Accounting and the holocaustsof modernity

Dean Neu and Cameron GrahamHaskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Keywords Accounting policy, Accounting history, Accounting procedures

Abstract The current study explores the ambiguity of accounting technique in the context of ahistorical study of the Canadian Indian Department under the direction of Deputy SuperintendentD.C. Scott at the beginning of the 20th century. Starting from the work of Bauman and hiscommentators, we argue that modernity viewed as a set of practices and thought patterns,facilitates bureaucratic constructions of the “Indian problem” In turn, this cultural milieu andbureaucratic construction operated as an ideological circle, encouraging the use of accountingtechniques of governance that permitted both the distancing of bureaucrats from indigenouspeoples and the downplaying of other vantage points. However, as our analysis highlights,numerical re-presentations also provided the tools and rhetorical spaces for challenges togovernment policy.

The Nazi mass murder of the European Jewry was not only the technological achievement ofan industrial society, but also the organizational achievement of a bureaucratic society(Bauman, 1989).

The publication of Zygmunt Bauman’s Modernity and the Holocaust was a significantmoment in social science research. Bauman’s provocative arguments surrounding notonly the roles played by the institutions of modernity in facilitating the Holocaust butalso the “normality” and thus the potential reoccurrence of these events created afirestorm of critique and support. Bauman proposed that bureaucratic organizationalforms were consistent with modernity’s emphasis on instrumental rationality. In turn,the culture of bureaucracy along with its technologies such as accounting, medicineand law allowed Nazi administrators to both distance themselves from their victimsand to separate technical and moral judgments – “bureaucracy’s double feat is themoralization of technology, coupled with the denial of the moral significance ofnon-technical issues” ( p. 160). Thus, for Bauman, modernity and bureaucracy providethe conditions of possibility for the holocausts of modernity.

Not surprisingly, Bauman’s claims were subject to intense scrutiny. Criticsaccused Bauman of misrepresenting modernity (Pellicani, 1998), misreading Weber(du Gay, 1999) and downplaying the aspects of bureaucracy that mitigate theconditions of possibility (O’Kane, 1997). Defenders praised the originality of Bauman’sthesis (Zipes, 1991) and accused the critics of playing ideological games. Although thedebates over Bauman’s thesis continue (Delfini and Piccone, 1998; Pellicani, 1998), thedebates have brought into sharp relief the ambiguity associated with administrativetechniques.

The Emerald Research Register for this journal is available at The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-3574.htm

This manuscript has benefited from the comments of colleagues at the University of Alberta,University of Calgary, University of Wollongong and the Academy of Accounting HistoriansConference, as well as those of two anonymous reviewers. The authors thank Richard Therrienfor the vital research he provided. Funding provided by SSHRC is gratefully acknowledged.

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Accounting, Auditing &Accountability JournalVol. 17 No. 4, 2004pp. 578-603q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0951-3574DOI 10.1108/09513570410554560

These tensions regarding the role and functioning of administrative technique havealso been present within the accounting literature. On one hand, there has been therecognition that accounting techniques have been complicit in defending dominantinterests (Tinker, 1980; Tinker and Neimark, 1987) and that accounting has beensalient within processes of colonialism (Davie, 2000; Neu, 2000a) and genocide (Funnel,1998). This prior research has also noted how such administrative techniques maycrowd out moral considerations from decision-making processes (Chwastiak, 1999;Preston et al., 1997). At the same time, prior research has acknowledged that thesetechniques are not unidirectional (Arnold and Hammond, 1994). For example, Rosecomments that “in modern democratic discourse, numbers are . . . not univocal tools ofdomination but mobile and polyvocal resources” (Rose, 1991). For Rose and others,administrative techniques such as accounting are both part of a complex ofgovernmental technologies and a resource that can be used to hold government toaccount ( p. 691). Similarly, administrative techniques such as accounting are not onlydisciplinary but also enabling that they aid in the formation of the self (Miller andO’Leary, 1987, 1993; Townley, 1994).

The current study explores the ambiguity of accounting technique in the context ofa historical study of the Canadian Indian Department under the direction of DeputySuperintendent D.C. Scott (1862-1947) at the beginning of the 20th century. Startingfrom the work of Bauman (1989) and his commentators, we argue that modernity,viewed as a set of practices and thought patterns, facilitated bureaucratic constructionsof the “Indian problem”[1]. In turn, this cultural milieu and bureaucratic constructionoperated as an ideological circle (Smith, 1990), encouraging the use of techniques ofgovernance (Foucault, 1991) which allowed for both the distancing of bureaucrats fromindigenous people and the downplaying of other vantage points. However, as ouranalysis highlights, numerical re-presentations also provided the tools and rhetoricalspaces for challenges to government policy.

The current study extends an existing and important stream of accounting research(inter alia Annisette, 2000; Davie, 2000; Gallhofer and Chew, 2000; Gibson, 2000; Greerand Patel, 2000; Jacobs, 2000; Neu, 1999, 2000a, b) that not only seeks to locateaccounting within imperialism, but also examines the specific effects of accounting onindigenous people around the world. We reinforce this prior research in noting thesometimes terrible outcomes of accounting technologies. However, we also observethat accounting is not uniform or inevitable in its effects, but can create opportunitiesfor resisting the “juggernaut” of modernity. In this sense, the current study is indebtedto previous research on “enabling” accounting (Arnold and Cooper, 1999; Chew andGreer, 1997; Gallhofer and Haslam, 1997; Shaoul, 1997), which has insisted on a role foraccounting in diagnosing and perhaps even helping to remedy the problems to which ithas contributed.

For a study of the Indian Department, the period under Scott is particularlyimportant because of the lasting impact of the bureaucratic measures undertakenduring his tenure. Federal government initiatives such as residential schooling, thecentralization and rationalization of the Indian Department along with more microbureaucratic routines were formative, setting the context for subsequentgovernment-indigenous peoples’ relations (Titley, 1986, p. 22). However, in additionto having played a key role in initiating these structures of government, Scottepitomizes both the sensibilities and tensions of this era. As an accountant, Scott was

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predisposed to the use of accounting techniques. Under Scott, accounting techniquesbecame a favoured method of translating Indian Department policy into practice. ButScott was also a poet, essayist, prolific letter-writer and an esteemed member of theRoyal Society of Canada. He was a man who combined, in a complex and uneasyfashion, the bureaucratic and the a esthetic.

This study provides a “history of the present” (Dean, 1994). On one level, the studyillustrates how techniques of governance have been used to re-present indigenouspopulations and encourage action from a distance (Preston and Oakes, 2001), andreveals the consequences associated with these practices. In the Canadian context, suchan understanding is crucial, given the magnitude of government expenditures in thearea of native affairs, along with the apparently intractable problems ofself-government, outstanding land claims, taxation of First Nations people,ownership of natural resources, and so on (Mercredi and Turpel, 1993). On anotherlevel, the study illustrates the empirical data in relation to previous work ongovernmentality and the holocausts of modernity. In doing so, the study highlightsthe importance of examining these theoretical notions in specific empirical settings.For example, the study highlights the Janus-faced nature of accounting techniques,in that such techniques function as modes of control yet, at the same time, createthe tools and spaces for resistance. Thus, our subsequent analysis suggests thataccounting simultaneously facilitates and mitigates the potential holocausts ofmodernity.

The holocausts of modernityIn his book Modernity and the Holocaust, zygmunt Bauman proposes that theHolocaust can be viewed as “a unique encounter between factors by themselves quiteordinary and common.” The Holocaust was not the antitheses of modern civilizationbut rather an event “born and executed in our modern rational society” ( p. x).Everything that rendered the Holocaust possible was:

. . . normal – in the sense of being fully in keeping with everything we know about ourcivilization, its guiding spirit, its priorities, its immanent vision of the world – all of theproper ways to pursue human happiness together with a perfect society” ( p. 8).

