1911: Congress of Races, with Squamish delegates

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day:
One of the first broadly anti-racist meetings in the post-frontier era involved Chinuk Wawa…

Where in the world are Matthias Joe / Capilano & Charley? Here are the attendees (image credit: Wikipedia)

The first Universal Races’ Congress was (sad to say) ahead of its time. Click that link & learn a lot of fascinating things about that initiative.

I’m happy that it got serious coverage in a newspaper in the USA’s capital city, and that Chinook Jargon was mentioned in this connection:

Congress of Races.

The first Universal Races’ Congress, 
which opens here Wednesday and lasts
until Saturday next, has among its sup-
porters over thirty presidents of parlia-
ment, the majority of the members of
the permanent court of arbitration and of
the delegates of the second Hague con-
ference, twelve British governors, eight
British premiers, over forty colonial
bishops, some 130 professors of interna-
tional law, the leading anthropologists
and sociologists of the world and the
officers and the majority of the counsel
of the Interparliamentary Union.

Special consideration will be given to
the problem of the contact of Europeans
with other developed types of civilization.
The views of the colored races are to be
voiced, and papers hare been prepared
on questions affecting China, Japan, Tur-
key, Persia, India, Egypt, Haiti, the
American negro and Indian and the negro
of West and South Africa by distin-
guished representatives of the peoples
concerned.

Two interesting sympathizers with the
objects of the congress are Matthias Cap-
ilano and “Charley,” two red Indian
chiefs who came over for the coronation
from British Columbia. Charley speaks
only Chinook, but Capilano knows Squa-
mish and some English.

— from the Washington (DC) Evening Star of July 22, 1911, page 8, paragraph 8

Bonus fact:

Long before this anti-racist congress, Chinook Jargon had been put forth, sometimes very overtly, as an International Idiom, equivalent to Esperanto, Volapük, and such, with the notion of bringing about worldwide peace and/or prosperity and/or understanding, etc.

It’s only by chance that the Jargon makes an appearance in the media coverage of the gathering — but it’s a highly appropriate coincidence!

Speaking of international understanding, Chief Matthias Joe / Capilano’s presence in London was, with a virtual certainty, not only due to the king’s coronation. The Skwxú7mesh leader presumably hoped and tried to get high-level British government audiences to advance his people’s unresolved land concerns and other civil rights, and those of BC tribes generally.

Kata maika tumtum?
What do you think?