Federal Governance

Indian Agent Peter J. William's Report on File Hills Agency and Battleford Agency

Summary

Indian Agents were required to make a yearly report on the reserves in their respective agencies. In 1886, Agent Williams reported that there had been 11 deaths and 2 births in Standing Buffalo band, 18 deaths and 5 births in Pasquah band, 5 deaths and 4 births in Muscowpetung band, and 26 deaths and 7 births on Piapot.

Implications
Agent Williams does not express concern over the disproportionate birth/death rate for the bands in his charge (with the exception of Muscowpetung). Indeed, he seems more concerned about auditing the accounting books, making detailed notes on the construction of buildings for the bands, quantities of flour, bacon and tea, the volume of hay produced, the size of the potato harvest, the upcoming school house, and the quality of the livestock, fields, fences, houses, tools, horses and stables. This lack of concern or surprise over the disproportionate death rate would have been in keeping with national racist sentiment and social Darwinism which dictated that Indigenous peoples, as an inferior ethnicity, would eventually succumb to the pressures of modernization and become extinct. As well, the lack of explanation or diagnosis regarding the cause of death in 70 percent of these cases (42 out of 60) is indicative of a lack of access to medical assistance such as a doctor. Indigenous peoples were desirous of health care, as indicated by the "medicine chest" clause in Treaties 6 and 8. Treaty 4, however, had no such clause. The lack of health care is indicative of discrimination as the government did not perceive such provision as necessary for Indigenous people.
Sub Event
Disproportionate Death Rate
Date
1886--00-00

Indian Act Amendments

Summary

Building on amendments made to the Indian Act in 1881 which enabled magistrates to have jurisdictional authority on reserves, this 1882 amendment granted the Indian Agent the same power as magistrates, despite lacking formal legal training.

Implications
The intent of this amendment was to increase the amount of surveillance, power and control available to the Department of Indian Affairs to keep Indigenous people in line with the forced governmental agenda of assimilation.By doing this, Indian Agents had a disproportional amount of power over Indigenous peoples despite not being trained on how to implement it, or a legal understanding - most inevitably leading to abuses of power that remained unchecked for lack of concern or care.
Sub Event
Indian Agents Given Power of Magistrate
Date
1882

A Brief Introduction to the Indian Act

Summary

As a means of consolidating existing legislation regarding Indigenous peoples, this new federal legislation marked the beginning of creating special offenses that only applied to Indians. From the Crown’s perspective, it unilaterally marked a transition of Indigenous peoples in British North America from that of sovereign tribal nation in the tripartite imperial system to that of legally incompetent wards of the state in the federal and provincial system. Whereas previously the Crown had an expressed goal of protecting Indian tribal autonomy, the Indian was now cast as a dependent child. There would be no further protection of the cultural distinctiveness of Indigenous people, but rather, an expressed goal of civilization, as defined by the Crown, and assimilation.

In its drafting of the Indian Act, the Crown chose not to make reference to the treaties made with Indigenous peoples that were already in existence. This was in keeping with the Crown’s emphasis on a policy of assimilation, as well as undermining the previous nation-to-nation legal relationship and shifting towards one which perceived Indigenous people as subordinates. The version of the Indian Act that was passed in 1876 communicated the paternalistic mindset of the Crown by dictating the operations of almost every aspect of the daily lives on Indigenous people on reserves, including procedures for determining Indigenous identity, land surrender, and land use

