Colonialism, Government Policy, and the Erosion of Indigenous Governance
Colonialism, Government Policy, and the Erosion of Indigenous Governance
Native Studies 10 | Unit 3 Handout 13
Native Studies 10 | Unit 3 Handout 13
Learning Goal: I can analyze how Canadian government policies worked to remove Indigenous peoples from their land, suppress their governments, undermine their cultures, and erase their identities.
Beginning in the 17th century and intensifying through the 19th and 20th centuries, the Canadian government implemented policies designed to replace Indigenous ways of life with European ones. These policies worked together to remove Indigenous peoples from their land, suppress their governments, undermine their cultures, and erase their identities.
The Indian Act gave the federal government sweeping control over the lives of First Nations people. It defined who was legally 'Indian,' controlled band membership, regulated reserve land, required government permission to sell crops or livestock, banned traditional ceremonies including the potlatch and sun dance, prohibited political organizing, and stripped women of their status when they married non-Indigenous men.
The government created the Indian Act without consulting Indigenous peoples. It imposed external definitions and external control on communities that had governed themselves for generations.
Treaties negotiated between the Crown and First Nations in the 19th century were supposed to allow Indigenous peoples to keep portions of their traditional territories while sharing the land with settlers. In practice, reserve lands were often the least productive areas. When reserve land turned out to be valuable, governments found ways to take it. Between 1896 and 1921 alone, millions of acres of reserve land were surrendered under pressure or taken without consent.
Traditional governments were replaced by band councils operating under rules set by the Indian Act. Ceremonies that had maintained community cohesion, spiritual life, and governance for generations were banned. The residential school system removed children from the communities that would have transmitted cultural knowledge to the next generation.
The goal of Canadian Indian policy was described plainly by its authors: to 'kill the Indian in the child.' This phrase captures the intent of the entire policy framework, the erasure of Indigenous identity and its replacement with European Canadian identity.
The Indian Act discriminated against women in specific ways. A First Nations woman who married a non-Indigenous man lost her status and her band membership. She could not return to her reserve, could not inherit her parents' property, and could not be buried on reserve land. Her children lost status as well. Male band members faced no equivalent penalties. Parliament did not change this policy until Bill C-31 in 1985, and the effects of that discrimination persist in some communities today.
Milloy, J. S. (1999). A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System. University of Manitoba Press.
Venne, S. H. (1997). Understanding Treaty 6: An Indigenous Perspective. In M. Asch (Ed.), Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada (pp. 173-207). UBC Press.
Carter, S. (1990). Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy. McGill-Queen's University Press.
Lawrence, B. (2004). 'Real' Indians and Others: Mixed-Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood. UBC Press.
Palmater, P. (2011). Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity. Purich Publishing.