1. Aboriginals in Canada in 20th century
Social Studies 11
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Background
Before contact with Europeans, 53 languages
Indian Act 1876 – racial superiority & ethnocentrism
Goal: assimilation
Ms Ball - Social Studies 11

3. Assimilation – Indian Act 1876
Indian Act was social legislation (= law): regulated & controlled every aspect of Aboriginal Life
Indians could get full Canadian citizenship by relinquishing ties to their community (one or the other, not both)
If you became a doctor, a lawyer, a minister or earned a degree you lost your status. (These things weren’t “Indian”)
The theory was that none of these things were “Indian” and that people had to make a decision between a prosperous European way of life and their own culture and identity.
Ms Ball - Social Studies 11

4. Assimilation – a 3-pronged attack
Reservations
Enforced farming
Residential schools
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5. Ms Ball - Social Studies 11
Reservations %
1872 Lands Act destroyed Aboriginal land ownership making any of their land available to any European who took it.
Aboriginals & other farmers did not co-exist.
Reserve lands poor for agriculture
Reserve lands were constantly adjusted (made smaller) to allow for settler expansion and land resource extraction.
Compare to Bantustans in South Africa & reserves in USA
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Enforced farming
Give up traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle
Didn’t always “translate”
Haida Gwaii
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Residential Schools
Goal: assimilate the youth. Why youth?
Reality: appalling health conditions; numerous sexual assaults; beatings for use of aboriginal languages
stripped aboriginal children of their heritage and history.
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Before & After
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Residential Schools
Phased out in 1960s. Last one closed in 1986 (!)
1992 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples blamed residential schools for high rates of substance abuse, suicide and family problems among Aboriginal peoples.
Ms Ball - Social Studies 11

11. Late 19th, early 20th centuries + timeline
1884
1912
1927
1949
1951
1955
1960
1969
…today?
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Progress (?)
1960: right to vote (if you lived on a reserve)
Cycle of poverty
Statistics /HDI
1969 White Paper
Goal: complete assimilation
Assembly of First Nations
Women & status
In 1969 the government created the White Paper which promoted complete assimilation and the removal of special privileges. The paper was going to remove the term “Indian” and its status. Under extreme pressure the government cancelled the project.
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13. Ms Ball - Social Studies 11
Meech Lake “discord”
Elijah Harper, Manitoba MP
"Aboriginal people are not against the right of Quebec as a distinct society within Canada. […] Of course they are a distinct society. So are the aboriginal people."
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Oka confrontation 1990
Golf course: Kanesatake
Road blockade
Q police; gunfire
Sympathy blockades
Fed gov’t buys land & gives it to Kanesatake
Outcome: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
golf course expansion into Native lands (Kanesatake)
Natives blockade the road (sound familiar???2006)
Q Prov Police come in
Gunfire, officer killed; other nightly violent confrontations; other Natives throughout Canada blockade roads through their reserves as a form of protest
Result: Fed gov’t purchases the land and gives it to Kanesatake
Significance: Aboriginals prepared to fight for rights
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Self-Government
Lobby for legal recognition
Transfer of some powers from federal gov’t to Native self-gov’t: resources, education, culture, and justice; social and health concerns
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Self-Government
1986 Sechelt First Nation (BC) first band in Canada to achieve a form of self-government.
powers similar to those of a municipality.
1999 April Nunavut created
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17. Ms Ball - Social Studies 11
Land Claims
Specific claims: areas where treaties between Aboriginal peoples and the federal government have been signed, but their terms have not been kept.
Example: The agreed-upon size of a reserve may have decreased as land was taken away for the building of a highway or other development.
Comprehensive claims: These question the ownership of land in large parts of Canada that were never surrendered by treaty.
Need proof of continuous occupation
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18. Ms Ball - Social Studies 11
Nisga’a
1887 Nisga’a asserted rights to lands
1912 they make a land claim
1993 Supreme Court acknowledges
1996 – The Nisga’a Treaty: 8%; $190 million over 15 years; taxpayers
“Today we join Canada and British Columbia as free citizens, full and equal participants in the social, economic and political life of this country. That has been our dream for over a century.”
- Chief Joseph Arthur Gosnell, Sr.
Haida Symbol of Strength
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Delgamuukw Case
Delgamuluukw Case (Gitksan and Wetsuwetan neighbours of Nisga’a)
1998; proof of continuous occupation
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Moral and legal duty...
BC Treaty Commission
1997 Supreme Court of Canada: Aboriginal peoples have title to (ownership of) their land;
oral histories, on which they base these claims, are as valid as written European history.
The Court stated that governments have a “moral, if not legal duty” to negotiate land claims
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21. 1998 Statement of reconciliation
“…Reconciliation is an ongoing process. In renewing our partnership, we must ensure that the mistakes which marked our past relationship are not repeated. The Government of Canada recognizes that policies that sought to assimilate Aboriginal people, women and men, were not the way to build a strong country. We must instead continue to find ways in which Aboriginal people can participate fully in the economic, political, cultural and social life of Canada in a manner which preserves and enhances the collective identities of Aboriginal communities, and allows them to evolve and flourish in the future. Working together to achieve our shared goals will benefit all Canadians, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal alike.”
January 7, 1998
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Historical skills:
Historical significance? What is the legacy of these actions?
Historical perspective(s)?
Cause & consequence
Continuity & change? What has changed? What has stayed the same?
Ethical dimensions? What are the implications for today?
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24. Ms Ball - Social Studies 11
Questions
Explain the decision making process on Aboriginal issues over the last 200 years. In what ways has it changed, in what ways has it not?
How was the residential school system an example of “Schooling for Inequality.”
The Indian Act gave control of Aboriginal issues to the federal government. Whose interests was the federal government protecting? Why? How do we know?
The harsh treatment of Aboriginal peoples by European colonizers is not new here or anywhere in the world. In what ways do societies living within one another naturally collide? In what ways is Quebec another example?
Ms Ball - Social Studies 11