For Bauman, the bureaucratic mode of rationality ( p. 15) and the growth of the “moderngardening state” ( p. 13) are two of the defining characteristics of modernity[2].Whereas, the modern gardening state emphasizes the civilizing processes and definesgovernance as being directed toward the management of society, in particular, the taskof design, cultivation and weed-control ( p. 13), the bureaucratic form of rationalityprovided both the attitudes and techniques necessary to accomplish this ( p. 15).Bauman comments that: “the light shed by the Holocaust on our knowledge ofbureaucratic rationality is at its most dazzling once we realize the extent to which thevery idea of the Endlosung [the ‘Final Solution’] was an outcome of the bureaucraticculture” ( p. 15, emphasis in original). “It was the rational world of modern civilizationthat made the Holocaust thinkable” ( p. 13). “The ‘Final Solution’ did not clash with therational pursuit of efficient, optimal goal-implementation. On the contrary, it arose outof genuinely rational concern, and it was generated by bureaucracy true to its form andpurpose.” The procedures were routinely bureaucratic: “means-ends calculus, budgetbalancing, universal rule application” ( p. 17).

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While the culture of bureaucracy prompts us to view the society as an object ofadministration (du Gay, 1999), it was bureaucratic technologies that both distanced thebureaucrats from their victims and buffered them from the consequences. Thus, theactions are not clearly immoral or unethical – morals or ethics simply do not logicallyor structurally enter the equation. Observes Bauman: “the increase in the physicaland/or psychic distance between the act and its consequences achieves more than asuspension of moral inhibition . . . [it renders] the victims themselves psychologicallyinvisible” ( p. 25).

If bureaucracy made such holocausts possible, what were the specific techniquesthat were salient? Bauman (1989), Funnel (1998) and Hilberg (1985) draw attention tothe professions and their knowledges, “law, medicine, education, engineering andaccounting”, focusing on the roles that they played in translating policy objectives intopractice. The medical profession’s involvement in euthanasia programs and medicalexperimentation and the legal profession’s roles in drafting and enforcing laws thatstripped Jews of their possessions and humanity are but two of the examples of theroles played by expert knowledge in these processes (Funnel, 1998).

Although law and medicine were two of the more visible knowledges, Funnelargues that accounting was also salient:

Accounting as an instrument of the new German civil bureaucracy provided at “centres ofcalculation” new quantitative visibilities (Miller, 1990, p. 318) that were able to supplant thequalitative dimensions of the Jews as individuals by commodifying and dehumanising them,and thereby, for all intents to make them invisible as people ( p. 439).

Accounting provided a mode of distantiation allowing bureaucrats to believe that theywere dealing with objects rather than individuals ( p. 452). It provided information onJewish population in distant locales, allowing policy-makers to “know” how manypieces of human cargo needed to be transported ( p. 454). And it provided informationon the “costs” of the resettlement programs and the associated “proceeds” ( p. 457).In these ways, accounting was the lifeblood of the Nazi bureaucracy. It provided thetechniques that were necessary to plan, operationalize and manage the Final Solution.

Funnel’s discussion of accounting borrows from and overlaps with prior work ontechnologies of government (Burchell et al., 1991; Foucault, 1991; Miller and Rose,1990). Miller and Rose propose that technologies of government help to facilitate actionat a distance:

We use the term “technologies” to suggest a particular approach to the analysis of the activityof ruling, one which pays great attention to the actual mechanisms through which authoritiesof various sorts have sought to shape, normalize and instrumentalize the conduct, thought,decisions and aspirations of others in order to achieve the objectives they consider desirable(1990, p. 8).

Technologies of government are directed toward populations and their thoughts,habits and customs (Foucault, 1991). Mechanisms such as accounting both re-presentproblems and frame solutions concerning such populations (Preston et al., 1997, p. 153).Like Funnel’s comment regarding the use of accounting to provide information aboutdistant populations, this perspective proposes that accounting enables knowledges ofdistant locales to be mobilized and brought home to centres of calculation (Miller andRose, 1990, p. 9). Similar to maps, accounting calculations construct a particular imageof distant sites, thereby, both problematizing certain issues and framing possible

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interventions (Neu, 1999). Furthermore, such interventions are both regulative anddistributive since behaviour is regulated and societal wealth re-distributed (Prestonet al., 1997, p. 150).

From this vantage point, accounting techniques are a set of practices, situatedwithin bureaucratic apparatuses, that permit the exercise of government. Through itsrepresentational abilities along with the manner in which it both distancesdecision-makers from the individuals/populations affected and downplays other vantagepoints, accounting facilitates governance. However, as a technology of government,these techniques are not static but rather a product of the social relations of the times.Stated differently, accounting techniques need be viewed as an instrumental responseto the problems of governance/bureaucracy within a specific institutional field at aspecific juncture in time. As Miller and Napier remind us:

We need to give a history to disparate and variable devices, without submerging ormarginalizing them in an unbroken teleological narrative that begins with the “invention” ofdouble-entry bookkeeping and ends a particular locale in the Anglo-Saxon present ( Millerand Napier, 1993, p. 633).

As we demonstrate in the case that follows, the accounting solutions implemented byScott reflected the zeitgeist of colonial Canada at the beginning of the 20th century, theinstitutional field of First Nations-government relations and Scott’s unique approach tothe problems of governance.

Bauman’s account of the Holocaust along with the subsequent work by Funnel tiestogether the notions of modernity, bureaucracy and specific techniques such asaccounting, proposing that bureaucracy and modernity were the necessary conditionsfor both the Holocaust ( p. 13) and future Holocausts ( p. 12). Not surprisingly, this workhas generated controversy. Although a detailed review of the criticisms and responsesare beyond the scope of this study, three issues are relevant to the current study. First,what is modernity and what are its characteristics? Second, what was the role ofbureaucracy in these processes? Finally, what differentiates the Holocaust fromprevious genocides?

In his critique of Bauman, Pellicani challenges Bauman’s definition of modernity,arguing that the defining characteristics of modernity are “civilizations based on rightsand freedoms” rather than the characteristics of a “technological-industrial apparatusand instrumental rationality” ( Pellicani, 1998). Thus, for Pellicani the Holocaust is bestviewed as a reaction against modernity. While Pellicani’s argument has been criticizedas being an “ideological fabrication” (Delfini and Piccone, 1998), other commentatorshave taken a middle position. For example, Freeman, while not disagreeing withBauman’s characterization of modernity, suggests that the institutions of modernityalso exert a humanizing influence ( Freeman, 1995, p. 210).

This ambivalence regarding the institutions of modernity is also present in thediscussions regarding the role of bureaucracy. Once again Pellicani puts the argumentmost forcefully when he distinguishes between strong-form and weak-form argumentsregarding the role of bureaucracy – i.e. was genocide a product of bureaucracy (thestrong-form) or was bureaucracy simply indispensable (the weak-form) (Pellicani,1998, p. 4)? While we do not find this distinction particularly useful, the suggestionsthat bureaucratic practices are ambivalent (du Gay, 1999) and that counter-balancingforces usually exist within the institutions of modernity are provocative (O’Kane, 1997).For example, du Gay states that we need to examine the working of bureaucratic

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mechanisms, in particular, historical-political contexts to understand the role andfunctioning of such mechanisms ( p. 581). And O’Kane proposes that, in non-wartimeperiods, the other institutions of civil society will mitigate against the potentialexcesses of bureaucratic practices (Joas, 1998). In the case study that follows, we returnto these themes.

In explaining what differentiates the Holocaust from prior genocides, Baumanemphasizes the social engineering aspects. In his discussion of Bauman, Zipescomments that “there were numerous instances of mass slaughter, pogroms, andgenocide in the past but they were not calculating planned and carried through in thename of progress or a better society” (Zipes, 1991, p. 173). Likewise, Rubenstein (1978,pp. 6-7) says that the Holocaust “was the first attempt by a modern, legally constitutedgovernment to pursue a policy of bureaucratically organized genocide both within andbeyond its frontiers.” Freeman, however, disagrees with this conclusion suggestingthat previous genocides were also goal-directed and that genocidal social engineeringhas a long history (Freeman, 1995, p. 222). However, Freeman concurs with thesuggestion that modern-day technologies make such genocides more “efficient” anddestructive. Furthermore, it is the distancing aspects of current-day techniques thatmake genocide possible. Previous practitioners of genocide:

. . . celebrated their killings. Modern culture, in the face of genocide, is weak, vacillating,collaborationist, shocked, guilty and ineffectually humanitarian ( p. 222).

