William Duncan

William Duncan (3 April 1832 – 30 August 1918) was an English-born Anglican missionary who founded the Tsimshian communities of Metlakatla, British Columbia, in Canada, and Metlakatla, Alaska, in the United States. In the 1841 census he is recorded as living with his father and his sister Mary Duncan on Lairgate in Beverley. In 1851, he was lodging with William Botterill, a tailor, and Mary Botterill in Keldgate, Beverley and his occupation is described as book-keeper. Duncan later worked in his grandfather/adoptive father's trade as a tanner. Duncan became the only churchgoer in his impoverished family.

In 1854, he joined the Church Missionary Society (CMS) and attended the Church Missionary Society College, Islington.

Arrival in Canada In 1856 the CMS sent Duncan to the North Pacific coast of Canada, and in 1857 he arrived at the remote Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) fort settlement at Lax Kw'alaams, British Columbia, then part of HBC's New Caledonia district and known as Fort Simpson or Port Simpson. Clah later saved Duncan's life when the village's leading chief, Paul Legaic, threatened Duncan at gunpoint for ringing church bells on the day of Legaic's daughter's initiation into a secret society. Legaic eventually became a key convert of Duncan's.

Founding of Metlakatla in British Columbia

Duncan led initially 60 Tsimshians to found with him a new utopian Christian community, Metlakatla, on Metlakatla Pass near present-day Prince Rupert, at the southern end of the small peninsula on which Lax Kw'alaams sits. He wanted to protect his 50 Lax Kw'alaams native followers from the heathen influences of the H.B.C. fort atmosphere.

The community grew. In Metlakatla, Duncan exerted his own brand of low church Anglicanism, which involved a set of rules for Christian living and, controversially, eschewing the sacrament of communion so as not to whet the cannibalistic appetites of a people who he worried might be beholden to the anthropophagous rites of their "secret societies".

Duncan's Rules at Metlakatla To give up their Ahlied or Indian devilry To cease calling in conjurers when sick To cease gambling To cease giving away their property for display (i.e. the potlatch) To cease painting their faces To cease drinking intoxicating liquor To rest on the Sabbath To attend religious instruction To send their children to school To be cleanly To be industrious To be peaceful To be liberal and honest in trade To build neat houses To pay the village tax

"New" Metlakatla in Alaska

Such doctrinal differences, plus Duncan's insistence on total control over his parishioners' lives, led to a split with the Church of England. Duncan was expelled from the CMS in 1882 on the territory of the Tongass tribe of Tlingit. He obtained permission from the US government - travelling to testify before Congress himself - to establish an Indian reservation there (still Alaska's sole Indian reservation), then led approximately 800 Tsimshians in a canoe voyage from "Old" Metlakatla to "New" Metlakatla, Alaska, in 1887.

The new community was successful, especially economically successful, with a sawmill, cannery, and other enterprises. Economic self-sufficiency was a core tenet of Duncan's vision for the community.

His split with the Church of England was not amicable and involved (according to one version of events; see Johnson in bibliography) sending a canoe-load of Tsimshians, including Peter Simpson, who destroyed the church he built at Old Metlakatla, Duncan’s cottage became a museum which was open to the public.

Duncan remains a controversial figure in Tsimshian communities today, with many admirers and detractors.