Notes on Leaving the “British Empire” in Canada

Leaving the “British Empire” in Canada: Promises in the South, 1916–1921

Isaak M. Dyck's memoir emphasizes the effect of the 1916 school legislation in Manitoba and Saskatchewan on Old Colony Mennonites, leading to their emigration to Mexico in the 1920s.
These laws, a product of the First World War, empowered the government to control what Mennonite children learned in school.
While the Canadian federal government had exempted Mennonites from military service, provincial governments pressured them through school legislation.
Dyck viewed the legislation as an attempt to instill militarism, symbolized by the cry of “one king, one country, one fleet, one flag, one all-British empire.”
According to Dyck, the only option was to leave the Dominion of Canada and its imperial culture.
Mennonites sought a land where they could maintain their simple agrarian ways, as Canada's wealth was transforming their culture.
Jacob Wiens, a Mennonite minister, had a mystical experience in 1913, foreseeing the need for the church to settle among a heathen people to maintain its purity.
In 1874, Mennonites migrating from Imperial Russia to western Canada sought to rebuild their farm villages in simplicity, but Canada's wealth brought temptations.
A “heathen” land represented a primitive place, far from Anglo Canada, where Mennonites could secure cultural independence and salvation.
Dyck wrote his memoir in Mexico in the 1960s, reflecting on the difficult exodus from Canada and pilgrimage to Mexico in the 1920s.

Other Mennonite Perspectives

Four other texts by leaders, all extensive daily diaries, off er a somewhat less emotional and more quotidian perspective.
Peter R. Dueck's “church diary” recorded meetings of the Kleine Gemeinde Mennonite group from 1901 to 1919.
David Rempel's diary recounts his experience as part of a land-scouting delegation to Brazil and Argentina in 1920.
Johan M. Loeppky's diary reflects on the final scouting trip to Mexico in 1921 and the negotiation for a charter of privileges with Mexican president Álvaro Obregón.
Bernard Toews's diary details a five-month scouting trip to Paraguay in 1921, with a side trip to Mexico.
These texts reveal a religious understanding that emphasized being “foreigners and exiles”.
They convey knowledge of government, agriculture, and curiosity about new cultures.
The writings reinforce the male authors’ positions as leaders within an overtly patriarchal church.
Sidonie Smith’s feminist vocabulary describing autobiographies that “resist memory,” “talk back,” and critique “certain teleological itineraries” may also describe the writings of these patriarchal leaders of an ethno-religious minority out of step with modernity.
Mennonite writers can be said to have “troubled” the idea of Canada as a nation with an unproblematic history foregrounding the nationhood itself as a problem that preserves some form of injustice.
They resisted assimilative legislation and took up the “walking staff” to resist cultural incursion.
Transnationalism arose not from economic factors, but as religious resistance to nationalism and modernity.

Isaak Dyck: A Sermon against Canadian Patriotism

Dyck’s memoir, written in German and published in 1965, presented an Old Colony Mennonite interpretation of historic events with the specific aim of reviving a simple, separate world.
Dyck was both historian and preacher, linking the 1920s emigration to a plea for old values in the 1960s.
He emphasized that the true Mennonite was an “alien in this world,” resembling the children of Israel.
Dyck called for immersion in the Martyr’s Mirror, highlighting the Anabaptist ancestors' persecution and the calling to “walk in all humility and lowliness.”
The First World War and school legislation strengthened Mennonites' loyalty to a separate community of non-violent believers.
Emigrants exerted their “freedom of conscience” and expressed authentic faith.
Dyck linked the 1920s migration to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and the suffering of sixteenth-century Mennonites.
He saw a parallel between the 1920s emigration and the 1870s exodus from Russia, attributing both to divine order and protection.
Dyck used his mother's stories of the 1875 migration to Canada to illustrate divine guidance, referencing the veneration of mothers in Jeremiah 15.
He emphasized the encroachment of modernity, including wealth, greed, and pride, leading to the lure of war.
Mennonites were cajoled into paying money to the Red Cross and participating in the general manpower registry throughout all of Canada.
Dyck pointed out the moral decline in the congregation, with young men engaging in worldly behavior.
Enforcement of new education laws in 1919 caused concern, anxiety, and sorrow.
The Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918 and 1919 was seen as a divine message and judgement of God.
Emigration was viewed as the only way to preserve simplicity in Christ.

Peter R. Dueck: The Concerns of 1916

Ältester Peter R. Dueck’s diary from 1916 reveals the perspective of a leader within the Kleine Gemeinde Mennonite community in Steinbach, Manitoba.
The diary reflects the social dangers in Canada, the leadership's thinking, and collaboration with leaders from the wider Mennonite community.
Dueck's first entry for 1916 depicted a placid, rural Mennonite settlement.
His entry for February 10 noted an inter-Mennonite meeting concerning the school legislation of the provincial Liberal government.
Dueck and Jacob Reimer traveled to Winnipeg to appeal to government officials, receiving a promise that private schools would not be disturbed.
The diary recorded events suggesting an intrusive state, including requests for financial aid for wounded soldiers and widows, and the national plebiscite on temperance.
Dueck voiced concerns about wealth and worldly lifestyles, more so than schools and war.
He discussed the social implications of new gasoline-driven tractors, the opening of A. W. Reimer’s store in Winnipeg, and conformity to the world.
In September 1916, Dueck raised the question of car ownership, which symbolized pride and vanity.
He lamented the “wild goings on by the youth” and called on preachers to awaken parents to teach their children the Christian way.

