Kathryn Labelle receives John C. Ewers book award

Assistant Professor of History Kathryn Labelle has received the 2014 John C. Ewers Award for her book Dispersed but Not Destroyed: A History of the Seventeenth-Century Wendat People.

Labelle’s book was the selection committee’s unanimous choice for the award, which is issued by the Western History Association to the best book published in the last two years on North American Indigenous ethnohistory.

Dispersed but Not Destroyed examines primary sources on Wendat history from 1630 to 1701, challenging the longstanding myth that the Wendat were wiped out by Iroquois invaders during the Beaver Wars. Labelle’s book traces the dispersed Wendat through the decades, demonstrating how they maintained a distinct identity despite being swept up in the immense change around them.

“Dispersed but Not Destroyed rewrites the story of seventeenth-century Great Lakes country,” wrote the John C. Ewers Prize Committee in a statement, adding that “[Labelle] points to the ways in which scholars can recover the stories of other Indigenous peoples whose histories have been obscured.”

Committee member Boyd Cothran of York University went even further in his praise. “I feel we are on the verge of a renaissance in Wendat history. And when we look back in twenty years and see all the wonderful contributions to the historiography, I think we will all say: it began with Kathryn Labelle's Dispersed but Not Destroyed,” he wrote.

Labelle said she is honoured to be recognized by the Western Historical Association. “It is my sincere hope that this award will bring greater awareness to the often overlooked history of dispersed peoples in early North America—especially Canada.”