Indian Act Amendment

The Superintendent General was given increased control over band membership and the status of Aboriginal women, which had previously been the domain of Aboriginal male leadership in band councils. By putting this power in the hands of the Superintendent General, it provided the opportunity for abuse of power, in that the SG could reward or punish Aboriginal women who either conformed or resisted the imposition of Christianity and European gender roles. As such, the SG could prohibit her from living on the reserve or receiving annuities that may have been necessary for survival. These amendments represent a trend in amendments to the Indian Act in which bureaucratic surveillance and control of Indigenous affairs increased over time. No accountability structures or system of checks and balances were simultaneously applied to compensate for the powers afforded these expansions of bureaucratic oversight. This is indicative of the belief that it was Indigenous people who posed a threat to societal order, and from whom society needed to be protected, obscuring the potential for abuses of the state’s power and vulnerability to harm from Indian Agents and other colonial officials. There do not appear to have been discussions of rights of Aboriginal peoples or potential routes of advocacy in cases of corruption, such as unjust accusations of criminality.