coastal British Columbia. His missionary articles, written for church periodicals and, later, his short stories demonstrate that these cultures captured his imagination and that he had developed a genuine concern for the well-being of indigenous peoples in a rapidly changing society. His pamphlet The Indians of Queen Charlotte Islands, published in Toronto around 1904, documents his knowledge of the history and cultural practices of the Haida. He advocated a “home” in the Skidegate mission that would enable parents to leave their children under the care of missionary instructors during the fishing and hunting seasons, and he highlighted its advantages over distant residential schools. He lamented that “after a number of years [residential-school students] return to their people with their sympathies utterly alienated from the old life, and unprepared for taking it up again among them.” Yet despite his particular interest in indigenous people, his view of them changed little. In his writings, aboriginal people appear as a noble race plagued both by their own superstitions and by the evils of contact with Euro-Canadian society.
- Freeman wrote a play about Thomas Crosby, the well-known Methodist missionary who had preceded him at Port Simpson, entitled “Thomas Crosby, a pageant.” The play celebrates Crosby’s missionary work, but interestingly, in the concluding scenes, the character “Indian Manhood” criticizes white society and defends the value of indigenous cultures. He also began writing a novel that was never finished, “Gedanst,” about a high-ranking Haida youth of that name who converted to Christianity. The overarching message in Freeman’s works is clear: bringing Christ’s gospel to indigenous people would redeem both them and the dominant society. Indeed, he felt that his mission work contributed to this end. In 1930, in a personal letter, he wrote that he greatly missed the “closeness of touch” and the wide range of responsibilities he had known among indigenous people, which made his earlier work seem nearer to true ministry.
- Barnabas Cortland Freeman helped to ensure the growth and vitality of the Methodist and United churches in British Columbia over more than four decades. His work was shaped by concern about the social effects of the developments that were transforming Canadian society.
Great Grandson of Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2994
Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/21735786/barnabas-cortland-freeman