'Your Conscience Will Be Your Own Punishment': The Racially Motivated Murder of Gus Ninham, London, Ontario, 1902
in G. Blaine Baker and Jim Phillips, eds. Essays in the History of Canadian Law in Honour of R.C.B. Risk (Toronto: The Osgoode Society, 1999) 61-114.
54 Pages Posted: 24 Jun 2013
Date Written: 1999
Abstract
In June 1902, an Aboriginal man named Gus Ninham was brutally beaten to death by a group of white, working-class men outside London, Ontario, Canada. Professor Constance Backhouse contextualizes the incident by examining the uneasy relationship between the Onyota'a:ka and white peoples in the area. The murder and ensuing trial received extensive media coverage, highlighting the race and masculinity of the “Oneida brave” Gus Ninham and the “giant” accused John McArthur. The four legal proceedings against McArthur were marked with racist and classist assumptions about Aboriginal witnesses, the victim, and the accused. The proceedings showed a growing reluctance to recognize McArthur's culpability. The jurors in the coroner's inquest found the cause of Gus Ninham's death to be “an assault committed by John McArthur.” Medical testimony against the accused wavered in the preliminary inquiry, but a murder charge proceeded to trial. A grand jury recommended charging McArthur of the lesser crime of manslaughter, and energy to pursue McArthur fizzled. In the face of indefinite medical testimony about Gus Ninham's heart condition, the Crown prosecutor abandoned the case mid-trial. To the shock of the media and the joy of McArthur's accumulated supporters, McArthur was acquitted with only a caution from the presiding judge.
Keywords: Canada, Canadian, law, legal, Ontario, Aboriginal, Native, Indian, white, class, classism, racism, murder, homicide, criminal, crime, racist, racism, classist, trial, manslaughter, medical, evidence, media, prosecution, working-class, London, Onyota'a:ka, history, historical, biography, biographical
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