Freeman’s comment on modern culture’s reaction to genocide forms an interestingcontrast with modern bureaucracy’s power to effect the genocide.

These critiques and responses are important to the current study. On one level, theyprovide a degree of conceptual precision regarding Bauman’s arguments, highlightingthe potential connections among “modernity”, bureaucratic practices and genocidaloutcomes. At the same time, the critiques and responses make visible the ambivalenceof the practices and discourses of this epoch. This ambivalence is present in thediscussions of bureaucratic practices as both enabling and mitigating the potential forgenocidal actions. It is also present in the tensions between the notions of a “gardeningstate” and discourses of humanism. For example, Freeman’s comments hint at how theterm genocide and holocaust are a contested terrain, precisely because such activitiesare contrary to our humanist ethos. Bauman himself recognized that such terms have“political value” resulting in debate over what “counts” as genocide (Andreopoulos,1994; Chalk, 1994; Charny, 1994). However, his response was to focus on the processesrather than the politics of definitions ( p. xiii). Finally, this prior work emphasizes theimportance of understanding the functioning of techniques such as accounting within aspecific empirical setting. As the subsequent case analysis illustrates, the role ofaccounting in mediating federal government-indigenous peoples relations in Canada atthe beginning of the 20th century exhibited similarities to, but also importantdifferences from, the Holocaust.

The preceding discussion has emphasized the roles played by administrativestructures and techniques such as accounting in creating the conditions of possibilityfor the holocausts of modernity. However, it is also important to consider the roleplayed by individual agency within these structures. On the one hand, the role ofagency must not be overstated: “a destructive process is not the work of a few madminds. It is far too complex in its organizational build-up and far too pervasive in its

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administrative implementation” (Hilberg, 1985). Yet on the other hand, key individualsdo exercise agency within such administrative structures. These individuals design theadministrative programs and technologies that other civil servants implement (Funnel,1998, p. 457). These individuals create the systems that subsequently enlist thoseothers, “in a vast bureaucratic organization, who kill from behind a desk withoutwielding weapons more lethal than a typewriter” (Milchman and Rosenberg, 1992,p. 215). These individuals are the “essential individuals” within these processes – yetwho are they? “One should not assume that a man who may have been an essentialindividual in the destructive operations is instantaneously recognizable” (Friedlanderand Milton, 1980, p. 99). Our analysis identifies Scott, a poet sitting behind the desk ofan accountant, as one of the architects of governmental policies.

D.C. Scott and the Canadian Indian DepartmentMethod and sourcesThe analysis that follows is based upon our reading and interpretation of the followingarchival documents, relevant legislation, annual reports of the Department of IndianAffairs along with secondary sources. In terms of archival documents, the NationalArchive of Canada contains a series of microfilms (RG10 Series, Volumes 1130-1133 &6812, Reels 8535, 9007-9009) pertaining to the operation of the Canadian IndianDepartment during Scott’s tenure (Gillis et al., 1975, Public Archives of Canada, 1977).These microfilms contain the private and general letter books of Scott along withspeeches and papers that he presented. The annotated Indian Act (Venne, 1981)provided a summary of the changes to the Indian Act over this time period whereas theAnnual Reports for this department between 1880 and 1940 provided a record of theDepartment’s construction of important events and activities. This primary archivalmaterial was supplemented with secondary histories on the operation of the IndianDepartment during this time period (Getty et al., 1983; Miller, 1996; Milloy, 1999; Titley,1986;) as well as works pertaining to Scott the poet laureate (Scott and Bourinot, 1960;Scott et al., 1983).

The accountant and the poet – an overviewDuncan Campbell Scott began his career in the Department of Indian Affairs at the ageof 17 as a copy clerk. This was in 1879, and over the next 34 years he worked his wayup to the highest civil service post in the department. He held, at various times, theposts of Clerk in charge of the Accountants’ Branch, Chief Clerk and Accountant,negotiator of Treaty 9, Superintendent of Indian Education, and finally DeputySuperintendent of Indian Affairs. In this last position, held by Scott until 1932, hisimmediate superior was the Superintendent General, a cabinet post.

The career of Scott at the Indian Department lasted 53 years, a duration sufficient toturn him into a prototypical civil servant. While this alone would account for much ofthe tenor of his policies and programs, throughout his career Scott was intimatelyinvolved with the department’s accounting systems and mechanisms. We suggest thatScott’s command of these accounting systems was inseparable from his bureaucraticmethods. The accounting technologies he deployed were the basic tools of his office.And while we do not mean to suggest that Scott operated with any sort of direct controlthat would negate either the agency of other members of the department, or contradictwhat we know about the indirect forms of power and control in bureaucracies

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(Perrow, 1986; Weber and Andreski, 1983, Weber and Swedberg, 1999) we nonethelessassert that accounting technologies were both salient and very effective for Scott.

At the time of Scott’s initial appointment, for example, the Department wasoperating according to the dictates of the Indian Act of 1876, which had placedaboriginal people in a distinct legal category as wards of the government. Both reservelands and the proceeds of any land sales were held in trust for aboriginal people by thegovernment, making accounting central to the execution of Indian Department policiesright from the beginning of Scott’s career. These policies were directed towards theultimate goal of assimilation. For instance, the Indian Act (Sections 89-94) provided forthe extension of the franchise to aboriginal people, but only on the condition that theyrelinquished their Indian status. The Act, thus, stripped enfranchised Indians of onelegal status, but failed to create the conditions under which they could flourish in theirnew one. Instead, it only subjected them to the yoke of a bureaucracy and theincreasing powers of the Superintendent General (Scott et al., 1983; Titley, 1986, p. 13).

While Scott spent his entire working life within this bureaucracy, for manymembers of Ottawa’s elite he was not known as a bureaucrat. Rather, he wasconsidered a musician, an esteemed member of the Royal Society of Canada, and ahighly regarded poet known especially for his sympathetic literary treatment ofaborigines. This perception continues in the Canadian literary world, where one fairlyrecent work referred to Scott as “poet and short-story writer, sometime bureaucrat. . .”(Scott et al., 1983, p. 1, emphasis added). References to Scott’s government work tend toassume that he was as sympathetic to First Nations in his bureaucratic role as he isinterpreted ( by some) to be in his poetry ( Brown, 1944; Salem-Wiseman, 1996).However, recent literary research suggests that Scott’s poetry contains references thatclearly contradict what would have been common bureaucratic knowledge in theIndian Department ( Monture, 2001), suggesting that the link between Scott’s poeticand bureaucratic lives is not straightforward.

Passion, order and accounting controlsIn the poetry of Scott, passion and order compete with each other, not as complementsbut as mutual antitheses. Passion is associated with the savage and the wild, orderwith culture and reason. The European world is considered civilized. In contrast, theaboriginal world is not only savage, but sensual and even hateful and murderous:

Making great medicineIn memory of hated things deadOr in menace of hated things to come– “Powassan’s Drum” (Scott, 1926, p. 59)

She stands full-throated and with careless pose,This woman of a weird and waning race– “The Onondaga Madonna” (Scott, 1926, p. 230)

When the tired sentry stooped above the rill,Her long knife flashed, and hissed, and drank its fill– “Watkwenies” (Scott, 1926, p. 230)

These examples, it might be argued, raise interesting personal questions about Scott,but for the current study the importance lies in the link between these attitudestowards the aboriginal world and Scott’s role as an Indian Department bureaucrat.

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Scott viewed nature as subordinate to humanity, something to be subdued bycivilization. He also saw the aborigine as part of this natural world, and therefore, assomething to be subdued and absorbed into civilization, to be governed and restrainedby the policies and programs of his office. In fact, control and restraint dominatedScott’s policies and bureaucratic initiatives, marking his dealings with departmentalsubordinates no less than his intentions towards the First Nations.

