Assimilation Through Incarceration: The
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
ASSIMILATION THROUGH INCARCERATION: THE GEOGRAPHIC IMPOSITION OF CANADIAN LAW OVER INDIGENOUS PEOPLES by Madelaine Christine Jacobs A thesis submitted to the Department of Geography in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada (September, 2012) Copyright ©Madelaine Christine Jacobs, 2012 Abstract The disproportionate incarceration of indigenous peoples in Canada is far more than a socio- economic legacy of colonialism. The Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) espoused incarceration as a strategic instrument of assimilation. Colonial consciousness could not reconcile evolving indigenous identities with projects of state formation founded on the epistemological invention of populating idle land with productive European settlements. The 1876 Indian Act instilled a stubborn, albeit false, categorization deep within the structures of the Canadian state: “Indian,” ward of the state. From “Indian” classification conferred at birth, the legal guardianship of the state was so far-reaching as to make it akin to the control of incarcerated inmates. As early iterations of the DIA sought to enforce the legal dominion of the state, “Indians” were quarantined on reserves until they could be purged of indigenous identities that challenged colonial hegemony. Reserve churches, council houses, and schools were symbolic markers as well as practical conveyors of state programs. Advocates of Christianity professed salvation and taught a particular idealized morality as prerequisites to acceptable membership in Canadian society. Agricultural instructors promoted farming as a transformative act in the individual ownership of land. Alongside racializing religious edicts and principles of stewardship, submission to state law was a critical precondition of enfranchisement into the adult milieu. When indigenous identities persisted, children were removed from their families and placed in residential schools for intensive assimilation. Adults and children deemed noncompliant to state laws were coerced through incarceration. Jails were powerful symbols of the punitive authority of the Dominion of Canada. Today, while the overrepresentation of Aboriginal persons in prisons is a matter of national concern, and critiques of systematic racism dismantle ideologies of impartial justice, the precise origins of indigenous imprisonment have not been identified. The DIA was so intimately invested in assimilation through incarceration that lock-ups were erected with band funds on “Indian lands” across Canada. Archival documents and the landscape of Manitoulin Island make this legal historical geographical analysis of assimilation through incarceration possible. ii Acknowledgements As a PhD Candidate, I have had the great privilege of inquiring into many matters that I happily anticipated learning about. I could not have accomplished this without a great deal of support and wise instruction. This dissertation was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Queen’s University Department of Geography, and Queen’s University School of Graduate Studies. In addition to valuable opportunities for mentorship, financial support was provided by Queen’s University in the form of Research Associate, Research Assistant, Teaching Fellow, and Teaching Assistant positions in the Department of Geography, Queen’s School of Business, and Student Affairs. Special thanks are due Graeme Wynn and the University of British Columbia Department of Geography for my year in Vancouver. Thank you to Anne Godlewska for making it possible for me to pursue my PhD at Queen’s. Audrey Kobayashi, Brenda Brouwer, and David Rappaport have given me inimitable counsel. The Department of Geography has been a mainstay throughout many formative moments in my life. Meghan Brooks and Cheryl Sutherland have studied by my side. Brian Osborne and George Lovell have had the greatest influence on my education. As inspired scholars, they have shown me how to see the world, how to be in the world, and how to communicate. I listen for their voices when I am thinking through particularly confounding geographies. If all of the lessons that they taught me were written down, I could cite them on every page of my dissertation. I am honoured that they have been my supervisors. The National Archives of Canada and the Ontario Archives have long been places of inspiration and discovery for me. Gloria MacKenzie was instrumental in guiding me through an Access to Information Researcher Agreement at the National Archives. When I am gazing out on the Ottawa River, I am “in the field” of my research. Thank you to Mom and Dad. You raised me to want to know. You opened possibilities for me that you did not have yourselves. You are still teaching lessons of courage, persistence, creativity, faith, and love to your children. I am so glad that you are here. Thank you, Paul, Jeanette, Ryan, Sean, and Matthew. Thank you, Louise. Most of all, thank you to Jeff. There are so many things to thank you for. iii Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures........................................................................................................................... vii Chapter 1 Introduction: Assimilation Through Incarceration ....................................................... 1 Chapter 2 Literature Review: Theoretical and Methodological Contexts ...................................... 9 2.1 Incarceration: Surveillance, Segregation, and Racism ...................................................... 11 2.2 The Overrepresentation of Aboriginal Persons in Prisons ................................................. 16 2.3 Restoring Justice: History, Geography, and Canada’s Indigenous Legal Futures .............. 18 2.4 Literature for an Emergent Criminalization: “Aboriginal Gangs” ..................................... 30 2.5 Carceral and Legal Historical Geographies in Canada: The “Indian” ................................ 34 2.6 Peroratio: Methodological Paradox .................................................................................. 39 Chapter 3 Historical Geographies of Legal Dissonance: Assimilative State Law ........................ 42 3.1 The Function of Colonialism: Geographic Imposition of State Law and the Separation of “Indians” from Canadian Society .......................................................................................... 42 3.2 Manitoulin: Place of International Summit....................................................................... 51 3.2.1 Sir Francis Bond Head’s Indian Hospice? ................................................................. 52 3.2.2 Diplomacy and Despair............................................................................................. 55 3.2.3 The Mica Bay Uprising: Historical-Geographical Contexts of the Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior Treaties ............................................................................................... 59 3.3 The Manitoulin Island Treaty : The Settlement of Manitoulin Lands and Waters ............... 66 3.4 Peroratio: Manitoulin for Sale to “Actual Settlers” ........................................................... 71 Chapter 4 Fishing for Rights: Law, Jurisdiction, and Territorial Boundaries .............................. 73 4.1 Clashing Law Enforcement: Lonely Island ...................................................................... 73 4.2 Applying and Subverting the Law.................................................................................... 81 4.3 Submerging the Law ....................................................................................................... 84 4.3.1 Toronto Recriminations ............................................................................................ 85 4.4 Another Fishery “Outrage” .............................................................................................. 86 4.5 Dispensing with Lonely Island ........................................................................................ 88 4.6 Peroratio: Unceded Peoples and Places ............................................................................ 90 Chapter 5 The Indian Act : Legislated Segregation ..................................................................... 92 5.1 Negotiating Legal Ontologies: First Nations Principles of Good Order............................. 93 5.1.1 Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve: Regulations for the Maintenance of Good Order ... 95 iv 5.2 The Indian Act : Isolation and Transformation .................................................................. 99 5.3 Peroratio: Indigenous Interactions.................................................................................. 102 Chapter 6 Criminalizing the “Indian”: Unrest and Assimilation ............................................... 104 6.1 Conflicts: Canada’s North-West Frontier in the National Imagination ............................ 105 6.1.1 Competing for Survival, Competing for National Territory: Mistahimaskwa’s (Big Bear’s) Response to Changing Landscapes ...................................................................... 107 6.1.2 North-West Borders ...............................................................................................