James McGill Grave Site

McGill University is known across Canada as an elite and top grossing educational institution. Despite McGill's prestige, little is known among students, staff and the public at large about the socio-political context in which the university came to be. Situated on the unceded territory of the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, McGill university would not exist today without Canadian colonialism and transatlantic slavery. A four-sided stone pedestal tomb of the university’s founder, James McGill, rests at the center of McGill's campus, reminding all of this history.

James McGill (1744-1813) was a Scottish immigrant to North America and belonged to an influential merchant community ^[1]. As one of Montreal’s wealthiest citizens, his legacy is diverse and complex. He is largely known for his involvement in the fur trade, business, military, and for being a prominent politician in Lower Canada ^{[1] [2]}. In addition, James McGill was known for his broad and active philanthropy in the Montreal region ^[2]. The founding of the University and its subsequent buildings, such as the Burnside Property, and resources were funded largely in part by McGill’s entrepreneurial dealings in North American trade ^[2]. 

Although James McGill had been an active member in developing Montreal’s core institutions, notably McGill University, his history portrays a story that would contradict his character of philanthropy and charity. Being a successful merchant, he profited from the trade of tobacco, rum and molasses in the British colonies -- goods produced by exploited enslaved people of the West Indies ^[3]. Moreover, James personally owned five slaves: Marie, Marie-Louise, Jacques, Sarah Cavilhe, Marie-Charles^[4]. Two of them were of Indigenous descent, while the other three were of African descent ^[3]. A vast sum of the wealth accumulated by McGill can be attributed to the business of slavery he partook in. 

Among the people McGill enslaved, the case of Sarah Cavilhe highlights the nature of McGill’s character regarding the ownership and trade of slaves. Cavilhe, as primary sources indicate, was an African American woman whom McGill bought in 1788 ^[3]. Prior to the purchase of Cavilhe, McGill had signed a bill that would enact and mandate the abolishment of slavery in Canada ^[3]. The contradiction of buying Cavilhe, while simultaneously signing an act for the abolishment of slavery highlights the ill will of McGill to favour the true advancement towards the end of slavery. Moreover, the purchase of Cavilhe by McGill signifies the conditions by which his slaves, and all slaves in Canada for that matter, were subjected. Indeed, the purchase of Cavilhe coincided with the gradual deterioration and illness of another slave McGill owned, Marie-Louise ^[3] . A contemporary analysis of the sequence of events following the ailing Marie-Louise and the purchase of Cavilhe would suggest that McGill was actively replacing dying slaves, an unfortunate practice. 

McGill was fluently bilingual, and married a French-Canadian woman, Charlotte Guilleman Desrivières ^[5]. They, however, never had any biological children which led McGill to leave part of his opulent estate to the community ^[1]. On the merit of his death will, James McGill ushered in the greater establishment and unification of colleges in the area to establish the known McGill University of today ^[3]. The outlined establishment in McGill’s will came with the endowment fund of £10,000, roughly equivalent to $1.2 million Canadian dollars in the present day ^[6]. The question of concern is the moral and principal consideration of how the funds, a profiteering of slavery, are to be examined in the contemporary condemnation of slavery and the consequences by which it proliferated among African American and Indigenous communities. A previous professor at McGill, Dr. Charmaine A. Nelson, speaks to this issue on McGill’s campus with Le Devoir.

The James McGill Tomb is situated in front of the Arts building, at the heart of the downtown campus. McGill was originally buried December 21, 1813, at the St. Lawrence Burial Ground on Dorchester Street^[7]. The remains and the tomb were moved to the University grounds when the cemetery was turned into Dufferin Square^[8]. James McGill has not moved alone, he was buried beside his companion John Porteous, his colleague in the fur-trading business^[9]. There is speculation that the two were more than friends and pursued a relationship, especially considering the circumstance that McGill raised Porteous’ children after his death and was eventually buried alongside his “friend"^[10].

