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The history of indigenous people in canada essays
The history of indigenous people in canada essays
Aboriginals of Canada
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CHC2D3 Culminating First Nations are Aboriginal peoples in Canada who are not Metis or Inuit. They are original inhabitants of Canada that have been treated harshly by the Canadian government. First Nations peoples played a major role in the twentieth century. A defining moment is when Canada passed the Indian Act. Another moment is when Residential schools were built. The third defining moment is the White and Red Paper situation.
The Indian Act was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century because this act gave the government a chance to take control over the lives of First Nations peoples on reserves. They took away First Nations peoples’ rights to govern themselves and they were not allowed to vote. The intention of this
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A man named Duncan Campbell Scott believed that education was the key to assimilation. The goal of the school was to “civilize” the children so they would fit into Canadian society. Children between the ages of 7 to 15 were required to go to school. They were not allowed to speak their language which made them lose touch with their culture. Their situation was really bad that even some children got physically and sexually abused. A residential school survivor by the name Madeleine Dion Stout said, “For a young child, residential school didn’t make much sense… in there; you were mainly shut up, shut out, and shut down. You didn’t really have a voice, you weren’t really heard, and you were shut down emotionally because it was too hard to feel.” Madeleine Dion Stout has showed how residential schools have made a major impact on our country. It has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage, and language. About 150,000 Aboriginal children were taken from their families and were forced to attend school. The last residential school remained open until November 1996. Residential schools have helped shape the nation we are today after Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised to all Aboriginals on June 11, …show more content…
This is because this is the point in time that they have a chance to gain their freedom and rights back. The White Paper is a government document proposing a solution to a problem. In this case, a man named Jean Chretien wanted to end the federal government’s treaty obligations to the First Nations. He wanted to put an end to the Indian Act. This meant that Aboriginal peoples would lose their Indian status, their reserves, and their land claim. Chretien’s mindset was that if they lost their status, they would be treated equally as non-Aboriginal Canadians. A Cree man named Harold Cardinal published a book called “The Unjust Society” where he believed that the White Paper was a form of cultural genocide. In British Columbia, the controversy over the White Paper sparked a new period of political organizing. Three Aboriginal leaders, Rosa Charlie, Philip Paul, and Don Moses held a conference in Kamloops where they could find a response to the White Paper and Aboriginal rights just in general. The Kamloops conference played a major role in Canada’s history because it led to a new creation of a new provincial organization—the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) which was to focus on the solution for land claims. The White and Red Paper situation marks a very important time in the twentieth
The Indian Act is a combination of multiple legislations regarding the Aboriginal people who reside across Canada, such as the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869 (Hanson, n.p.). The Gradual Civilization Act was the Canadian government's attempt to assimilate the aboriginals into the Canadian society in a passive manner, through a method they encouraged called Enfranchisement. Enfranchisement is basically a legal process that allows aboriginals to give up their aboriginal status and accept a Canadian status (Crey, n.p.). This process, while under the Gradual Civilization Act, was still voluntary, but became a forced process when the Indian Act was consolidated in 1876 (Hanson, n.p.). The Gradual Enfranchisement Act introduced in 1869 was a major legislation that intruded with the private lives of the aboriginals. First, it established the “elective band council system” (Hanson, n.p.) that grants th...
Across North America, the scattering of Aboriginal children contributed to damaged identifications with traditional First Nations culture (Alston-O’Connor 2010). Consequently, the Sixties Scoop caused irreversible psychological, emotional and spiritual damage to not only the individual, but to the families and the community too. In the 1950s and 1960s, the government began abolishing the compulsory residential school education among Aboriginal people. The government believed that Aboriginal children could receive a better education if they were integrated into the public school system (Hanson). However, residential schools were later deemed inappropriate because not only were the children taken away from their culture, their families and their people, but the majority of students were abused and neglected....
