21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality

by Bob Joseph

In reality, there was a foregone conclusion that Indians would simply die out, cease to exist, thereby absolving the government of any financial responsibility and giving clear access to the lands reserved for Indians.

Imposing European-style elections was designed for assimilation—to remake traditional cultures in the image of the colonizers.

The Indian Act disrespected, ignored, and undermined the role of women in many ways. This dissolution of women’s stature, coupled with the abuses of the residential school system, has been a significant contributor to the vulnerability of Indigenous women.

The federal government’s Indian Act policies during the 19th century were primarily concerned with assimilation. One aspect of the assimilation process was the renaming of the entire population for the purpose of registering Indians; this was partly to extinguish traditional ties and partly because Euro-Canadians found many of the names confusing and difficult to pronounce.

Traditionally, Indians had neither a Christian name nor a surname. They had hereditary names, spirit names, family names, clan names, animal names, or nicknames.

Indians would often consume their alcohol rapidly to avoid being arrested and fined. This led to the myth, which continues today, that Indians can’t tolerate alcohol.

Richard Thatcher, a sociologist who studied problem drinking in First Nations communities for over 20 years, has shown that most populations that are “dissembled by colonialism experience drug and alcohol problems.” He has observed that it takes many generations to resolve these problems.

The concept of establishing rank by one’s ability to share wealth rather than establish rank by holding on to wealth was alien to Europeans.

Prime Minister John A. Macdonald said to the House of Commons in 1883: When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write, his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write. It has been strongly pressed on myself, as the head of the Department, that Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.15

Mary Courchene, a student at the residential schools at Fort Alexander in Manitoba and Lebret in Saskatchewan, describes the alienation she felt when she returned home: “And I looked at my dad, I looked at my mom, I looked at my dad again. You know what? I hated them. I just absolutely hated my own parents. Not because I thought they abandoned me; I hated their brown faces. I hated them because they were Indians.”