Lecture 5 - Assimilation Flashcards
Assimilation
referred to the cultural and behavioral change of Indians such that they would be culturally indistinguishable from other Canadians. The charge of ‘cultural genocide’, while serious in its implications, is not inappropriate
Assimilation and Government - Indian Act
- Adopted into law in 1876
- Despite having multiple amendments made to the policy, it has an “explicit goal to control every facet of life on reserves”, and control and assimilate Indigenous peoples into Western culture (Fast & Collin-Vezina, 2019, p. 168).
- Some of the ways the Indian Act achieves its goals by:
- Controls Indigenous status
- Land displacement
- Limits trade
- Oppresses cultural practices
The Indian Act defines indianness
- Between 1876 and 1985 one’s “Indianness” was traced through the male line.
- Indian women who married non-Indians ceased to be Indians under the Act. These women were not Indians according to the Act, but neither were they considered to be Canadian citizens between 1876 and 1960.
- Indian men could not lose status through marriage, in fact, if they married non-status women, those women GAINED status under the Act.
In 1985, a revision to the Indian Act (Section 12(b)) was made
as this policy conflicted with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The revision, Bill C-31, allowed for
Indigenous women (who married non-Indigenous men) to reapply and regain their status.
Many women and families who regained their status were
not necessarily welcomed back to their communities (many were unknown to their communities as a result of having lived off reserves for many years).
Bill C-31 was developed to ensure that
eligible children and grandchildren of women who lost their status become entitled to registration (Indian status).
It was estimated that approximately ________ people would become entitled to registration.
45,000
Section 86(1), sought to disenfranchise
any Indian who obtained a degree, or became a doctor, lawyer, or clergy member
Any Indian person wishing to pursue higher education risked losing
his/her status as an Indian, including all benefits such as living on the reservation, inheriting property, or even being buried on the reservation.
Another way that one’s Indigenousness was determined was through the ________________, a complex formula outlined in the legislation of the Indian Act.
Blood Quantum Formula
Assimilation and Government - Residential Schools
- Used to destroy cultural values, beliefs, and languages.
- Chronically underfunded, contained unsanitary conditions, caused health epidemics and hundreds of child deaths
- Extensive physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
- “Kill the Indian in the child.”
___________________ pressured the federal government to fulfill the educational clauses in the numbered treaties as quickly as possible.
The Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches
______ , ____________________ government assigned Nicholas Flood Davin to report on the Industrial Schools in the United States.
In 1879, Sir John A. Macdonald’s
Nicholas Flood Davin recommendations
called for four centrally based industrial boarding schools that would teach the arts, crafts and industrial skills of a modern economy.
The so called ‘problem’ was not so much about the First Nations people themselves, but
about the responsibility the Crown had in terms of its treaty obligations and fiduciary duty to protect and act in the best interests of First Nations people.
As long as First Nations people remained tied to their culture and traditions, the Crown
and later the Federal Government would have to uphold its obligations and duties to First Nations descendants.
The removal policies are seen in the compulsory attendance policy at the residential schools, introduced in
1894
After ______, the Government and church worked together, enforce this policy by ensuring children of school age were going to the schools.
1920
Pedagogy
change learning and education from holistic to western
Paganism
needed to be christianized
Culture
needed to take on “white western’ values
Appearance
needed to “look” more like white people
Language
needed to learn English or french; weren’t allowed to speak Indigenous languages
Between 1800 and 1990 over ____ residential school
130
1 out of 6 children between the ages of _________ attended these schools
6 and 15
By 1940s about 8,000 children were enrolled in _____ schools
76
Assimilation and the Canadian government – The “Sixties Scoop”
refers to a time when thousands of First Nations children were removed from their parents and placed into the foster cares system
Through changes in the Indian Act, social workers received a legal
mandate to enter reserves and remove Indigenous children from their parents.
Justifications were made to warrant the removal of children from a family. Two common justifications were on the basis of:
- Income
- Christian beliefs
Assimilation and the Canadian Government – Sterilization
In the US, between 1973-1976, 3406 involuntary sterilizations occurred in just 3 Indian Health Services hospitals.
- Performed through coercion, force, and sometimes without the patient’s knowledge.
Estimated between one third and one half of Native American women who were of child-bearing age were sterilized during this time in the United States
“Genocide” United Nations (1994) definition
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
How much of the UN genocide condition did Canada’s policies meet
All of them
“Purpose” of the Residential Schools System
Pedagogy
Paganism
Culture
Appearance
Language