On June 23, 1875, the university grounds were consecrated by a bishop and McGill, alongside Porteous, were laid to rest together in their new location^[11]. The current tombstone which sits there today is a replica of the original marble one^[12]. Its replacement was produced in 1970, by an unknown artist, after the original began deteriorating^[13]. The tomb sits atop a base that is inscribed with the following texts:

“To the Memory of the Honorable James McGill a native of Glasgow north Britain and during several years a representative of the City of Montreal in the Legislative Assembly, and Colonel of the 1st Battalion of Montreal militia, who departed this life on the 19th day of December 1813 in his 69th year. In his loyalty to his Sovereign and in ability, integrity, industry and zeal as a Magistrate and in other relations of public and private life he was conspicuous. His loss is accordingly sincerely felt and greatly regretted.”^[14]

“This monument is a duplicate in external appearances of that which stood in the old Protestant cemetery, Dorchester Street, from 1813 until 1875, and on the present site until 1971 deterioration of the original forced replacement. The original has been preserved.”^[15]

Much of the landmark characteristics of the LG-2 complex created by the Quebec government can be attributed to James McGill’s grave. Carl Sauer’s analysis explored the idea of landscape from its roots, examining how fourteenth-and-fifteenth century Europe was carried in large part by the connections being woven between art, science, property, and political power^[16]. What greater monument describes this essence than McGill University’s infamous Y-intersection? With James McGill’s remains situated squarely in the epicentre of campus, visitors constantly gaze upon the landmark with a reminder of the political power he wielded, and the legacy of education he left behind after his passing. Yet, the colonial ramifications left behind are subtle, much like McGill’s grave demarcation, and the design of the LG-2 complex. Desbiens notes that in comparison with a Cree experience of landscape that would traditionally call for fuller engagement to secure means of subsistence, the designers of LG-2 imply a more passive spectatorship experience.^[16] This Eurocentric approach is found again in the urban landscape of McGill University and the grave, as the quiet trumpeting of James McGill’s remains fade in the backdrop to the rest of the horizon that has the arts building looming over it. Another similarity between the two is this lack of Indigenous presence. Perception from the ground, possibly from local users of the land, is not envisioned as the best means of producing landscape data. If and when Indigenous presence is acknowledged, it too enters the realm of intelligibility^[16]. This is also the case for those who placed James McGill’s grave at the Y-intersection. There is a lack of Indigenous commemoration or appreciation with regard to the grave and the University as a whole, due in large part to the fact that it would supposedly take away from the vision of McGill’s landscape. 

Overall, the McGill downtown campus provides an institutional landscape that has been “written” to convey certain important relationships. A cultural landscape is considered a characteristic of the complex interactions that occur between a human group. These interactions can include different practices, preferences, values, and as well as a natural environment is needed. The monument marking the location of James McGill remains outside of the Arts building serves a commemorative function, the personified stature invites interaction, and interactions with it serves to reinforce its personification^[4]. Although slavery is now abolished, one must acknowledge that the tomb site represents a common status symbol among Montreal’s merchant elite a practice that was only rehearsed by Montreal’s richest, including James McGill^[17]. There are not calls for a name change, however students and faculty want the campus to become more inclusive. While not everyone sees and experiences the gravesite of James McGill in the same way, its installation on the university’s lower campus promotes uncritical veneration through everyday encounters that memorialize the man and the colonial relations he represents^[15]. The tomb is a garden set inside a wall of stones in the form of a heart and with the location directly in front of the arts building, it attracts visitors and graduates who pose with it for photographs, reinforcing the understanding of McGill as an institutional “father” hosting an extended family of “McGillians” on “his” property. 

[1] Abbott, Lewis W. James McGill (1744 - 1813). International Review of Scottish Studies, vol. 12 26 - 39. Published September 24th 2008. Open Journal Systems. https://doi.org/10.21083/irss.v12i0.641. 

[2] The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n. d.) "James McGill." Encyclopædia Britannica. (n. d.) Accessed 20 October 2021.