The Indian Act also attacked traditional forms of band governance in an attempt to implement democratic forms of government. Extensive steps were taken to supposedly educate Indians in matters of self-governance, despite the presence of functional structures of intra and inter-tribal governance prior to European contact. For example, the superintendent general acquired vast powers to direct all aspects of the electoral process. By controlling this process in its entirety including initiation and the selection of candidates, this interference was akin to appointment of band leadership by the Department of Indian Affairs. The government also included clauses that enabled the unilateral deposition of leadership. Section 75 of the Indian Act read that chiefs “shall continue to hold the rank of chief until death or resignation, or until their removal, by the Governor in Council, for dishonesty, intemperance, immorality or incompetency..." These grounds for deposition were vaguely defined to enable the government to manufacture legally unassailable arguments to remove band officials in the case that said leaders engaged in behavior that ran contrary to federal objectives, resisted the agenda of the Department of Indian Affairs or otherwise proved to be problematic to their goal of assimilation. The local Indian Agents also held vast powers in regards to interference in band governance and council meetings, and ensured that all aspects of band affairs were under the surveillance and control of the Department.

In addition to imposing democratic governance, the government attempted to undermine community ties by outlawing communal practices such as Potlatches and dances. This coordinated with the government’s desire to foster individualism, which was further encouraged by surveying reserves and dividing them into individual farm plots, isolating families. This demonstrates the devastating effect that the Indian Act held on women. Isolating families sabotaged the means that would have provided communal accountability for violent or otherwise abusive husbands. The Act also oppressed Indigenous women by taking away the Indian status of those who married non-Indigenous persons, thus alienating them from their land base and preventing them from inheriting family property, receiving treaty benefits and being buried with their ancestors on the reserve. Despite a history of inclusion in affairs of self-governance, particularly amongst matriarchal tribes, Indigenous women were now also excluded from taking part in band land surrender decisions. The exclusion of women would not change until 1951.


 

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Date
1876
Region

Gradual Civilization Act

Summary

The Gradual Civilization Act is one of the most significant legislative events in the evolution of Canadian Indian policy. Any First Nations man over the age of 21 who was able to read or write either English or French, reasonably well-educated according to the standard of the day, free of debt and of good “moral character” was eligible to apply to be enfranchised and join the Canadian body politic. Indigenous people with a professional designation (doctor, lawyer or clergy) were automatically enfranchised regardless of whether they desired to change their legal status or not. Enfranchisement was portrayed as a highly valued privilege by the Canadian government, such that any First Nations man who falsely represented himself as enfranchised would receive a jail term of six months.


 

Result

Enfranchisement had the effect of removing all legal distinctions between First Nations people and Settlers with the intent that Indigenous peoples would effectively assimilate, the long-term goal was to reduce the fiduciary and Treaty obligations of the Canadian Government through enfranchisement. The concept of 'status' (Indian status vs. no Indian status), and thus the ability of the government to remove it, was instituted as a way to create both legal distinctions that would disadvantage Indigenous peoples, and determined federal expenditures.  To further encourage First Nations men to enfranchise, the government awarded enfranchised persons an individual possession of up to 50 acres of land from within their home reserve, as well as their per capita share in the principal of treaty annuities and other band payments.  The enfranchised person could not sell the land.  Upon the death of the enfranchised person, however, the land would pass to his children, who could sell the land if they wished.  Although, if the land passed on to the widow of an enfranchised man, said land would revert to Crown ownership upon her death - she could not sell it, nor would the band receive it.  This ensured a gradual erosion of the reserve’s land base through legal loop holes without the formal and sometimes challenging process of a formal and consensual land surrender, as was stipulated in early treaty-making by the Crown. 

The aggressive darwinian and colonial ideology that informed the Gradual Civilization Act had several further negative implications.  By implicitly stating that Indigenous peoples were not “civilized” and were not "intelligent" as dictated by White Europeans and Colonists until they acquired a certain level of education, the Crown was abandoning the promise to respect Indigenous peoples as  nations, with their own education systems and worldviews, which had been affirmed in the Royal Proclamation of 1763.  This nation-to-nation relationship would not be acknowledged again until the 1980s.  Moreover, the government’s refusal to rescind this policy until the 1980s effectively soured Indigenous-government relations by engendering mutual suspicion. Attempting to replace Indigenous self-determination and invalidating Indigenous kinship structures also had deleterious effects on relationships between band councils and members.  This initiated a state-sanctioned form of violence on Indigenous sovereignty that would serve as the precursor to the Indian Act in 1876.