David Rempel: Diary on the Way to South America

Scouting trips to various locations occurred in 1919 and 1920, including North America and Latin America.
Each trip was preceded by a Brotherhood meeting to determine the location and choose delegates.
The first trip to Latin America was a joint foray by representatives of smaller denominations to Brazil and Argentina in February 1919.
David Rempel’s diary recorded a journey taken in the late summer of 1919 by delegates of the large Old Colony Church to Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.
Rempel's diary reveals a relatively well-to-do traveler, insisting on good accommodation and visits to tourist attractions.
The aim was to find good farmland able to sustain a community of committed Mennonites, and a willing nation to take them in.
Rempel's diary indicates religious freedom, curiosity of foreign cultures, and an eye for the physical landscape.
The first destination was Ottawa to seek Mennonite “freedoms.”
The next stop was New York City, home to Samuel McRoberts, a financier with South American ties.
McRoberts's services were sought to locate a place in South America.
Rempel and his party found time to partake in the marvels of the city but found that there was no peace and wanted to take his farewell from all American places.
In Rio de Janeiro, Rempel described a beautiful city, and in Sao Paulo, he described a nearby park.
South America proved to be a place of deep disappointment.
The tragic death of Rev. Johan Wall in Curitiba rattled the delegates.
The German immigrants were met with disappointment that things down there are not as had been expected, just incase they should emigrate Argentina.
An Argentine government official informed that a private school system was “against the constitution.”
Brazilian’s immigration officials replied that “They could not agree to the Mennonites’ immigration requests saying that it was ‘impossible to make any exceptions.’”
The Mennonite delegates who had left the ease of Canada and travelled south attended “an English church service” in Sao Paulo and heard a sermon of how “it is easy to stay in Christ.”
Rempel concluded that promised land to was worth the cost.

Johan M. Loeppky: Tears of Affection for Mexico

In 1921, the Old Colony Mennonites turned their attention to Mexico where the found a successful agreement.
Johan M. Loeppky of Saskatchewan opens with a poem, establishing the sacredness of the Mennonite migration: “He who travels only with His God / He finds a way is always made / A direction always pointed out to him.”
“the time here [in Canada] has expired in which we enjoyed freedom with regard to education.”
Those community had been strained by its own quickly assimilating youth, especially in the prosperous days of the First World War.
Matt hew 10:23 – “when you are persecuted in one place, flee for another.”
The trip to Mexico was nothing short of a search for freedom and eternal salvation.
Their travel documents encountered a tough United States consular office and “were thoroughly interrogated.”
But Loeppky especially appreciated the words of a young widow, a Mrs. Knelsen, with tearful story and ceaseless faith that reminded those to think that were on the trip.
At Guaymas, he saw a beautiful bay, “a wonderful place for a city,” but he reminded himself that “in the world many things are incredible.”
Loeppky was in awe upon arrival to the presidential palace by meeting President Álvaro Obregón.

Johan M. Loeppky: Negotiations with President Obregón

President Álvaro Obregón in the evening of 17 February 1921 actualized negotiations by outlining their ten requests, and the president and his officials responded.
First, the delegates requested exemption from the Mexican law requiring civil marriages and for their own egalitarian inheritance practices with partible bilateral system.
Then, the Mennonites wanted their own church-run, German-language schools.
Fourth, the Mennonites asked for military exemption, and the president agreed, even in the event that the Mennonites became naturalized citizens.
Lastly, the Mennonites requested “the admittance of the elderly, the weak and the crippled” and economic assistance by obtaining final land titles, support for travel inland with permission for future land acquisitions.

Johan M. Loeppky: Aftermath

Loeppky addressing the President by thanking his “very merciful government” and then returned reflective expressing, “praised and thanked the one who can steer and govern the hearts of those who are high in the world.”
Accepted the invitation to complete their tour of the presidential palace,Loeppky addressed that he was more interested in freedoms over house’s splendor.
Durango visited farmland, and they reminded themselves that they “wanted to hear what the congregation at home would say regarding the [promised] freedoms.”
crossing into the United States, border officials did not want to recognized they intentions and thoroughly searched once delegates insisted that they only wanted to travel through.
Receiving by Mr. Heinrich Reimer, Loeppky pondered how “the dear God knows how to sustain his own everywhere, even in the United States.”
A “time among a totally foreign people” and gave his regards to personal values by concluding to overtly pietistic language.

Bernard Toews: The Promise of Paraguay

In February 1921, another Mennonite delegation left for Paraguay and an eventual meeting with its president, Manuel Gondra Pereira from the three smaller traditionalist Mennonite groups.
McRoberts met Paraguay’s president-elect Manuel Gondra on a ship and raised the idea of Mennonites and sent his emissary, to explore the Chaco.
Bernard Toews of the village of Weidenfeld kept a detailed travelogue that later served as a report to his Sommerfelder congregation; also, to recognize the Mennonite teachings on pacifism, educational autonomy, and other practices which recognized privileges.
Traveling to New York to see fifty- storeys buildings and and voyage to 7000-horsepower steam engine, Toews acknowledged that he “lived here [on the ship] in a locked down city.”
Traveling to Asunción, he noted lively bands of brass music, a German-language evangelical Lutheran service, rich floral life, primitive traffic of two-wheeled carts, and a vibrant open market during his boy’s life within Russia.
In New York, the delegates met with McRoberts to discuss the Paraguayan land deal and partook in a gala evening at his house.
Casado gave with assurance that there were Paraguay freedoms that were seeking in Chaco’s wilderness that provided no winter, plentiful and nutritious manioca plant, with climate “25 degrees in summer, in winter 12 degrees, and 79 days … of rain, totaling 60 inches.”
Boarded a riverboat of the 1000-kilometre trip up the Paraná River to Asunción, Toews’s primary attention turned to the physical environs and high land.
To meet Dr. Eusebio Ayala, Minister of Agriculture and President Gondra by providing