Political cartoon
Description: My cartoon is placed on a playground. There is a residential school off to the side that has jail bars surrounding it. Inside of the school there is a nun and a aboriginal student doing work. Outside the school their is a boy playing with a train set he is saying “look it’s heading west like John A Macdonald wants!” The train is going around the tracks but there seems to be a barrier blocking the train this is the NWMP. Their are two kids doing Rock Paper Scissors. One boy won and is thinking “HAHA, I won no more juice boxes allowed” the juice boxes representing pemmican. Their is a sold sign and a boy pointing to is saying “look guys I bought the play ground!!!” The boy representing John A Macdonald and the playground is Ruperts land. John A Macdonald’s other hand is reached out behind his back and a boy is giving John A Macdonald money and he is thinking I hope no one finds out. This boy would be representing Hugh Alan. Their are two boys fighting, they both are wearing Canadian shirts. This would be representing the HBC and NWC fighting. Their is a slide with a missing piece in it and a Metis going down it. This would be representing the broken treaties. Their is a Aboriginal boy swinging on the swing thinking about the new province Manitoba. Their is a bow and arrow laying beside the aboriginal kid swinging representing the North West Rebellion.
Document: The CPR was a train that was built to connect Canada to British Columbia. CPR stands for Canadian Pacific Railway. John A. Macdonald wanted this train to expand west through the prairies and into British Columbia. People started moving to where the railway was going to run in anticipation of it being built. They did this because they thought it would improve trade. William Van Horne was hired to speed up the process of the train. In 1883 the railroad fund was running out so George and Donald had contributed personal money in order to finish the project but that still wasn’t enough. When the Canadian government passed a bill that gave the railroad 22.5 million dollars they were able to finish the project. I represent the CPR in my picture by the train set one of the kids is playing with. The NWMP where in place to stop the alcohol trade because the aboriginals were addicted and it was ruining their lives. The aboriginals started making trades that were unreasonable just in order to feed their addiction to the whiskey. The NWMPs job was to keep the Americans out of Canada west to stop the trading that was going on. This is why I drew a road block on the train set, representing the NWMP stopping the trade.The HBC was controlled from London where the NWC was controlled by Montreal. It was easier for the NWC to be managed since their management was not far away. Where London was so far it took a while for things to be taken care of. NWC was more popular by the people to trade with because they were open in trading alcohols. The HBC and NWC were always competing to be the best and that is why I drew them as two Canadian kids fighting.The Metis preferred to trade with the NWC because of how much better their management was and the NWC encouraged the First Nations to marry where the HBC did not want the aboriginal women getting married. The Metis were also forced to go to residential school. This was represented by the boy sitting learning in the school.The battle of Seven oaks started because of the Pemican proclamation. This battle included theHBC and NWC. The pemmican was banned at the end of this battle. I represented this by showing two boys playing Rock Paper Scissors and the boy who won saying there’s going to be no more juice boxes, with the juice boxes representing the pemmican. The purchase of Rupert’s land was purchased by John A Macdonald in hopes of expanding Canada West. The Sold sign is representing the purchase of Rupert’s land and and the guy pointing to the sign is sop posed to be John A. Macdonald.Pacific Scandal was when Hugh Alan gave John A Macdonald money in order to win the election, in return John A. Macdonald had to do CPR. I represented this by having Hugh Alan slip some money into John A Macdonald’s hand.National Policy was when people found out about this scandal John A Macdonald was forced to resign this was represented by Hugh Alan thinking “I hope no one finds out”. Treaties where when the aboriginals agreed to share their land in exchange for some specific rights. Some of the rights include the right to hunt or fish. This also meant they could not drink alcohol. The treaties where broken because they were not fare to the aboriginals. This is why I drew a broken slide with a aboriginal kid trying to go down it but can’t because it is broken. Residential schools were where aboriginal and Metis were forced to attend. The kids at these schools were treated very cruelly. They were starved, beat, and some were even raped. I represented this by the student in the residential school looking very sad that he is trapped in a school while everyone played outside. I also drew bars around the school representing how they felt trapped in this horrible place. For the red river rebellion I drew a aboriginal boy swinging on the swing thing about Manitoba which was the city that was signed off when the Metis won the red river rebellion. The North west rebellion is represented by the bow and arrow laying on the ground. During the North west rebellion happened when the aboriginals were hunting all the Buffalo that they started to become extinct. People started getting mad and the rebellion started. This is why I have a bow and arrow representing the North West Rebellion.
Interpret: This cartoon proves how unfair the aboriginals and Metis were treated. I think that the government was unfair to the people of Canada and this caused a lot of problems they then had to overcome.
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