Over the course of his tenure in the Indian Department, there was both aretrenchment of authority away from the dispersed field offices to the IndianDepartment bureaucracy in Ottawa and an increasing pattern of control via spendingrestraints. For example, around the time that Scott was promoted to Chief Accountant,the decision was made to institute a program of spending restraint as a way of curbingthe unexpected expenditures that resulted from the signing of the western treatiesand the simultaneous devastation of the buffalo on the prairies. In contrast to laterinitiatives introduced by Scott, this first spending restraint program concentrated onnon-targeted across-the-board spending reductions. Salaries of agents, clerks andfarming instructors were unilaterally decreased by approximately 30 per cent (Titley,1986, p. 17).

One of the consequences of these administrative changes was the centralization ofauthority in Ottawa which, in turn, increased the influence of Scott. Titley commentsthat, although Scott did not have much experience dealing directly with indigenouspeoples, he shared his superior’s concern that expenses be minimized ( p. 17). Thus, thenotion of restraint became an underlying departmental philosophy over the next 40years with the continual upward ratcheting of the modes of restraint. This philosophyis nicely captured in the 1908 Annual Report of the Department of Indian Affairs:

When the Indians of Manitoba and the west came into treaty relations with the governmentthe task which confronted the government was that of converting helpless and ignorantsavages into civilized and industrious members of the commonwealth. The policy adoptedwas that of affording just sufficient help necessary to enable the Indians to help themselves.In the earlier years the cost of doing this was necessarily very considerable, and as recently astwenty years ago the destitute vote for the year aggregated some $372,000. Ten years ago, i.e.by the year 1897-8 this had been reduced to $182,700 or to something but little short ofone-half. For the past year, viz., 1907-8, a further reduction of the vote to $143,000 had beeneffected notwithstanding the inclusion of the requirements of some 10,000 Indians in theiraboriginal condition, recently brought under the government’s direct care by the formation ofTreaty No. 8 (Department of Indian Affairs, 1880-1940, p. xx).

In his subsequent reflections on these policies, Scott comments that these policies werea method of encouraging self-dependence, a way of weaning indigenous peoples offgovernment assistance (Scott, 1914, p. 601). He saw these policies as a type ofbenevolence in that the Indian Department did what was best for indigenous peoplesrather than simply following the strict dictates of the treaties:

As may be surmised from the record of past Indian administration, the government wasalways anxious to fulfill the obligations which were laid upon it by these treaties . . . It hasdischarged them in a spirit of generosity, rather with reference to the policy of advancementwhich was long ago inaugurated in Upper Canada than in a niggardly spirit as if the treatystipulations were to be weighed with exactitude (Scott, 1914, p. 600).

As in Scott’s poetry (Dragland, 1974), restraint was viewed as a positive quality thatgovernment policy should seek to inculcate within indigenous peoples. And in keeping

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with Foucault’s comments regarding governmentality, the ultimate aim of suchpolicies was to not only change the behaviours and customs of individuals but also tochange them so that external government was unnecessary – in short, to make themself-disciplining (1991).

When Scott became Deputy Superintendent in 1913, the notion of spending restraintonce again became a priority. However, this time, restraint plus accountability becamethe watchword for departmental operations:

This growing and cumbersome bureaucracy was making increasing demands on the publicpurse, a tendency Scott had attempted to discourage while serving as the department’saccountant. Now that he was in charge, financial restraint became all the more evident.Shortly after his promotion to deputy superintendent, Scott made clear a renewed emphasison accountability and spending restraint. On 25 October 1913, he sent a circular to all agentsfor the purpose of assisting them in the “efficient management” of their agencies (Titley, 1986,p. 38).

Under this new regime of accountability, agents were required to maintain scrupulousaccounts and to provide justification for the expenditure of Departmental funds.

Throughout Scott’s time in the Department of Indian Affairs, the dichotomybetween passion and order was a subtext of departmental operations. As in Scott’spoetry, aborigines were constructed as part of the untamed nature. Departmentalinitiatives were understood as necessary to allow aborigines to realize their potential.Reminiscent of the 1830s ( Neu, 2000a), Scott instructed his Indian Agents to encourage“habits of industry and thrift” as a way of curbing their nomadic passions (Titley,1986, p. 38). But in keeping with his emphasis on economy and accountability, Agentswere requested to encourage such habits but to minimize the expense to theDepartment (by spending band funds if at all possible) and to “keep accurate accountsand to justify every penny” ( p. 38).

Scott’s discussion of an “ideal land surrender” gives voice to his views regardinghow bureaucratic mechanisms could curb passion and introduce order to aborigines:

The surrender of a portion of the Blackfoot reserve in Alberta may be analysed as a case inpoint to show how Indians may be advised to make a prudent use of their estate. On June 18,1910, 115,000 acres of the Blackfoot reserve were surrendered. The total amount of the salewas not to be less than $1,600,000. This amount was to be divided into three funds. The sumof $50,000 was to be set aside for the purpose of purchasing [agricultural implements] topermit them to begin farming. The amount expended for each Indian is to be paid back andcredited to the fund within six years, from the proceeds of the sale of his harvest. The sum of$350,000 was to be expended within five years in the interests of the reserve in general. Onehundred and sixty cottages were to be erected and furniture was to be supplied; one hundredstables and two buildings in which to house machinery were also to be built. Two completeagricultural motors, gang ploughs, grain separators and farm machinery were to bepurchased. This fund was to be used to pay the cost of boring wells and also to defray theexpenses of seed grain and grass seed, and general repairs to roads, culverts and fences.The residue from the sale of the land was to be capitalized. The interest accruing from thiscapital, together with the interest on any deferred payments on surrendered land, was to beused to defray the expenses of operating the agricultural motors’ to meet such generalexpenses as should be in the interest of the band, and to pay the cost of blankets and food forthe aged and inform as well as a regular weekly ration to all members of the band. In thissurrender, as will be observed, no cash is to be distributed to the Indians, and the wholeexpenditure is defined and controlled. (Scott, 1914, p. 605, emphasis added)

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This passage is important because it documents how Scott, the accountant, thoughtabout the problems of government associated with the Indian Department. As thepassage highlights, the proper structuring of financial transactions would encouragechanged habits and patterns of behaviour. Through the attention to financial details –i.e. how many funds to set up, what the monies would be used for, what monies wouldbe treated as capital and what as interest, and so on – Scott believed it possible tointroduce order. Furthermore, it is clear that he viewed such financial structures as aform of restraint; the ideal surrender is one where “no cash is to be distributed to theIndians” but rather “the whole expenditure is defined and controlled.”

The aforementioned spending constraints and accountability mechanismsexemplify a type of financial rationality. It was through these mechanisms thatScott sought to introduce order and to inculcate certain patterns of behaviour amongboth Indian Department employees and their charges. As the preceding quotation hintsat, financial mechanisms were akin to chess pieces – they were deployed and movedby Scott in the attempt to foreclose certain behavioural possibilities and to encourageothers in the attempt to encourage “progress”. In this sense, these techniques not onlyhelped to make operable a form of financial rationality (Miller and O’Leary, 1993, p.189) but also served to construct the field of indigenous peoples as a field wherefinancial rationality was the appropriate mode of rationality. As a consequence, both“problems” and potential “solutions” were viewed from this particular vantage point(Preston et al., 1997).

In constructing financial rationality as the appropriate form of rationality within thefield, we observe a crowding-out of alternative discourses and rationalities. Much likeBauman’s comments regarding bureaucratic practices, the effect of Scott’s usage ofaccounting technique was to downplay moral considerations that were inconsistentwith his framing of events. This is not to say that Scott did not construct his actions asmoral. Scott’s goal of civilizing the “savages”, as he often called them in hiscorrespondence and even in his Department’s annual reports[3] (Department of IndianAffairs, 1880-1940, p. xx), was firmly grounded in his belief that he was pursuing thegood of the First Nations. And while he was a Christian, and referred to nativespirituality as “paganism” in his poems (e.g., The Onondaga Madonna, line 4), theoverriding goal of his Departmental programs and initiatives was not religiousevangelism but an extension of civilization to a race of people whose time, he believed,had run out. Thus, the moral basis of Scott’s leadership was not in conflict with hisadministrative agenda. However, explicit morality is relegated to his personalcorrespondence and to his public justifications of what he was doing. Within theadministrative and accounting realm of Scott, in the day-to-day workings of theDepartment, the calculus of cost and control supplanted the expression of otherrationalities.

