Gradual Civilization Act Case Study

The relationship between the government and its Indigenous charges had been wrought with violence, suppression, and exclusion prior to the BNA Act, this did not change once Confederation had been declared . The Gradual Civilization Act and the Gradual Enfranchisement Act, products of the British colonial era, were combined to create the Indian Act of 1876 (First Nations Studies Program , UBC, 2009). The Act outlines the role the federal government is to play in essentially every aspect of an Indian’s life, from who may have their name on the Indian Register to a ban on the hiring of legal council for the purpose of land claims, introduced in 1927 (Mathias & Yabsley, 1991). The residential schools that many indigenous children were forced to attend attempted to ensure that “they were made to feel shame for their indianness. They were forcefully encouraged to become white” (Mathias & Yabsley, 1991). This was not denied by

In the early years of use children were rapidly dying of preventable diseases such as tuberculosis due to a lack of effective heating in schools and poor ventilation (Bryce, 1907). This was not unknown to the Canadian government: in 1907 the Bryce Report was given to Members of Parliament and the churches involved in the ‘care’ of the children attending their schools (Wattam, 2016). Dr. Peter Bryce, a Medical Inspector to the Department of the Interior and Indian Affairs had found in his investigation that “of one school with an absolutely accurate statement, 69 per cent of ex-pupils are dead, and that everywhere the almost invariable cause of death given is tuberculosis (Bryce, 1907, p.18). The report enacted little action on the part of the Department of Indian Affairs despite influential members of the public such as the Honorable Samuel Hugh Blake speaking out about the brutal conditions “The appalling number of deaths among the younger children appeals loudly to the guardians of our