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Concepts and Policies of Assimilation

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Concepts and Policies of Assimilation CONCEPTS AND POLICIES 17 OF ASSIMILATION CONCEPTS AND POLICIES OF ASSIMILATION Planning your FIRST STEPS learning journey The process of absorbing one cultural group into What are some policies of another is known as assimilation. Assimilation assimilation that the Canadian can be pursued through government policy,1 which is what the Canadian government has attempted government has enacted on to do over the course of much of its relationship Indigenous Peoples? with First Nations, Métis and Inuit. These policies of assimilation have had devastating impacts on Indigenous Peoples and communities, many of which can still be felt today. CONCEPTS AND POLICIES OF ASSIMILATION The following concepts and policies relate to the assimilation methods used by the Government of Canada toward Indigenous Peoples. Some are general concepts, while others are specific programs or legislation. British North America Act (1867): The BNA Act put “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians” under the exclusive legislative authority of the Parliament of Canada.2 Also known as the Constitution Act, this legislation established the Dominion of Canada.3 The act allowed the Department of Indian Affairs to develop national policies that impacted Indigenous people and “set more local policies in a national context.”4 PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN EN ROUTE TO RED DEER, ALBERTA CREDIT: WOODRUFF / LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA / PA-040715RESTRICTIONS ON USE: NIL COPYRIGHT Colonialism: Colonialism refers to the aggressive seizure of Indigenous lands and the permanent settlement of European A group of students and parents from the Saddle Lake settlers on those lands.5 This has led to the physical, social, Reserve (Alberta), en route to the Methodist-operated cultural and political displacement of Indigenous Peoples.6 Red Deer Indian Industrial School, Alberta, date unknown. Cultural Genocide: According to the • Killing members of the group Truth and Reconciliation Commission • Causing serious bodily or mental harm of Canada, “Cultural genocide is the to members of the group destruction of those structures and • Deliberately inflicting on the group practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage conditions of life calculated to bring in cultural genocide set out to destroy about its physical destruction in whole the political and social institutions of or in part the targeted group. Land is seized, and • Imposing measures intended to pre- populations are forcibly transferred vent births within the group and their movement is restricted. • Forcibly transferring children of the Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders 19 are persecuted, spiritual practices are group to another group.’” forbidden, and objects of spiritual value Gradual Civilization Act (1857): This are confiscated and destroyed. And, act was intended to “encourage the most significantly to the issue at hand, Eskimo identification tag E.6-215 progress of Civilization among the families are disrupted to prevent the Photo reprinted with permission of Indian Tribes in this Province, and the transmission of cultural values and Barry Pottle, https://barrypottle.com. gradual removal of all legal distinctions identity from one generation to the next. between them and Her Majesty’s other In its dealing with Aboriginal people, Canadian Subjects.”20 Indian males over Canada did all these things.”7 Eurocentrism: Eurocentrism “[p] the age of 21 who could read, write and Doctrine of Discovery: The Doctrine resupposes the supremacy of Europe speak in English or French and were of Discovery was a framework that and Europeans in world culture, and of good moral character could apply European explorers used to justify their relates history according to a European to be enfranchised. Under the Gradual claims to territory that was uninhabited perception and experience.”14 Civilization Act, only one individual by Christians. Because Indigenous applied for enfranchisement.21 peoples were not Christian, they were Forced Relocation: First Nations, Métis Indian Act (1876): The Indian Act is deemed nonhuman and thus their land and Inuit have all been subjected to the legislation that governs Indian could be freely taken, a concept known forced relocation at the hands of the status, local First Nations governance, as terra nullius.8 The United Nations has Canadian government. The Reserve First Nations lands and First Nations denounced the Doctrine of Discovery as system was established under the monies.22 It has gone through many “the root of all the discrimination and Indian Act and through treaty in order amendments. The 1880 amendment to the marginalization [I]ndigenous peoples to force First Nations