Broadview Petition for Crooked Lakes Land Sale

Euro-Canadian citizens internalized colonial narratives perpetuated by the government and media as it related to the rights of non-Indigenous people to occupy the lands of "uncivilized" or "barbaric" peoples. One underlying tenet of this Western philosophy of non-Indigenous expansion, domination and control was the Lockean belief that land must be "productive", that is, properly cultivated in a European agricultural manner. As well, such land must be commoditized and subdivided into plots of ownership that could be individually owned, allowing for participation in the capitalist, cash-based economy as the value of the land was leveraged through mortgaging and/or the fruits of agricultural labor sold for a profit. Those who did not participate in Western systems of capitalistic commoditization were deemed "uncivilized," thus necessitating their assimilation through oppressive government policy and sequestration on small reserves.