In 1932, during Peter Verigin’s trial for perjury, there were nude protests by the Sons of Freedom in Thrums, B. C. The government of British Columbia moved against the protesters and prosecuted them for public indecency. They were given the maximum sentences of three years each (Globe [Toronto], May 6, 1932; McLaren 1995, 103). In fact, so many people were arrested that the prisons were unable to accommodate them, so a special penal colony was built on Piers Island, near Sidney.
At this time, the Freedomite children were sent to orphanages, industrial schools and foster homes around Victoria and the Lower Mainland to “resocialize” them (McLaren 1995, 104).
According to John P. Zubek and Patricia Anne Solberg, the warden at the time decided to treat the prisoners in a novel way; he explained to the staff that physical force was not to be used; passive treatment would be used to discipline them. (Zubek and Solberg 1952, 143).
The warden refused to have government staff care for the prisoners, but instead provided access to uncut wood and the supplies brought by boat were left at the pier. At first the prisoners refused to work for the government, but in the end the cold forced them to capitulate and they started chopping the wood for the fires; a similar standoff over the food for the camp ended the same way. (Ibid., 143-144)
The cost of imprisoning the Sons of Freedom in the Depression was excessive. The government decided to start letting the prisoners go, and the next summer the first prisoners were released. The ex-convicts were destitute because of communal ownership, and the community did not want them back. The leader of the community, Peter Verigin, 1881-1939, disowned them; he argued they were still the responsibility of the government (Ibid., 147).
The Society of Friends in London had acquired a letter written by Vladimir Tchertkoff, alleging gross abuses of the prisoners on Piers Island, intended for publication in the Manchester Guardian.
In 1953, the Fraternal Council, Union of Christian Communities&Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors, wrote an open letter telling the story of women who were arrested with the other protesters in 1932 (Perepelkin, Hadikin, and Jmaeiff 1953, 12-15). They were nursing mothers at the time and took their babies with them to Piers Island.
One of the mothers who wrote the letter that concludes the pamphlet tells of how nurses at Piers Island took the babies from the women and promised the babies would be well taken care of. Less than two weeks later, the nurse came to take the parents to see the babies. The babies were obviously neglected (Ibid., 13)
Two or three days later the nurse came to tell the parents the babies had died. The parents blamed the government for the death of the babies. Three babies died; they were the children of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Babakaeff, Thrums, B.C.; Mr. and Mrs. Fred Shlakoff, Crescent Valley, B.C. and Mr. and Mrs. Fred Postnikoff, Crescent Valley, B.C. (Ibid. 15).
Perepelkin, John J., Mike W. Hadikin and Bill J. Jmaeiff. “An Open Letter to B.C. Attorney General Robert Bonner.” Fraternal Council, Union of Christian Communities&Brotherhood of Reformed Doukhobors, 1953 , The Doukhobor Collection, Special Collections and Rare Books, W.A.C. Bennett Library, Simon Fraser University.
Zubek, John P. and Patricia Anne Solberg. “Imprisonment on Piers Island.” In Doukhobors at War. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1952
