“Natives' Society”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

The "Newfoundland Natives' Society" refers to a long defunct, patriotic organization in Newfoundland established in the 1840's to protect the rights and privileges of Newfoundland-born and other long-time residents in dealings with colonial civil servants, big business owners who were not always residents and newcomers who considered themselves much higher in the social structure than the locals. The society's official mandate was to advance the careers and interests of native-born and other long-time residents. Newfoundlanders, regardless of gender, ethnic origin or religious affiliation were welcomed as members. This marked the arrival of a new phenomenon, Newfoundland nationalism.^[1] Natives' Society branches existed in St. John's, Harbour Grace and Carbonear as well, it is thought, in other communities.

In St. John's the Natives' Society was formed by Richard Barnes in 1840 and elected its first president, Dr. Edward Kielly, on June 15, 1840.^[2]^[3] The cornerstone of the society’s hall, located at Bannerman Park, was laid by Civil Governor of Newfoundland Sir John Harvey on May 24, 1845. The completed hall fell in a windstorm on September 19, 1846 killing two people.

The society had a distinctive elaborate banner with red, white and green being prominent colours. For ease of manufacture a tricolour flag was adopted. This native flag consisted of three equal width vertical panels of red (at the hoist), white (in the centre ) and green ( on the fly) in proportion 1:2. Other Natives' Society branches, notably in Carbonear and Harbour Grace, adopted this same red, white and green flag, thus establishing it as the first widely recognized unique but unofficial national flag of Newfoundland. It was commonly called the "native flag". With the introduction of Responsible Government in 1855 need for the Society lessened and it ceased functioning in 1866. In 1871 the Catholic Church sponsored a fisherman's aid and benefit organization. This was the Star of the Sea Association. Its banner was a pink cross and a white star on a green background. This gave rise to the commonly named pink, white and green ( green-white-pink, in fact) tricolour flag which with the demise of the Natives' Society was mistakenly referred to as the native flag by the public and even newspaper reporters. This green-white-pink tricolour of the Star of the Sea Association has mistakenly become known as the Newfoundland tricolour flag. It is not. It is the flag of the Star of the Sea Association. The true Newfoundland tricolour flag is the Natives' Society's red-white-green tricolour flag. It served as the unofficial national flag of Newfoundland (Island and Labrador) for many years in the nineteenth century and in the early twenty-first century has been revived as the Newfoundland regional flag.

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