Motorcycles and Sweetgrass

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2010

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapters 6

Chapters 7-14

Chapters 15-22

Chapter 23-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Cultural Context: Indigenous Canadian People

Taylor’s Motorcycles and Sweetgrass takes place in Canada on a fictional Indigenous reserve called Otter Lake First Nation. Reserves are defined under the 1876 Indian Act as “tract[s] of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that ha[ve] been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band [of Indigenous people].” Though such reserves are analogous to reservations in the US, they constitute a legally distinct entity, and for this reason, this guide uses the term “reserve” rather than “reservation.” The fictional Otter Lake reserve is based on real locations in Canada: Among the Anishinaabe/Ojibwe people (spelled Anishnawbe/Ojibway in the novel), 14 such reserves and reservations exist in Canada and the US.

As chief of her band, Maggie must balance her people’s legitimate claims to autonomy and self-determination against their white neighbors’ inchoate fear of losing their privilege. When her Anishnawbe band buys 300 acres of land to add to the reservation, white locals resist the move without being able to articulate a reason for their actions: “Five hundred years of colonization had told them you took land away from Native people, you didn’t let them buy it back. As a result, the local municipality was fighting tooth and nail to block the purchase” (35).

The language of the Indian Act—still in force despite having been drafted well over a century ago, in an era of rampant state violence against Indigenous peoples—emphasizes the limited nature of the autonomy granted to those who live on the reserves. The legal title to reserve land is “vested in Her Majesty,” and it is only by Her Majesty’s largesse that Indigenous people are allowed to use it. Maggie’s need to work with Canada’s parliamentary government constrains her authority as chief. When the Anishnawbe band succeeds in buying the land to add to the reservation, the local MP warns her that reporters will demand to know the band’s plans for the acreage.

In the real world, Indigenous Canadians have spent decades fighting for the recognition of aboriginal title to their ancestral lands—a legal concept that, in stark contrast to the language of the reserves, arises from the understanding of property found in Indigenous legal systems.

Historical Context: Residential Schools in Canada

An important subplot in the novel is the abuse that Sammy experienced in a Catholic residential school—an example of government-funded and church-run institutions that existed in Canada for 150 years until the last boarding school of this kind closed in 1997. The purpose of the “Canadian Indian Residential School System” was to perform mandatory assimilation, forcibly separating Indigenous children from their families and forbidding them from learning about or practicing any of the traditions they’d grown up with. These schools fostered a culture of abuse against their students, much of which has only become widely known in recent years: brutal corporal punishment, malnourishment, physical and sexual abuse, and even death were common in residential schools, all of which was hidden from public scrutiny. The schools, which were widespread throughout Canada and Northwest America, are widely considered a form of cultural genocide. Investigations into their true nature have been followed by official apologies, forensic research, reparations, and the 2022 personal apology issued in Canada by Pope Francis.

In the novel, the abuses of this system are represented most prominently through the story of Sammy Aandeg. An exceptionally smart and talented student, Sammy memorizes all of Shakespeare’s plays as a means of rebelling against the residential school’s oppressive culture. Because of his unwillingness to capitulate to the school’s program of forced assimilation, Sammy suffers constant physical and emotional abuse. This trauma stays with him throughout his life, and by the time of Nanabush’s return to Otter Lake, Sammy has become an isolated adult whose alcohol addiction is his only means of keeping his painful memories at bay. His memorization of Shakespeare—initially a mode of rebellion—has become a habit that only deepens his isolation, as he compulsively speaks the Anishnawbe language in Shakespearean iambic pentameter, ensuring that no one—Anishnawbe or white—understands him.