“In the Best Interest of the Indians”: an Ethnohistory of the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, 1897-1913 by David Vogt
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“In the Best Interest of the Indians”: An Ethnohistory of the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, 1897-1913 by David Vogt BA Hons, University of Northern British Columbia, 2006 MA, Carleton University, 2008 MA, University of Northern British Columbia, 2011 A dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of History ©2020, David Vogt University of Victoria All rights reserved. This dissertation may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. We acknowledge with respect the Lekwungen peoples on whose traditional territory the university stands and the Songhees, Esquimalt and WSÁNEĆ peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day. ii “In the Best Interest of the Indians”: An Ethnohistory of the Department of Indian Affairs, 1897-1913 by David Vogt BA Hons, University of Northern British Columbia, 2006 MA, Carleton University, 2008 MA, University of Northern British Columbia, 2011 Supervisory Committee Dr. John Lutz, Supervisor Department of History Dr. Elizabeth Vibert, Departmental Member Department of History Dr. J.R. Miller, Outside Member Department of History iii Abstract Drawing on insights from recent ethnographic and ethnohistorical studies of bureaucracy by scholars such as Akhil Gupta and Ann-Laura Stoler, this dissertation turns the ethnohistorical lens back upon the colonial state to offer a ground-level view of how statecraft functioned on a day-to-day basis within the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs between approximately 1897 and 1913. I seek to pierce the artifice of clearly settled policy and elite micromanagement perpetuated by the official documentary record, and the tendency in both official documents and the literature to speak of “the Indian Department” and “the government” as a collective historical agent, to explore how settler privilege, Indigenous marginalization, and structural violence were enacted through the day-to-day operations of the Indian Department bureaucracy, especially its poorly-understood Ottawa headquarters. The first chapter represents the turn-of-the-century Canadian government bureaucracy through the metaphor of a house society, exploring the seasonal round, composition, and rituals of bureaucratic society. The second chapter analyzes the central role played by political patronage in the civil service – not merely hampering the efficient carrying out of the state’s Indigenous policy, but actually in some ways constituting Indigenous policy – through a close reading of the Liberal purge of Conservative officials carried out between 1896 and 1898. Chapter three explores how clerks, most of them working anonymously, attempted to create meaning and make decisions through the management of files in the Ottawa headquarters. I trace two pleas as they made their way through the bureaucracy: one from the bottom up, an Indigenous request for a new church furnace; and one from the top down, a politically connected merchant hoping to collect on an Indigenous debt. The final two chapters explore the implications of this more granular reading of the bureaucratic state for understanding two areas of “Indian policy” of more conventional interest to historians: the evolution of “Indian status,” which in important ways was shaped and improvised at the field agent level, in the absence of central control and outside of the vision of race embedded in the Indian Act of 1876; and the surrender and sale of land from reserves, which was driven by senior and ambitious officials, though often for personal advancement and profit rather than adherence to official state policies. Overall, I offer a vision of the state that moves away from abstract iv conceptions of “the state,” “the Indian Department,” and “Indian policy,” towards implicating and interrogating the roles played by bureaucrats and files in the day-to-day operations of the colonial state. Table of Contents v Table of Contents Supervisory Committee .................................................................................................................. ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................ v Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi Introduction. Towards an Ethnohistory of Bureaucracy ................................................................. 1 1. The Seasonal Round of Indian Affairs: A Traditional Use and Occupancy Study ................... 46 2. Initiation and Banishment: The Patronage List and the Great Purge of 1896-1898 ................. 95 3. A Day in the Life of Bureaucracy: Statecraft in the Paper Trade ........................................... 145 4. Territory: Finding or Making Indians? ................................................................................... 211 5. Policy: The Reserve Surrender ............................................................................................... 282 Epilogue. Bureaucracy, Colonialism, and History ..................................................................... 332 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................... 347 vi Acknowledgements Above all, I am grateful to my partner, Monica O’Donnell, for accommodating the many years of labour that has gone into this project; and our children, Ashlyn and Deklin, who were compelled, at times unfairly, to do likewise. I would also like to thank the history program at the University of Victoria for admitting me and supporting me through my time there. This dissertation has benefited from conversations with a great many people in the program, but in particular, I am indebted to my supervisor, John Lutz; and to my committee members, Elizabeth Vibert, who also guided me through comprehensive reading on gender and race in colonial history, and Jim Miller, who has continually helped fill in gaps in my understanding of both the history and historiography of Indian Affairs. Without the guidance, wisdom, and support provided at various times by all of you, this project could not have reached completion. I also thank the staff at Library and Archives Canada, BC Archives, Glenbow Archives, and Saskatchewan Archives for their time responding to queries and locating material related to this project. Lastly, I am grateful to both the University of Victoria and to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for their financial support for my studies. Introduction 1 Introduction. Towards an Ethnohistory of Bureaucracy Contemporary and historical critiques of the relations between Canada’s settlers and Indigenous peoples are tightly bound to a particular discourse about the state, one that reifies and personifies state agencies like the Department of Indian Affairs1 as historical agents.2 The simple and particularly the popular narrative manifestation of this discourse is readily recognizable: “the government” perceived Indigenous peoples3 as obstacles to the creation of modern society, so “the government” created reserves and residential schools in a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful effort to forcibly assimilate them into mainstream settler society. The state-sponsored version of this narrative, at least, continues: today, “the government” recognizes it was wrong to do these things, and tomorrow, “the government” will embark upon a new and nobler relationship with Indigenous peoples.4 1 The Department of Indian Affairs existed only from 1880 to 1936. There has, within the Canadian bureaucracy, been a distinct body tasked with the management of “Indians” since Confederation. For reasons of brevity, I refer to this body generically as “the Indian Department,” although it has not always been known by this name, and at times it has been a branch rather than a department. Any use of the term “Department of Indian Affairs,” however, refers specifically to the independent department during the abovementioned period. 2 See Joe Painter, “Prosaic Geographies of Stateness,” Political Geography 25 (2006), 754, for explanation of the concept of reification with respect to the state. 3 Except when quoting other scholars who use different terms, I prefer to use the terms “Indigenous” and “Indigenous peoples.” As I discuss in Chapter 5, terminology is complicated by discussion of legal categories, like “Aboriginal People” and “Indian,” that have been mapped onto sociological racial categories as well as grafted onto individuals and communities. Thus, many Indigenous people are not Indians, although most Indians are Indigenous people. Normally, I would accept any person’s apparently reasonable claim to Indigenous identity and also employ the term, in the absence of such evidence, for people who appeared to have been members of an Indigenous community. Specificity is also to be preferred. However, in certain cases when discussing operations of the Indian Department, I use the term “Indian” to clarify that I am referring specifically to the classification and management of population by bureaucrats. As dehumanizing as the discourse may have been, in those moments, it was the classification of persons as legal “Indians,”