In part, this crowding-out was a consequence of the positioning of Scott within thefield and his ability to name and define appropriate modes of behaviour (Bourdieu andThompson, 1992). Because of Scott’s position and because of more generalizedconcerns regarding cost within the Indian Department ( McNab, 1983), the conditionsof possibility existed for the introduction of such accounting mechanisms. In this sense,Scott was an “essential individual” ( Friedlander and Milton, 1980) within thebureaucratic apparatuses of the time. Furthermore, the introduced accountingpractices not only had the discursive effect of privileging certain ways of knowing but

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also they circumvented agency on the part of indigenous peoples. As the abovequotation highlights through structures, Scott thought that it was possible to restrainand circumvent agency – indeed, this was the objective behind the introduction of thespecific accounting mechanisms.

Action from a distanceThe structures and techniques implemented by Scott not only worked by privileging aspecific form of rationality. They also permitted “action from a distance” (Preston andOakes, 2001), the capability of a those at the centre of a far-flung bureaucracy tocoordinate the activities of subordinates, and to manage behaviours within theaboriginal population. Legislation initiated by Scott contained financial incentives andpenalties that helped ensure compliance in distant parts of the country where directsupervision was impossible. Such legislation helped to abstract the aboriginalpopulation, converting individuals into numbers that were then aggregated andtransmitted to the centre. There, the bureaucrat could deal with numbers, insulatedfrom the human impact of any resulting decisions. The individual aboriginal humanbeing was, thus, reduced to the conceptual “Indian”. This abstraction or distancingechoed Scott’s Victorian poetry, in which “Indians” were romanticized as a subset of“Nature”, a nature quite inferior to civilization.

Amendments to the Indian Act were introduced by Scott in 1910, 1924 and 1927.These changes increased the control of the Department over funds belonging to Indianbands. The 1910 amendment, for instance, stipulated that:

No contract or agreement binding. . . made either by the chiefs or councilors of any band . . .other than and except as authorized by and for the purposes of this Part of the Act, shall bevalid or of any force or effect unless and until it has been approved in writing by theSuperintendent General (SC 1910 c. 28, s. 2).

The 1924 amendment gave the Indian Department access to band funds for capitalprojects that would promote “progress” (SC 1924 c. 47 s. 5). The same year, Scottproposed further amendments to the Act. He wanted to prohibit “lawyers and otheragitators from collecting money from Indians for the pursuit of claims against thegovernment without departmental approval” (Titley, 1986, p. 59). In the 1927amendment to the Act, his proposal was adopted.

Similar amendments were introduced to enhance Department control overindigenous lands. In 1911, amendments to the Indian Act gave the Department theauthority to expropriate indigenous lands for public works, such as railwayconstruction, and for the expedience of towns that contained or adjoined reserve land.In the words of the amended Act, a judicial inquiry could be requested to determine if“it is expedient, having regard to the interest of the public and of the Indians of theband for whose use the reserve is held, that the Indians should be removed from thereserve . . .” (SC 1911, c. 14, s. 2.).

These amendments gave the Indian Department substantial influence, and oftendirect control, over how Indian bands could spend their money, and increased theability of the Department to determine when and at what price First Nations’ landswould be expropriated. The combined financial and legislative mechanisms greatlyextended the control that could be exercised from Ottawa, circumscribing the agencyof both the Indian Department “agents” in the field, and the aborigines themselves.

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And as the 1927 amendment highlights, any expenditures by a Band for the purpose ofchallenging the government’s control were expressly prohibited by the Act.

The official administrative correspondence of Scott for this period hints at thepower of the bureaucratic machinery of the Indian Department. Much of thecorrespondence relates to routine administrative events such as salaries, and the hiringand firing of administrative staff. However, the material dealing with requests for thesurrender and sale of indigenous lands and requests to depose chiefs and councilors ispowerful in both its repetitive and its perfunctory nature. For example, correspondencepertaining to land expropriations took the following form:

The undersigned has the honour to report that the Pacific Great Eastern Railway Companyhas applied to the Department of Indian Affairs for the purchase of 68.3 acres more or less forright of way on the Pavilion Indian Reservation . . . The land has been valued by a competentvaluator as follows . . .The undersigned would recommend that under Section 46 of theIndian Act as amended by Section 1, Chap. 14, 1-2 Geo. V, authority by given for the sale bythe Department of Indian Affairs of the above mentioned 68.3 acres (Public Archives ofCanada, 1977, 16 July 1914).

Correspondence pertaining to removals stated:

The undersigned begs to report that repeated complaints have been received by theDepartment of Indian Affairs from the Indian Agent for the Edmonton Agency with regard toLouis Callihoo’s conduct as chief of the Michel’s band, in the said agency. . . The undersignedwould therefore recommend that under section 96 of the Indian Act Louis Callihoo be deposedfrom the office of chief of Michel’s band, on the ground of incompetency (Public Archives ofCanada, 1977, 29 March 1916).

Although it is difficult to tell precisely from the correspondence whether requests toexpropriate land or depose hereditary chiefs were ever denied, this archival materialevokes a bureaucratic machine slowly and inexorably rolling over a population inserious decline.

This official correspondence resonates with Bauman’s comments regarding theefficiency of administrative apparatuses in making government policies operable(Bauman, 1989, p. 98). Once the appropriate legislation had been introduced (therebycreating the possibility for the federal government to expropriate land when and wherenecessary), administrative apparatuses turned this possibility into a reality. As thecorrespondence seems to indicate, requests for the expropriation of land and thedeposal of chiefs followed certain procedures. But in the end, both the form-letternature of the final approval and the number of these approvals suggest a routinizedprocess whereby the final outcome is never in doubt. This focus on the micro tasks ofthe approval process crowds out consideration of the larger issues (Bauman, 1989,p. 100).

Bureaucratic control over “Indian” land and money were, for Scott, merelytemporary means towards a final solution. Testifying in support of Bill 14, in March1920, Scott said:

I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that this countryought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone. That is my wholepoint. Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has notbeen absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no IndianDepartment and that is the whole object of this Bill (quoted in Titley, 1986, p. 50).

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The gradual elimination of First Nations preoccupied the Indian Department underScott. While various initiatives at the legislative and administrative levels, notedabove, undermined the ability of bands to control their land and money, theDepartment continued its attempts to “get rid of the Indian problem” at the level of theindividual. By tinkering with the legal definition of Indian status, and setting upconditions under which an indigenous person would lose that status, federal legislationencouraged and enforced the “gradual civilization” of the native population. In 1919,for example, the Indian Act was amended to read: “Any Indian women who marriesany person other than an Indian, or a non-treaty Indian, shall cease to be an Indian inevery respect within the meaning of this Act . . .” (SC 1919-20, C. 50, s. 2). Bill 14,however, went much further than any previous legislation. The purpose of the bill wascompulsory enfranchisement. While previous legislation permitted individualaborigines to be given the vote upon fulfilling particular conditions, Bill 14 “allowedfor the enfranchisement of an Indian against his will following a report by a personappointed by the Superintendent General on his suitability” (Titley, 1986, p. 49). Sincethe Superintendent General was a cabinet post whose incumbent could change withswings in political fortune (Titley, 1986, pp. 48-49), the bill effectively increased theinfluence of the leading civil servant, Scott, who would be responsible for preparing, oroverseeing the preparation of, the requisite reports on suitability.

These procedures and policies reveal that to “get rid of the Indian problem” meantnothing less than to get rid of the Indians, culturally and racially. Culturally, thetechnologies of settlement and agriculture, supported by accounting techniques thatundermined agency and ensured the effectiveness of Departmental controls, separatedthe First Nations from their hunting territory and thus from their way of life. Racially,initiatives like marriage with non-Indians and compulsory enfranchisement strippedaborigines of both their genetic heritage and their legal status. Thus, in thebroad-stroke records of legislative changes and in the minutiae of archivaladministrative traces, we observe the construction and operation of anadministrative apparatus of devastating capability. This machine operated much ofthe time quite gradually and slowly, yet it was able to expropriate land and strip awaylegal status with relentless efficiency. Encouraging certain actions from a distance, allthe while buffering administrators such as Scott from observing the consequences oftheir initiatives,[4] this bureaucratic device was the means towards Canada’s own finalsolution.

