#status indians

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Full Citizenship For All Indians,” British Daily Whig. March 9, 1920. Page 06. --- New Federal Act Calls For Compulsory Enfranchisement and Education --- Ottawa, March 9. - To bring the Indian, to mature citizenship is the object of the new Indian act to be placed before parliament this session by Hon. Arthur Meighen. It provides for the evolution of the Indians from wards of the crown to responsible and independent citizens by compulsory enfranchisement and compulsory education. Both in civil life and in military effort the Indian has shown capacity for responsible citizenship and the present act will release him from hampering tribal control, and permit his acquirement of equality and independence. [AL: The Indian Act was amended in 1920 to make it mandatory for Aboriginal parents to send their children to Indian residential school. (Indian Act, 1920 s.10(1)) It was also amended to allow the Department of Indian Affairs to ban hereditary rule of bands. Further amended to allow for the involuntary enfranchisement (and loss of treaty rights) of any status Indian considered fit by the Department of Indian Affairs, without the possession of land previously required for those living off reserve.]

[aprilocity]

Neocolonialism altered the attitude and aspirations of Indian and Métis people. One significant way this was done was through education. In Regina, the government supported Status Indians to establish their own college, which grants Bachelor Degrees in several disciplines. Similarly, there are Native Studies Departments at almost every large university in Canada and many teacher institutes offer special programs to train Natives to be teachers. But their perspectives and ideology are quite consistent with mainstream white supremacy courses. There are also university programs to train Aboriginals in law, administration and commerce. All of these courses indoctrinate Native students to conservative middle class ideologies. They are orientated toward creating an Aboriginal bourgeois. …In short…giving some benefits of the dominant society to a small privileged minority of Aboriginals in return for their help in pacifying the majority.

Howard Adams, Tortured People: The Politics of Colonization