The impact the Indian Act had on First Nations people at the time this was enacted were that the Aboriginal farmers could not sell their produce without the approval of the Indian agent, a government official responsible for the day-to-day
Residential schools had a negative impact on Aboriginal people, many children suffered greatly. The government had thought Aboriginal people’s history and culture were not worth preserving.This resulted to loss of culture and assimilation, because they were stripped out of their traditional ways, and taken away from their families.Stephen Harper apologized to the former students enrolled in Indian Residential schools on behalf of the government of Canada. What
The Indian Act is made up from the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857 and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act of 1869. The Gradual Civilization Act encouraged the Indian people to give up their status and become a Canadian citizen. The Gradual Enfranchisement Act gave the government full control over the Indian people. They were able to decide everything from who kept their status, received benefits, and even who were able to keep their children. In 1876, these acts together alongside with other rules and regulations formed the Indian Act. The government thought it was best to be able to control every aspect of the First Nations people’s lives. It was stated in annual report of the Department of the Interior Indian Affairs in 1876:
The Indian Residential schools and the assimilating of First Nations people are more than a dark spot in Canada’s history. It was a time of racist leaders, bigoted white men who saw no point in working towards a lasting relationship with ingenious people. Recognition of these past mistakes, denunciation, and prevention steps must be taking intensively. They must be held to the same standard that we hold our current government to today. Without that standard, there is no moving forward. There is no bright future for Canada if we allow these injustices to be swept aside, leaving room for similar mistakes to be made again. We must apply our standards whatever century it was, is, or will be to rebuild trust between peoples, to never allow the abuse to be repeated, and to become the great nation we dream ourselves to be,
“To kill the Indian in the child,” was the prime objective of residential schools (“About the Commission”). With the establishment of residential schools in the 1880s, attending these educational facilities used to be an option (Miller, “Residential Schools”). However, it was not until the government’s time consuming attempts of annihilating the Aboriginal Canadians that, in 1920, residential schools became the new solution to the “Indian problem.” (PMC) From 1920 to 1996, around one hundred fifty thousand Aboriginal Canadians were forcibly removed from their homes to attend residential schools (CBC News). Aboriginal children were isolated from their parents and their communities to rid them of any cultural influence (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Parents who refrained from sending their children to these educational facilities faced the consequence of being arrested (Miller, “Residential Schools”). Upon the Aboriginal children’s arrival into the residential schools, they were stripped of their culture in the government’s attempt to assimilate these children into the predominately white religion, Christianity, and to transition them into the moderating society (Miller, “Residential Schools”). With the closing of residential schools in 1996, these educational facilities left Aboriginal Canadians with lasting negative intergenerational impacts (Miller, “Residential Schools”). The Aboriginals lost their identity, are affected economically, and suffer socially from their experiences.
The Canadian and American governments designed a residential school system to assimilate Indigenous children into Western society by stripping them of their language, cultural practices as well as their traditions. By breaking these children’s ties to their families and communities, as well as forcing them to assimilate into Western society; residential schools were a root cause of many social problems, which even persist within Aboriginal communities today.
Aboriginal people groups depended on an assortment of unmistakable approaches to sort out their political frameworks and establishments prior to contact with Europeans. Later, a considerable amount of these establishments were overlooked or legitimately stifled while the national government endeavored to force a uniform arrangement of limitlessly distinctive Euro-Canadian political goals on Aboriginal social orders. For some Aboriginal people groups, self-government is seen as an approach to recover control over the administration of matters that straightforwardly influence them and to safeguard their social characters. Self-government is alluded to as an inherent right, a previous right established in Aboriginal people groups' long occupation
The creation of the Residential Schools is now looked upon to be a regretful part of Canada’s past. The objective: to assimilate and to isolate First Nations and Aboriginal children so that they could be educated and integrated into Canadian society. However, under the image of morality, present day society views this assimilation as a deliberate form of cultural genocide. From the first school built in 1830 to the last one closed in 1996, Residential Schools were mandatory for First Nations or Aboriginal children and it was illegal for such children to attend any other educational institution. If there was any disobedience on the part of the parents, there would be monetary fines or in the worst case scenario, trouble with Indian Affairs.
Justice has began to commence for many of Canada’s Indigenous people now that considerably one of our Nation’s darkest secrets has been spilled. The Residential School system was a collection of 132 church-run, government-funded boarding schools that was legally required for all Indigenous Canadian children. Canadian Residential Schools ran up until 1996 and, for decades, the secrets from within the walls of the institutions have been hidden. But now, the truth has finally come to light.
The Indian act, since being passed by Parliament in 1876, has been quite the validity test for Aboriginal affairs occurring in Canada. Only a minority of documents in Canadian history have bred as much dismay, anger and debate compared to the Indian Act—but the legislation continues as a central element in the management of Aboriginal affairs in Canada. Aboriginal hatred against current and historic terms of the Indian Act is powerful, but Indigenous governments and politicians stand on different sides of the fence pertaining to value and/or purpose of the legislation. This is not shocking, considering the political cultures and structures of Aboriginal communities have been distorted and created by the imposition of the Indian Act.
This paper supports Thomas Flanagan's argument against Native sovereignty in Canada; through an evaluation of the meanings of sovereignty it is clear that Native sovereignty can not coexist with Canadian sovereignty. Flanagan outlines two main interpretations of sovereignty. Through an analysis of these ideas it is clear that Native Sovereignty in Canada can not coexist with Canadian sovereignty.
First, is because of the attitudes of European Canadians towards aboriginals, which were mostly cruel and inhumane. This was simply because the aboriginals lived a completely different lifestyle compared to European Canadians. Evidence to support this was the statement written by Duncan Campbell Scott, who used to be head of Indian Affairs in Canada
Providing True Reparation: Changes the Government of Canada Must Make in its Current Policies Towards the Addressing Legacy of Residential School Abuse