Civilized solutionsWhile the bureaucratic tools of Scott’s Indian Department were means towards an end,it is important to recognize that the goal of cultural and racial erasure was itself part ofa broader Canadian social objective. Bauman (1989) states that in the modern world,the world that Canada was entering during Scott’s tenure, genocide is not conductedfor its own sake. Rather, genocide is:

. . . a necessity that stems from the ultimate objective . . . The end itself is a grand vision of abetter, and radically different, society. Modern genocide is an element of social engineering,meant to bring out a social order conforming to the design of the perfect society ( p. 91).

“Invariably”, says Bauman, “there is an aesthetic dimension to the design: the idealworld about to be built conforms to the standards of superior beauty.” In describing the

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Holocaust as an product of modernity, Bauman uses the metaphor of a garden torepresent the planned society. In such a garden, “weeds” must die “not so much becauseof what they are, as because of what the beautiful, orderly garden ought to be” ( p. 92).

The development of residential schooling in Canada after confederation epitomizesthe cultivation of such an ultimate objective. Prior to confederation, missionarysocieties had been involved in education and missionary work involving indigenouspeoples. The involvement of missionary societies in educational activities along withthe active lobbying of missionary societies, encouraged the federal government –which was responsible for aboriginal education – to utilize missionary societies in theprovision of aboriginal education. With the federal government providing the funds forresidential schools, the missionary societies were quick to seize the opportunity toutilize state subsidies to expand their sphere of operations (Titley, 1986, p. 76). Thechurches built the schools and then turned to the federal government for funding.By the end of the 1800s, there were 290 schools in operation with 104 operated by theRoman Catholic Church, 93 by the Church of England, 40 by Methodists, 13 byPresbyterians and 40 undenominational (Department of Indian Affairs, 1902).

Departmental rationales for the development of residential schools, wherebyaboriginal students would be isolated from their families and community, had much incommon with Bauman’s weeds-in-the garden metaphor. Education was seen as amethod of inducing “pacification, an indispensible element in the creation of conditionsfor the peaceful occupation of the west”(Milloy, 1999, p. 32)[5]. When he wasSuperintendent of Indian Education, Scott commented that “without education andwith neglect the Indians would produce an undesirable and often dangerous element insociety” (quoted in Milloy, 1999, p. 33).[6] Residential schools were envisioned as a“circle of civilized conditions” where one culture would be replaced with anotherthrough the actions of the teacher teaching a set curriculum – a curriculum whichemphasized European virtues and knowledges ( pp. 34-35). Thus, residential schoolswould transform aboriginal youth from weeds in the garden into flowers, whereas the“lodgepole Indians” who were untrainable would be contained on the reservations. AsScott comments, through such mechanisms it would be possible to “overcome thelingering traces of native custom and tradition”:

. . . the happiest future for the Indian Race is absorption into the general population, and thisis the object of the policy of our government. The great forces of intermarriage and educationwill finally overcome the lingering traces of native custom and tradition (Scott, 1914, p. 599).

If this was the plan, Miller and Rose’s (1990) comment that governmentality is eternallyoptimistic but perpetually failing seems correct. By the early 1890s there was concernabout the mounting financial expenditures and the ambiguity of government-churchrelations in the area of residential schooling. These concerns encouraged theDepartment to introduce a series of rules that were meant to introduce order andeconomy into the system.

In October 1892, through an order-in-council, the government initiated a general financialsystem for the schools. Thereafter, so as to “relieve the pressure of present expenditure”, thefunding of all schools – boarding and industrial – would be by that “correct principle”because the “Minister considers that when the whole cost of an Institution is directly borne bythe Government the same economy by those in immediate charge is not used as would beemployed under other conditions” (Milloy, 1999, p. 62).

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The new system was seen as a tool to restrain the financial expenditures of themissionary societies and thus financial obligations of the Department: they were “forthe close control of the per capita allowance placed in the hands of the various religiousdenominations” (Milloy, 1999, p. 65). The orders-in-council set a per capita funding rate(which was below then-current levels of expenditure) and stipulated that most chargeswere to be paid out of this except for books and appliances and the cost of buildingrepairs, which would be borne by the government ( p. 63).

However, the new system of financial controls did not fare any better than theprevious one. The order-in-councils themselves were weak in that the Department hadno control over maintenance expenditures nor any sense of the associated costs untilthe repair bills were received (Milloy, 1999, p. 64). Furthermore, the churches refused tobe bound by the terms of the orders and continued to operate as always ( p. 65). Andbecause of the political clout of the churches, the Department continued to accept fullfinancial responsibility for expenditures ( p. 65). This as well as the failure of theschools in the area of assimilation led Scott himself to conclude that, “the government’sattempt between 1892 and 1894 to bring order, Departmental authority, economy andfinancial control to the system was . . .a total failure” ( p. 65).

The system of financial controls introduced in the late 1880s did remove the weedsfrom the garden but did not succeed in transforming them into flowers. The inadequateper capita funding amount encouraged school operators to concentrate on therecruiting and retention of students regardless of their physical health (Milloy, 1999,p. 67). Within the Department it was “well known that schools routinely admittedunhealthy students without any medical check” ( p. 88) and although the 1892/1894Order in Councils stipulated that (a) a medical certificate was a condition of admissionand (b) that the Department could inspect the schools, there was no regular inspection( p. 89). This intersection of an inadequate funding mechanism, the lack of enforcementof Departmental rules along with substandard facilities created intolerable livingconditions:

The method of funding the individual schools, the intricacies of the Department-churchpartnership in financing and managing schools and the failure of the Department to exerciseeffective oversight of the schools, led directly to their rapid deterioration and overcrowding.Those were the conditions within which, as in urban slums of the time, tubercular diseasebecame endemic (Milloy, 1999, p. 52).

The convergence of financial concerns and health concerns encouraged Scott to onceagain revamp the financial controls shortly after he became the Superintendent ofIndian Education in 1909. Around 1905 the Department was forced to “bail-out” severalschools because of their accumulated debts resulting in part from financialmismanagement (Titley, 1986, p. 82). Around this same time, Dr Bryce, the medicalinspector to the department of the interior, examined the state of health withinindustrial and boarding schools on the prairies ( p. 83). His report became nationalnews when he documented not only the appalling conditions in residential schools buthow approximately 24 per cent of students died while in attendance and another 18 percent shortly after leaving the schools as a result of illness (Milloy, 1999, p. 91). Togetherthese two events provided the impetus for Scott to suggest the need to “reconstruct thewhole school system” (Titley, 1986, p. 82).

While Bryce’s report contained specific recommendations for improving theconditions of residential schools, Scott vetoed these because of cost considerations

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(Titley, 1986, p. 85). Instead, Scott’s solution was administrative and accounting-based.He emphasized better screening of students entering (even though the previous orderscontained such provisions) and funding revisions to encourage better maintenance offacilities (Milloy, 1999, p. 94), along with caps on student enrolment based on facilitysize. For example, differential per capita funding rates were provided depending on thequality of the facilities. The presumption was that operators of low-grade facilitieswould have incentives to upgrade the facilities to receive higher funding levels.

The preceding history of residential schooling is interesting for several reasons. Onone level, it calls attention to the inter-relationships among policy objectives andbureaucratic methods that Bauman (1989) talks about. Like previous sections, weobserve the increasing importance of financial rationalities within this particularsphere and the crowding out of other rationalities and considerations. Initially, one ofthe objectives of residential schooling was assimilation, with a government-funded andchurch-run system as the chosen method of translation. This method of translationreflected prevailing societal and bureaucratic beliefs that assimilation could beachieved through a combination of religious instruction, education and the isolation ofaboriginal youth from their communities. However, by the early 1890s the opinionsof Scott, other senior bureaucrats and politicians had shifted slightly: the “excess costs”of the 1880s suggested that it was necessary to govern not only aborigines but alsothe churches. Thus, given Scott’s accounting background, financial regulations andcontrols seemed to be an appropriate way to exercise such control from a distance.

