Negative Effects On Aboriginal People

The history of Canada’s Aboriginal people is a rich but tumultuous one, rife with conflict, but also full of valuable information we can emulate in our lives. Aboriginal people is the name for the original inhabitants of North America and their descendants. Though it’s unfortunate that Aboriginals, mostly those living on reservations, are seen as drunkards. Able to satisfy all of their material and spiritual needs through resources of the natural world around them. White privilege has negatively impacted Aboriginal peoples living on reservations through oppression, marginalization, and degradation.

It would be very remiss of me if I did not touch on the negative impact colonization had on Aboriginals living on reserves. Their land was

Through legislature the people with the power, the British, would attempt to civilize First Nations. To assimilate the minority, because just by being so means your cultures and values are less than mine. In the 1820s the colonial administrations first attempt at assimilation took place at Lake Simcoe in Upper Canada. A group of Aboriginals were encouraged to colonial-style village where they’d be taught agriculture and advised to become Christians. Because of poor management, underfunding, a lack of understanding Aboriginals cultures and values, the experiment was a big failure. It most certainly did not stop there. In 1876 the Canadian government introduced the Indian Act. It is “…the principal statute through which the federal government administers Indian status, local First Nations governments and the management of reserve land and communal monies” (Parrot, 2006). The First Nations have to be given their Indian Status, a legal acknowledgment of a person’s First Nation heritage. That alone shows the difference between the government, and the Aboriginals living on reservations. The difference between First Nations and the Canadian government, in this case, quite aptly shows their relations of power. “Those in society with the most power – however defined- are in the strongest position to define the realities of difference and thereby create and recreate systems of dominance and power that determine where and how important resources like income, wealth, and access to education and health care are distributed” (Perry, 2011, p.24) Which means that the powerful Canadian government can oppress the minority Native Indians living on reserves through this very controlling legislature. Moreover, the language isn’t quite right either. To elaborate, the use of the word ‘Indian’ is commonly seen as derogatory. This may be obvious bigotry, which is “…the derogatory language that is