Indigenous peoples of Canada

2014 STUDY CANADA Summer Institute

Nicolas HoudeDépartement de science politique, UQAM

June 2014

Some considerations• Canada’s colonial legacy

• Critical thinking

• Sources

• Terminology

• Indigenous knowledge systems; “western” academia

Teaching about Indigenous peoples

Layers of understanding• Canada’s history is a colonial history

• Legacy of colonisation

• The meaning of colonisation: not just inhabiting “new” lands

• ex.: maps

Ancestral landvs reserve

Overlaps

Layers of understanding• Be aware of these hidden layers when teaching

• Tell different stories (homeland vs wilderness)

• Question mainstream narrative

• Question concepts (indian, nature, public land, etc.)

• Review the relationship

Reviewing the relationship• More than 400 landclaims

• Acts of resistance in the media

Aljazeera.com

• Getting out of the canadian political margin… while nurturing distinct identities and cultures

Aljazeera.com

Reviewing the relationship

Today’s presentation• What brought us to the current situation?

Loss of access to land and resources

Marginalisation of ways of knowing and seeing the world, of ways of learning and doing

• Contemporaries strategies for strenghtening Indigenous rights, political cultures, views of history and land base

Note on terminology First Nation, Indigenous, Aboriginal,

Indian, Métis, Inuit…

Band, nation, tribe

Reserve, ancestral land, land claimed

Aboriginal

ab origine: from origin, source

Australia and English Canada?

United Nations

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories…

consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing in those territories…They form at present non-dominant sectors of society…

are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system

(Martinez Cobo, 1987)

Who’s Indigenous? Who decides?

an Indigenous person self-identifies as belonging to an Indigenous group and is being accepted by this group

Not only a biological concept

Self-identification in the census

Who’s Indigenous? Who decides?

In Canada

contemporary identity linked in part to:

Indigenous

In Canada

contemporary identity linked in part to:

Discriminatory policies

Attempts at forced assimilation

Forced settlement and life on reserves,

Urban identities

Indigenous

In Canada Self-identification not enough

The state gives a legal definition

Three recognised groups First Nations members (Indians) Métis Inuit

First Nations Early 1980s

Here first

Nation-to-nation

Declaration of Dene Nationhood (1975)

"We the Dene of the Northwest Territories insist on the right to be regarded by ourselves and the world as a nation. Our struggle is for the recognition of the Dene Nation by the Government and peoples of Canada and the peoples and governments of the world"

Indian Identity constructed around the norms imposed

by the Indian Act

Status Indians: Part of AANDC’s Register Clearly recognised as Indigenous by CDN gov.

Non-status: “Forgotten” when register first appeared Have been ”emancipated”, voluntarily or forcibly Exogamous marriages (for women and their children,

before 1985)

Which word to use?

Which word to use? Anishnabe, Nehirowisiw, Innu, etc.

Métis Refers historically to the descendants

of the métis of the Red River. Current definition larger (see Powley)

Cultural dimension: Ancestors both Europeans and Indigenous, with a distinct culture

read: Prison of Grass; Howard Adams

Gained constitutional recognition as a group in 1982

Peter LougheedLouis Riel

Métis

Inuit

Recognised as “Aboriginals” in 1939

Supreme Court then forces federal government to provide services to Inuit

Band Anthropological concept

Becomes political unit through the 1876 Indian Act

Group of people under the same local government

Historic nations vs bands

GroupsTribe, bands, nations

GroupsTribe, bands, nations

Tribe: anthropological concept transferred into the canadian legal world; group sharing the same ancestors, language

Indigenous identities in Canada: several dimensions: social, cultural, biological, legal

Today’s presentation• What brought us to the current situation?

Loss of access to land and resources

Marginalisation of ways of knowing and seeing the world, of ways of learning and doing

• Contemporaries strategies for strenghtening Indigenous rights, political cultures, views of history and land base

Three phases in Indigenous/non-

Indigenous relations• Contact – 1815: Alliances

• 1815 – 1969: Marginalisation/assimilation

• since 1969: New relation?

A European point of view

• Ideal civilisation

• Land title > individual prop

• Horizontal vs vertical political organisations: looking for a chief (preferably male)

• Rational use of the land (agriculture vs nomad.)

DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY

Alliances

• Trade: Knowledge of the land Trade networks Trapping + hunting

• Military

Alliances• Indigenous peoples were allies protected by

the Crown; not subjects of her Majesty

• Living outside European laws

• Crown incapable of imposing unilateraly its will on local peoples

Royal Proclamationof 1763

• Crown has to extinguish Aboriginal title before proceeding with settlement of new lands

“Consensual” process

With the Crown (Discovery right)

Source: Canadiana.org

Royal Proclamation of 1763

Historical treaties• Land cessions

• Starts in Ontario

Land for settlers

Access to natural resources

Population, Great lakes area

Early 19th: 500 000

1850: 920 000

Early 20th: 2 180 000

Historical treaties

Historical treaties

Three phases in Indigenous/non-

Indigenous relations• Contact – 1815: Alliances

• 1815 – 1969: Marginalisation/assimilation

• since 1969: New relation?

Marginalisation/assimilation

• 1815: End of the war of 1812

• Land cessions

• Creation of reserves

• Indian Act (1876)

• Settlement and education

A colonial state

• Political and legal system promoting and justifying the occupation and the exploitation of the land in the interest of the Euro-canadian society

• System aiming at the political, social, and cultural assimilation of local populations

Three strategies

• Treaties

• Indian Act

• Education Source: CNA

Three strategiesTreaties and reserves

• Dispossession

• Forced settlements / discontinuity of old economic systems

• Economic exploitation to the benefit of a minority

• Legalisation of dispossession

Three strategiesIndian Act

• Creation of a hierarchy of identities

• Creation of a political hierarchy; exclusion of women from political life

• Divide to conquer

Three strategiesEducation

• Education / residential schools

• Naturalises colonial system• Ancient practices vanish

• Erosion of pre-colonial identities

• Teach kids to become good British (or Canadian) citizens

Reserves

• Small enclaves where it becomes impossible to pursue traditional ways of living

Isolate

Educate

Assimilate

Free up the land for development

Indian Act

• Formerly allies of the Crown, Indigenous people become pupils of the State

• Creation of band councils

• Federal agents supervise every aspects of peoples’ lives (Dis)approbation of elections, bylawsControls mobility of peopleEmancipation clauses

An end to the “Indian problem”

• “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone… Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian

question, and no Indian Department,that is the whole object of this Bill”

- Duncan Campbell Scottdeputy superintendent,

Department of Indian affairs, 1913-1932

• But…

• Situation after 2nd world war

• Colonial segregation seems to have played a role in preserving/creating Indigenous identities

• Local

• Global: Panindianism, panindigenism

• Indigenous nationalisms

An end to the “Indian problem”

• Second world war as a pivotal moment for Indigenous rights and political activism

• 1951: Revisions to the Indian Act

• White paper on Indian policy (1969)

An end to the “Indian problem”

1969 White paper on Indian policy

« Nous devons aujourd'hui modifier le cours de l'histoire. Être Indien, ce doit vouloir dire être libre - libre de faire progresser les cultures indiennes dans un contexte d'égalité juridique, sociale et économique avec les autres Canadiens » - Jean Chrétien, 1969

Three phases in Indigenous/non-

Indigenous relations• Contact – 1815: Alliances

• 1815 – 1969: Marginalisation/assimilation

• since 1969: New relation?

What happens then?Contemporary political and legal strategies

• Fight against abolition of status and treaties

• Political, intellectuel, and legal strategies

Ancestral rights

Treaty rights

Human rights

Political activism• From 1951: Rise of large political coalitions

• 1968: National Indian Brotherhood (APN en 1982)

• Political pressures for the recognition of Indigenous rights

Legal activism

• 1969-1973: Calder

• Crees of Quebec

Franck Calder

• Alternative narratives

• An other history• Prison of Grass (H. Adams)• Pour une autohistoire amérindienne (G. Sioui)• The myth of the Savage (O. Dickason)

• Counter-cartographies; toponymy

Intellectual activism

Source: Sahtu monitoring project

Results• Claims Commission

Comprehensive claims Specific claims

• Constitution of 1982

• Negociation of new treaties

Unfinished business• Diverging meanings of treaties

• Public interest vs Indigenous rights; deep questioning of current structures and processes

• Media/academic/bureaucratic bias

• Agenda setting and language

• Traditional knowledges and the difficulty to question « truths »

• Internet: platform for an alternative voice? Photo: NH

Imagining Indigenous autonomies

Thank youNicolas Houde

Département de science politique, UQAM

houde.nicolas@uqam.ca

Twitter.com/nicopiedstounus

http://politique.uqam.ca/corps-professoral/professeurs/

774-houde-nicolas.html