One of the consequences of such framings is that macro policy objectives are oftenexpressed in numerical micro-level statements (Bauman, 1989, p. 102). In the case ofNazi Germany, bureaucrats were concerned with the cost per kilometer of transportinghuman cargo ( p. 101). For the Indian Department, the policy of assimilation could beexpressed as minimizing the percentage of the aboriginal population that deviatedfrom the norms of settler society in a cost-effective manner.

The public statements of Scott were not this explicit. However, comments such as“the happiest future for the Indian Race is absorption into the general population” and“our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has notbeen absorbed into the body politic” give voice to this sentiment. Furthermore, while itis impossible to assess intentionality, it is important to acknowledge that highmortality rates are not inconsistent with an objective of decreasing the percentage ofaboriginal peoples who deviate from the norms of settler society. Thus, while Victoriansensibilities may have precluded direct annihilation (Freeman, 1995), genocide throughindifference or for a lack of funds was perhaps acceptable.

The conclusion that the use of such techniques may have resulted in genocidethrough indifference is provocative. For example, in her critique of Bauman, O’Kane(1997) argues that in non-wartime situations, civil society and other institutions willmitigate the potential dysfunctional consequences associated with instrumentalrationality and bureaucratic mechanisms. However, this case illustrates that this is notnecessarily the case, especially when the civilizing tendencies of the state are consistentwith the zeitgeist of the times. Social engineering was an accepted practice at thisjuncture – indigenous peoples along with the mentally and physically disabled wereall acceptable targets for the interventionist Canadian state that, through dividingpractices (Foucault, 1984), sought to separate and sterilize those individuals andgroups that were deemed inferior (Dowbiggin, 1997). Thus, instead of providing a

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counter-balance, these other institutions and agents provided the technologies thatmade such dividing practices possible.

Following from this last point, the preceding history calls attention to the ways thatheterogeneous agents are enlisted in the process of governing (Miller and Rose, 1990).In contrast to the previously discussed accounting and legislative initiatives thatmaintained a direct relationship between the state and indigenous peoples, theresidential schooling example highlights the roles played by indirect agents in socialgovernance (Neu, 2000b). Financial and accounting relations were of continuingimportance. However, it was accounting and accountability relations with themissionary societies that were expected to indirectly impact on the field of concern. Insubsequent periods, the expertise of third-party agents such as the medical profession,social workers and corporations was increasingly utilized by the state within thisparticular sphere (Davis and Zannis, 1973; Churchill, 1994).

The politics of the numbersThe preceding analysis has emphasized the manner in which accounting solutionscame to dominate the activities of the Indian Department during Scott’s tenure.However, our analysis would not be complete without acknowledging the politics ofthe numbers. As Rose (1991) and others acknowledge ( Miller and O’Leary, 1993),accounting and other numbers are poly-vocal resources that facilitate governance butalso create the possibilities for resistance. During the tenure of Scott, we observe suchpoliticization of the numbers.

As the previous section noted, the financial cost numbers along with the mortalitystatistics of Dr Bryce encouraged Scott to restructure the financial controls pertainingto residential schools. Not surprisingly, given both the emphasis within theDepartment on cost control and Scott’s accounting orientation, the revisionsemphasized changed financial controls but no new monies. Yet these responsesthemselves created the rhetorical space for a politicization of the numbers.

In frustration over both the Department’s inaction regarding his recommendationsand his subsequent dismissal by Scott after Scott became Deputy Superintendent,ex-medical inspector Bryce composed The Story of a National Crime in 1922 ( Bryce,1922):

He laid the blame for the continuing death of children after 1907 squarely on the shoulders of“the dominating influence”, Duncan Campbell Scott, who had become “the reactionary”Deputy Superintendent General in 1913 and prevented “even the simplest efforts to deal withthe health problem of the Indians along modern scientific lines.” He went on to charge: “owingto Scott’s active opposition,. . . no action was taken by the Department to give effect to therecommendations made in the 1911 contracts.” (Milloy, 1999, p. 95)

In this exchange, we observe a contest not only between humanitarian andbureaucratic sentiment, but over which numbers should be privileged: medicalnumbers that signify the physical health of the indigenous population or financialnumbers that signify the fiscal health of the Indian Department. This juxtaposition ofcompeting numbers highlights the sometimes overlapping and sometimes competingvantage points of the different disciplinary knowledges that are enlisted in the act ofgoverning.

While Scott’s entrenched position within the field allowed him and the IndianDepartment to weather the criticisms of Bryce, Scott’s subsequent initiatives suggested

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that he was sensitive to the politics of the numbers, both in terms of the type ofcriticism offered by Bryce and also the criticism that the Indian Department was not“cost effective”. For example, following his promotion to Deputy Superintendent in1913, Scott revamped the annual report to more clearly show the results ofDepartmental activities:

An attempt has been made to render the report of greater practical value by re-arrangementand consolidation . . . The form of the statements has been revised, and a series of tables ispresented, designed to show in a clear way the results of the various activities engaged in bythe Indians (Department of Indian Affairs, 1915).

Subsequent annual reports contained statistical tables on aboriginal population, thevalue of crops under cultivation, the value of real property and total income along withstatistics on the number of schools in operation and the number of students.

Likewise, the annual reports also sought to counter concerns regarding not only thedegree of control that the Department was exercising over residential schools but alsothe condition of the schools themselves. For example, the 1915 Annual Report statesthat:

In Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the Northwest Territories the schools are inspectedby the inspectors of the different Indian agencies; regular visits are made, and reportssubmitted to the department. In addition to this inspection, almost all the schools are underthe direct supervision of the different Indian agents, who are required to make monthlyinspections and reports ( p. xxiii).

whereas, the 1916 Annual Report comments that:

In our residential schools special attention is given to all that pertains to healthy living.Calisthenics is practised and the benefits of fresh air and personal cleanliness are carefullyimpressed upon the children; the instruction which they thus received cannot fail to influencetheir later life upon the reserves ( p. xxiii).

Foreshadowing the disclosure management activities of modern day corporations, theannual reports for the Department of Indian affairs sought to influence how relevantpublic know and feel about the activities of the Indian Department and their charges(Preston et al., 1996).

The politicization of the numbers implicit in the above events hint at a changedpositioning regarding accounting technologies. While on the surface the challenge toaccounting numbers by medical numbers did not result in immediate changes inadministrative practice, the resulting politicization made visible the competingrationalities and expert knowledges that were at play within the field. And throughthese interchanges, public policy was, in the words of Rose, being “figured out” (Rose,1991). Undoubtedly, the decision to use subsequent annual report disclosures was anattempt to “manage” these challenges from within the frame of financial rationality.Yet to conclude that it was simply an impression that the management misses thepoint. The fact that the numbers were politicized and that the ability of financialnumbers to represent the field was being challenged, at some level ensured thatpolicy-makers such as Scott could no long bracket these competing vantage points.

This final point gives us a complete understanding of whether bureaucraticpractices, such as accounting, provide the conditions of possibility for the holocausts ofmodernity. The initial parts of our analysis highlighted how financial rationalities had

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come to crowd out other vantage points within this particular sphere, how technologiesof accounting and law were intertwined in these processes, and how governance wasoperationalized in diverse sites via heterogeneous agents. Based on this analysis, weproposed that the empirical material challenged O’Kane’s (1997) assertion that theinstitutions of civil society mitigate against the excesses of bureaucracy. We foundsuch general mitigation especially unlikely when programmatic societal discourses areconsistent with the policy-making aims of the state. This being said, accountingnumbers become politicized as a result of specific challenges – either by challenges tothe accounting numbers themselves (Arnold and Hammond, 1994) or by thejuxtaposition of other sets of numbers based on differing rationalities and differingknowledges. Furthermore, it is through this politicization that these other concerns aresmuggled into the policy-making context, thereby potentially mitigating against theexcesses envisioned by Bauman. This is not to suggest that these competingknowledges are primarily motivated by moral concerns about bureaucraticpolicy. Rather, that it is through the processes of contestation and response thatalternative viewpoints are assimilated into the bureaucratic apparatuses themselves,thereby mitigating the unidirectional focus of the mechanisms. Thus, whetherbureaucratic excesses are contested and mitigated depends on the specific historicalconfiguration of knowledges and institutions involved in the institutional fieldunder consideration.