to transition to an 15 Indian Act outlawed spiritual practices faced today.”9 agriculturally based lifestyle. Métis have been forcibly relocated several such as the Sundance23 and Potlatch. Enfranchisement: Enfranchisement is times over the course of history.16 This Spiritually significant ceremonial the termination of legal Indian status, displacement eventually led to their items were confiscated and dispersed rights and identity. Those who became unofficial title of “road allowance to collectors and museums around the enfranchised would then gain full people,” since they established makeshift world.24 The 1914 amendment to the act Canadian citizenship. Enfranchisement communities in the unused crown land criminalized the wearing of regalia and was central to the Canadian government’s next to the side of roads.17 In the 1950s, the performance of “any Indian dance.” assimilation policies toward Status First the Government of Canada wanted The punishment was a fine of $25 and/ Nations people.10 Status Indians could to assert its sovereignty in the Arctic or imprisonment for one month.25 These be forcibly enfranchised for becoming a and reduce administrative costs of bans remained in effect until 1951. The doctor, lawyer or member of the clergy, government programs, and therefore Indian Act remains in force today. or for serving in the military. As well, an began the forcible relocation of Inuit Indian woman who married a non-Status families and communities. Some of Métis Scrip: Scrip was a policy of the man would have her Status taken.11 these moves happened in the middle Canadian government to deal with Métis of winter, meaning that the rocks they land title. “Half-breed” scrip, as it was Eskimo Tag System: From 1945 until the would typically use to build their winter officially known, was granted to those 1970s, Inuit were forced to register with homes, quamma, had already been Métis who met the criteria set out by the the Canadian government and wear an frozen under the snow. Instead they had Government of Canada. It was issued in identification tag around their neck or to make due with their summer shelters, the form of a certificate valued at either wrist at all times. This was due to the tupiq, made out of animal skins, leaving $160 or $240 or acres of land. Throughout fact that the federal government did not them vulnerable to the harsh winter the scrip process, scrip speculators understand Inuit naming systems, and conditions. As a result, people died. Inuit committed widespread fraud. In the the Inuit way of naming did not follow were moved up to 2,000 km from their early 1920s, Canada’s Senate changed the standard English spelling.12 Tags started homes, to much harsher climates and Criminal Code to effectively decriminalize with an E for eastern or W for western, landscapes. Families were separated, and this fraudulent activity. This sparked followed by a four-digit number. The the impacts have been devastating.18 outrage among the Métis, some of whom architect of the system, A G Mackinnon, became politically active as a result.26 was the medical officer at Pangnirtung Genocide: According to the United in the Northwest Territories in 1935. He Nations, “Genocide is defined in Article 2 Pass System: The Red River Resistance said, “As far as the Eskimo is concerned, of the Convention on the Prevention and (1869–1870) and the North West it does seem to me that this names Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Resistance (1880) were used as business is of no great concern to them. (1948) as ‘any of the following acts justification for the pass system, which They have got on nicely for a long time committed with intent to destroy, in was enforced from 1885 until the 1940s. without cluttering up their minds with whole or in part, a national, ethnical, Under the pass system, First Nations such details.”13 racial or religious group, as such: people living on reserve required a Walking Together: Education for Reconciliation written pass from their Indian Agent to NEXT STEPS leave the reserve for any reason. Parents required a pass to visit their children at residential school, and Indian Agents »»» were encouraged to permit no more than Indigenous Peoples and four visits per year.27 Government officials communities continue to feel acknowledged that the pass system the lasting impacts of policies violated Canadian law; the architect of the of assimilation enacted by system, Assistant Indian Commissioner the Canadian government. Hayter Reed said, “I am adopting the This is seen primarily in the system of keeping the Indians on their form of intergenerational respective Reserves and not allowing any trauma, which is when [to] leave them without passes—I know trauma and stress are passed this is hardly supportable by any legal from one generation to the enactment but we must do many things next.40 “Intergenerational
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