The colonial civilizing mission, as demonstrated in the Gradual Civilzation Act, stems from ideologies of white supremacy, social darwinism, and arm-chair anthropology. Colonists viewed Indigenous peoples to be "near extinction," and could not survive without the intervention and control of Settler Colonists and their ideological systems. Other stereotypes that were weaponized against of Indigenous peoples included: "lazy," "unsanitary," "promiscuous," etc. These stereotypes in large effect permeate Canadian socio-political culture and have informed North American's perceptions of Indigenous peoples for centuries. For many First Nations, the act of enfranchisement was connected with a state-sanctioned loss of culture, ancestral land-bases, language, and Indigenous worldviews and protocols, resulting in the deterioration of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.  


 

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Date
1857

Changes to Distribution of Rations

Summary

Changes to distribution of rations at Crooked Lake reserve caused problems. Instead of rations being sent in bulk to the chief for distribution among the band, rations were sent to the farm instructor to be equally distributed among band members. Indian Affairs complained that an unfair proportion of the rations were being given to the young, who were better able to provide for themselves. In comparison, an insufficient amount was being distributed to the elderly members of the band, who were not able to engage in food production practices. This change in the system of distributing rations caused violence on the reserve. The NWMP were sent in to deal with the situation, arresting several band members who were then taken into custody in Regina.

Sub Event
Crooked Lake Band Members Resist Changes
Date
1884-00-00

Governor General presents Mistawasis and Ahtakhakoop with Silver Medals

Summary

The Governor General presented Mistawasis and Ahtakhakoop with silver medals for excellence in farming and good behaviour.

Implications
Example of the federal government encouraging conformity, submission and assimilation to western practices through material privileges.
Date
1881-00-00

Two Yoke of Oxen Purchased for Kakniostohan and Chakachas Bands

Summary

Two yoke of oxen were purhcased for Kakniostohan and Chakachas, but they were not given to these bands, because they did not show any interest in settling on a reserve. One of these yokes was instead given to Pasquah, and the other was to be given to Gordon's

Sub Event
Distributed Instead to Pasqua and Gordon's
Date
1879-00-00

Opening of Work Farm at Battleford

Summary

In 1879, a work farm was created eight miles from Battleford, where a hired man supervised Indigenous farm labor that was done in exchange for rations. The goal was to entice local Indigenous people to continuously perform work in order to be educated. Although the output of the farm was not equal to the output of rations given to those working on it, it was still considered a successful venture because there was less congregation of Indigenous people seeking rations around Battleford than there would have been had they been given freely.

Implications
"Work for Rations" programming while encouraging work and development, also undermined treaty rights that stipulated rations and aid would be provided to Indigenous peoples regardless. By inputting policies like this, the Government allowed themselves the ability to deny rations and aid to Indigenous peoples who wouldn't partake in the programming, thus cheapening the government's costs and weakening Indigenous populations. In certain cases, Indigenous peoples partaking in "Work for Rations" were still denied aid even after they had laboured. This system was highly unfair.
Date
1879-00-00

Internal Division within Yellow Quill band

Summary

A conflict erupted among the Yellow Quill band at Portage La Prairie, resulting from an internal division within the band among those that followed Chief Yellow Quill, those that followed Short Bear (aka Young Chief), and those who wanted to create an independent band with a chief of their own choice. Alexander Morris was sent to mediate this dispute, and to provide bureaucratic consent for the division of the band. He was also present to listen to their concerns about the reserve land offered to them under Treaties 1 and 2.

Implications
Morris' settlement of the dispute would result in the creation of the Long Plain First Nation, with their own Chief and Council. The settlement was seen favourably by Short Bear who advocated for the creation of a new reserve.
Sources

For extensive information on this settlement, please see http://lplands.ca/Home/About

Date
1876-00-00
Community