Indian Act Essay

Canada would not be Canada if it were not for the land and wealth that indigenous peoples were deprived of in order for this country to grow. Palmater mentions that the land that rightfully belonged to the Indigenous peoples was unethically taken away from them for the purpose of the country’s farms, oil extraction, mining, and overall development. Both Bonspiel and Kassam argue that this was a cause of the British North America Act of July 1, 1867, which did not declare Canadian independence from Britain, and still allowed them to mistreat the Indigenous peoples by stealing their lands, territories, and resources. A nomadic lifestyle would presumably make one a disqualifier from land title, however even those indigenous nations that were not nomadic, were not Christian, a religion in which Europeans believed was a necessity to own land (Jhappan 6). Palmater also mentions that the Indian Act of 1876 was a large contributor to land claims. The Indian Act made it illegal for Indians to …show more content…
The act also gave the government the power to remove Aboriginal peoples from reserves near towns with more than 8,000 people, and the power to seize parts of the Indigenous reserves for roads, railways, and other forms of public works (Jhappan, 22). The first time any real violence broke out as a result of land claims, was in 1990, when the municipal council decided to expand a golf course on land owned by the Mohawks as sacred territory. This led to an armed standoff between Mohawk warriors and the Quebec provincial police, in which one police offer was killed (Cochrane et al. 78). Bonspiel argues that Indigenous peoples do not have true sovereignty over their territory, because the power of the land still rests highly in the hands of the Crown. This issue proves that Indigenous rights and land claims are very closely intertwined; thus, making it evident that the appropriation of their land was a result of discrimination and lack of sovereignty during the pre-confederation