DiscussionThis study has provided a history of the present. This history was written with threediscrete but overlapping discourses in mind: the study of government-indigenouspeoples relations in Canada, the literature on the holocausts of modernity and theaccounting literature on governmentality.

On one level, this study participates in the continuing scrutiny ofgovernment-indigenous peoples relations in Canada, looking specifically at the waythat techniques of governance were used to encourage action at the distance. Thepresent analysis highlights how accounting and other technologies of governance weredirected toward the population of indigenous peoples and sought to inculcatewesternized patterns of behaviour. While government policy was often couched interms such as assimilation and civilization, the analysis illustrates that beneath thisveneer of humanism and romanticism were a series of techniques that largely strippedindigenous peoples of their agency and centralized the control of their lives in theDepartment of Indian Affairs. Thus, the study illuminates the history of present-daygovernment-indigenous peoples relations. It provides insights into why the Canadiangovernment and the Department of Indian and Northern Development (DIAND)continue to be regarded as an intrusive influence in the lives of indigenous peoples andwhy government initiatives are viewed with suspicion and distrust.

At the same time, this study has inserted itself into the literature and debateregarding the holocausts of modernity. Picking up on the themes outlined by Bauman(1989) as well as those of his critics and commentators, our analysis highlights the needto examine these notions in specific historical settings. For example, our analysisillustrates how the instrumental rationality and distantiation implicit withinaccounting practices encouraged the crowding out of other vantage points andconsiderations. In the case of residential schooling, these practices arguably had

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genocidal consequences both in terms of the actual in-school mortality rates and interms of the erasure of indigenous language and practices. Thus, the analysis providesa cautionary note to the assertions of O’Kane (1997) who proposes that, in non-wartimeperiods, the countervailing influence of other institutions will necessarily mitigateagainst the potential excesses of bureaucratic practices. However, the analysis alsoproposes that, in certain circumstances, the clash of expert knowledges withingovernance processes may undermine and mitigate the types of outcomes that Baumanenvisions. In this sense, our conclusions resonate with the suggestions of du Gay (1999)who argues against sweeping generalizations, instead suggesting the need to examinethe working of specific practices in particular historical-political contexts.

Juxtaposing the accounting, legislative and administrative processes of the IndianDepartment under Scott with Bauman’s account of the Holocaust, raises severalimportant questions. For example, in both accounts we observe the usage oftechnologies of government to translate policies into practice, but is it fair to concludethat the end result in the current case was a holocaust? Or were the results moreambivalent? Furthermore, what does the current account indicate about the positioningof accounting within these processes? In terms of the first two questions, the answerreally depends on one’s definition of genocide. Some argue that the term genocideshould be reserved for those instances of mass extermination (Horowitz, 1991) whereas,others argue that the cultural erasure of a group is equivalent (Barta, 1987; Charny,1994; Churchill, 1994). Furthermore, this latter group would point to the United Nationsdefinition on genocide, noting that cultural genocide is consistent with this position(Andreopoulos, 1994; Lemkin, 1947).

While these definitional debates are not resolvable, the debates bring into sharprelief the similarities and differences in the two cases. For example, we can concludethat both cases involved actions on the part of the state that the majority of thetargeted populations would not have consented to in advance. However, greaterambiguity exists in the current case, where for some indigenous individuals, the lifeenvisioned by the federal government for its charges either on reservations or in an“enfranchised” status may well have been preferable to the other available options.This conclusion does not disregard the imposition of will by governments. Rather itacknowledges the ambivalence that almost always exists within such governmentprograms and initiatives (Rose, 1991, p. 687).

Finally, this study is located within the accounting literature on governmentality.Like previous studies in this genre, the present analysis contributes to ourunderstanding of the roles played by accounting in societal governance within aspecific empirical setting. In doing so, the analysis illustrates the intersection ofdifferent technologies in the act of governing as well as the roles played byheterogeneous agents (i.e. missionary societies) within these processes. However, theanalysis also highlights the ambiguity and limitations of accounting within processesof governance, illustrating how accounting practices were intertwined with othertechnologies of government. Notably, accounting technologies worked in tandem withlegislative initiatives, which created the spaces for accounting techniques andinfluenced which specific accounting technologies could be used. For example,legislation pertaining to the use of band funds simultaneously provided the impetus forthe management of band funds and created the need for further accounting on the partof the Indian Department. Thus, this matrix of technologies was mutually reinforcing

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and constitutive. Similar inter-relationships between legislation and accounting werenoted by Funnel in his examination of the Holocaust (Funnel, 1998).

Accounting, we have proposed, was central to the processes of judging andintervening. As Rose (1991, p. 675) notes, democratic power is calculated power in thesense that “numbers are intrinsic to the forms of justification that give legitimacy topolitical power in democracies.” In the present case, accounting numbers regardingcosts helped to problematize relations between government and indigenous peoples,and to encourage government intervention. In turn, subsequent accounting numbersregarding spending on aborigines, the number of students in schools, and so forth,allowed judgment of the success of governmental policies. This dialectic of judgmentand intervention resulted in a relationship between accounting numbers andgovernment that was reciprocal and mutually constitutive (Rose, 1991, p. 675).However, at the same time these numbers were poly-vocal resources, as the clash ofaccounting numbers with other statistics resulted in the “smuggling in” of othervantage points into the policy-making context. While we did not observe any directchallenges to the accounting numbers in this empirical setting, we agree with Arnoldand Hammond (1994) that accounting numbers themselves simultaneously provide amechanism of governance and the conditions of possibility for resistance. Thesecontestations within and between numbers provide a partial explanation for theobservation that governance in practice always eludes the optimistic visions of itsdesigners (Miller and Rose, 1990).

Notes

1. Where we refer to government departments, policies and documents, we use the word“Indian” to match historical usage. However, we have preferred the terms aborigine,aboriginal and First Nations in our own writing.

2. This conception of modernity is consistent with previous accounting research. Gallhofer andHaslam (1995, pp. 204-205) argue that modernity is characterized by a confidence innumbers, a quest for certainty, the domination of particularity by universalized subjectivereason and techniques of surveillance. Montagna (1997) argues that modernity can beunderstood as the contest between three autonomous systems – the economic, thelegal/administrative and the esthetic – for dominance in society. This particular formulationis interesting in light of the current study’s examination of the confluence of accounting(economic), the Indian Department (legal/administrative) and the poet Scott (esthetic).Bauman’s metaphor of the gardening state is illustrative of the power of the esthetic inmodernity, albeit an extremely rational esthetic.

3. This is not to suggest that Scott personally wrote every part of the Indian DepartmentAnnual Report, but that as senior civil servant he would at least have been responsible forthe final wording.

4. Despite his career-long identification with the Indian Department in Ottawa, Scott did havesome direct contact with First Nations communities, so he was not entirely buffered fromseeing the consequences of his department’s policies. As a negotiator of Treaty Nine, heparticipated in the 1905 and 1906 expeditions to sign the treaty, through what is nownorthern Ontario. Archival photographs of these trips show that Scott went as part of a largegovernment entourage, with natives doing the paddling. He made a similar trip in 1929-1930(Industry Canada, 2003).

5. In 1885 around the time of the second Riel rebellion, the Superintendent General commentedthat with residential schools, “the Indians would regard them [their children] as hostages to

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be given to the whites and would hesitate to commit any hostile acts that might endangertheir children’s well-being” (quoted in Milloy, 1999, p. 32).

6. Historian John Milloy’s study of residential schooling is an exhaustive study of the topic. Asa member of the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, he was granted access toDepartmental of Indian Affairs files which had previously been, and still are, closed togeneral researchers. For these reasons, our analysis relies heavily on his work.

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Further reading

Statutes of Canada (1860), Statutes of Canada, Government of Canada, Ottawa.

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