“…the land across from Halifax, which the Mi’kmaq called Ponamogoatitjg, or salmon place, the English called ‘Dartmouth,’ in honor of the Earl of Dartmouth…
In naming the landscape, the settlers were establishing their claim to it and identifying the land with their English past rather than its Mi’kmaq one.
Renaming the landscape was a deliberate exercise by the colonial elite in Halifax. Such a task was not to be left in the hands of the settlers.
To rename the land was to create order from disorder, civilization from savagery, Protestantism from superstition, economy from indolence.”
From: Mi’kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land, and Donald Marshall Junior, William Wicken, University of Toronto Press, 2002
246 Years later, the Colonial elite are now the Provincial elite, and we’ve all been a victim of history repeating.
“…the land across from Halifax, which Haligonians and Dartmouthians called Dartmouth, the Provincial elite called ‘Halifax Regional Municipality,’ in honor of neoliberalism and fiscal downloads from higher order governments…
In naming and re-branding the landscape, the Provincial elite were establishing their claim to it and identifying the land with their vision, rather than the vision of the citizenry within.
Dissolving, amalgamating and re-branding the landscape was a deliberate exercise by the Provincial elite in Halifax. Such a task was not to be left in the hands of the citizens.
To rename the land created disorder where there was order, by a Savage who committed the most undemocratic act, not without protest, only strengthening the demand for legitimate local self government in Nova Scotia.”