[3] Nelson, Charmaine A. and Student Authors. (2020) Slavery and McGill University: Bicentenary Recommendations. Report. https://www.Blackcanadianstudies.com/Recommendations_and_Report.pdf. 

[4] Hampton, Rosalind. Black Racialization and Resistance at an Elite University. University of Toronto Press., 2020.

[5] Baker, Nathan. & Gordon, S. (2020) "James McGill." The Canadian Encyclopedia. June 19, 2020. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/james-mcgill.

[6] McGill. n.d. “Who was James McGill?.” Accessed October 30, 2021. https://www.mcgill.ca/about/history/who-was-james-mcgill.

[7] McGill University's Visual Arts Collection, “James McGill Tomb,” CollectionSpace, 1990-001, Last Modified July 3rd, 2020, https://vacdatabase.library.mcgill.ca/cspace/mcgill/record/collectionobject/70890e2c-2c69-45e2-aae5.

1990-001, Last Modified July 3rd, 2020, https://vacdatabase.library.mcgill.ca/cspace/mcgill/record/collectionobject/70890e2c-2c69-45e2-aae5.

[8] McGill University’s Visual Arts Collection, “James McGill Tomb,” CollectionSpace, 1990-001.

[9] Sarah Manuszak, “THE QUEER STORY OF JAMES MCGAY,” The Bull & Bear, February 14th, 2020, https://bullandbearmcgill.com/the-queer-story-of-james-mcgay/. 

[10] Sarah Manuszack, “THE QUEER STORY OF JAMES MCGAY,” The Bull & Bear.

[11] McGill University’s Visual Arts Collection, “James McGill Tomb,” CollectionSpace, 1990-001.

[12] McGill University’s Visual Arts Collection, “James McGill Tomb,” CollectionSpace, 1990-001.

[13] McGill University’s Visual Arts Collection, “James McGill Tomb,” CollectionSpace, 1990-001.

[14] The Identity of English Speaking Quebec in 100 Objects, “James McGill Monument - 1813,” 

http://100objects.qahn.org/content/james-mcgill-monument-1813. 

[15] The Identity of English Speaking Quebec in 100 Objects, “James McGill Monument - 1813.” 

http://100objects.qahn.org/content/james-mcgill-monument-1813.

[16] Desbiens, Caroline. Power from the North : Territory, Identity, and the Culture of Hydroelectricity in Quebec. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013. https://web-s-ebscohost-com.proxy3.library.mcgill.ca/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=3d3af6b0-ee55-408a-b986-02519642a2a7%40redis&bdata=JnNjb3BlPXNpdGU%3d#AN=510496&db=nlebk

[17] Hopper, T. (2017, August 28). Everything is offensive: Here are Canada's other politically incorrect place names. nationalpost. Retrieved November 28, 2021, from https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/everything-is-offensive-here-are-canadas-other-politically-incorrect-place-names. 

Image and Multimedia Credits

Fig. 1 RICHARD F. EBERT, Arts Building at McGill University, 2019, Photograph. https://www.encirclephotos.com/image/arts-building-at-mcgill-university-in-montreal-canada/

Fig. 2 Louis Dulongpré, Portrait of James McGill, (1744-1813), 1800-1810, Oil on canvas 83.8 x 67.8 cm. http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/M970X.106 

Fig. 3 Alexandra Studios, Honouring the Founder, at James McGill's monument, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 1921, Silver salts on paper - Gelatin silver process 17 x 28 cm. http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/collection/artifacts/MP-0000.196.2 

Fig. 4 Rachel Garber, James McGill Tomb, N.D., Photograph. http://100objects.qahn.org/content/james-mcgill-monument-1813 

Black Students' Network McGill University. “FORGOTTEN NAMES: The People Enslaved by James Mcgill.” March 24th, 2021. Youtube Video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k335CHw5LP4.

Nelson, Charmain. “Charmaine Nelson et la mémoire de l’esclavage.” Le Devoir. September 30th, 2020. Youtube Video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKEAvrzRqmI.