Colonization%20and%20Capitalism%20in%20Canada

1
Colonization and Capitalism in Canada

• January 21

2
Overview

• From mercantilism to capitalism, via the process
  of primitive accumulation or accumulation by
  dispossession
• The colonization of Aboriginal land
• The development of a (racialized) labour market

3
The Early Staples

• John Cabot, 1497 led to the European fishery off
  Newfoundland but did little to encourage European
  settlement
• Jacques Cartier, 1534, led to the fur trade of
  the 1600s to 1850 but population growth in New
  France was slow.

4
New France

• 1534 Jacques Cartier explores the east coast.
• 1604 first French colony established in Acadia
• 1608 Samuel de Champlain establishes colony at
  Quebec City

5
New France

• The economy was focused on two activities,
  agriculture and the fur trade.
• The fur trade led to the exploration of much of
  North America and the French claimed not only New
  France, but also the Ohio Valley and down to
  Louisiana.
• Immigration to New France was limited. By the
  time of the Conquest, the population of New
  France was approximately 70 000.

6
Timber, Agriculture and Settlers

• Canada experienced a boom of timber exports to
  Europe in the early 1800s.
• Quebec was divided into Upper and Lower Canada in
  1791, due to the influx of Loyalists.
• By the 1830s, Upper Canada was exporting wheat.

7
The State and Infrastructure Development

• The first half of the 1800s was the era of canal
  building.
• The second half of the 1800s was the era of
  railway building.
• The costs were significant. Even if carried out
  by private corporations, state assistance was
  significant. Often, however, they were either
  carried out by, or taken over by, the state.
• The cost of canal building was one factor in
  unification of UC and LC into Province of Canada
  in 1841. The cost of railway building was one
  reason for Confederation in 1867.

8
From Mercantilism to Capitalism

• Mercantilism involved the buying and selling of
  goods (fish, furs).
• Capitalist relations of production did not exist.
  That is, the development of a wage labour force,
  or emergence of labour as a commodity, had not
  occurred.
• The transition to capitalism in Canada involved
  the development of private property and a
  capitalist labour market.

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Wehave no history of colonialism. So we have
all of the things that many people admire about
the great powers but none of the things that
threaten or bother them,Canada is big enough
to make a difference but not big enough to
threaten anybody. And that is a huge asset if
it's properly used.

• - Stephen Harper, Sept 2009 at G20 meeting

10
The treatment of children in Indian residential
schools is a sad chapter in our history Two
primary objectives of the residential schools
system were to remove and isolate children from
the influence of their homes, families,
traditions and cultures, and to assimilate them
into the dominant culture. These objectives were
based on the assumption aboriginal cultures and
spiritual beliefs were inferior and unequal.
Indeed, some sought, as it was infamously said,
to kill the Indian in the child.

• - Stephen Harper, June 11, 2008, in the House of
  Commons, issuing an apology on behalf of the
  government of Canada for the history of Indian
  residential schools

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An oversimplification, though not much of one,
would be to say that the historical difference
between American and Canadian handling of native
populations was that the United States decimated
theirs by wars, Canada theirs by starvation and
disease.

• - C.E.S. Franks, Indian Policy Canada and the
  United States Compared

12
The Colonization of Aboriginal Land

• Introduction Inequality and Resistance
• Four historical periods of Aboriginal-Settler
  Relations
• Constitutional Issues
• Toward Aboriginal Self-Government

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Who are the Aboriginal People?

• As section 35(2) of the Constitution Act, 1982
  suggests
• the Aboriginal people include the Indian, Inuit
  and Métis people of Canada.

14
Diversity of Aboriginal Peoples

• According to the Assembly of First Nations There
  are over 630 First Nation's communities in
  Canada.
• The Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples
  suggests that there are between 60 and 80
  historically based Aboriginal nations in
  Canada, compared with a thousand or so local
  Aboriginal communities.
• There are 11 major Aboriginal linguistic families
  and over 50 Aboriginal linguistic/cultural groups.

15
Inequality

• Compared to the general population
• Aboriginal people in Canada face much higher
  levels of unemployment and poverty.
• Life expectancy of Aboriginal people in Canada is
  about seven years shorter.
• Aboriginal people face much higher levels of
  incarceration.

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Roots of Inequality

• Aboriginal people do not want pity or handouts.
  They want recognition that these problems are
  largely the result of loss of their lands and
  resources, destruction of their economies and
  social institutions, and denial of their
  nationhood.
• They seek a range of remedies for these
  injustices, but most of all, they seek control of
  their lives. Royal Commission on Aboriginal
  Peoples

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The Legacy of Colonialism

• Canada developed as a colonial project.
• Europeans and the Aboriginal people developed the
  fur trade in partnership.
• As agricultural settlement replaced the fur trade
  in importance, the Aboriginal people were
  increasingly pushed off the land. Governments
  then sought to assimilate the Natives.
• Today, Canada is being pushed to address the
  legacy of colonialism, cultural genocide, and the
  displacement of Aboriginal people from their
  Native land.

18
Native Resistance and Protest

• To cite just three recent examples of disputes
  over on-going Native rights and land claims
• From Dec. 2002 until June 2008, members of the
  Grassy Narrows First Nation blockaded a logging
  road near Slant Lake, ON.
• http//freegrassy.org/
• http//www.amnesty.ca/grassy_narrows/
• Since Feb. 2006, Natives have been occupying a
  proposed building site in Caledonia, ON near
  Hamilton.
• From 2007 until Dec. 2009, the Native community
  of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) struggled to
  prevent mining activity near Big Trout Lake.
• http//www.miningwatch.ca/en/victory-ki-expensive
  -lesson-ontario

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Dudley George Ipperwash Inquiry

• Dudley George, an unarmed Anishinabek Native, was
  shot and killed on Sept. 6, 1995 during a police
  raid to remove native protesters from Ipperwash
  Provincial Park.
• The protesters wanted Camp Ipperwash, formerly
  the Stony Point reserve, to be returned to Stony
  Point descendants.  The land had been taken by
  the government in 1942 and converted into a
  military training camp.

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Dudley George Ipperwash Inquiry

• A judge ruled that the officer knew George was
  unarmed when he shot him. The officer was found
  guilty of criminal negligence causing death, was
  given 180 hours of community service (no house
  arrest or jail time).
• The Ipperwash Inquiry concluded that the Premier,
  the Attorney General and OPP officers made racist
  comments about the Native protesters during the
  occupation. Furthermore, The premiers desire to
  seek a quick resolution closed off other options
  endorsed by civil servants... thereby creating a
  barrier to peaceful resolution.
• http//www.ipperwashinquiry.ca/

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Ipperwash Inquiry Commissioner Justice Sidney
Linden

• The single biggest source of frustration,
  distrust, and ill-feeling among Aboriginal People
  in Ontario is our failure to deal in a just and
  expeditious way with breaches of treaty and other
  legal obligations to First Nations.
• If the governments of Ontario and Canada want to
  avoid future confrontations they will have to
  deal with land and treaty claims effectively and
  fairly.

22
Ipperwash Inquiry Commissioner Justice Sidney
Linden

• The term land claims is the source of
  considerable misunderstanding among members of
  the public. It seems to suggest to many people,
  that first nations are asking governments to give
  them more land, but that is not the case.
• These claims ask governments to fulfill the
  promises they made to first nations about land
  and resources in the past and to compensate them
  for their failure to do so.

23
Ipperwash Inquiry Commissioner Justice Sidney
Linden

• Every Ontarian should understand that this
  province and our country were built upon the
  treaties negotiated with our first nations, and
  that everyone shares the benefits and obligations
  of those treaties.
• Every Ontarian should also realize that treaties
  are not historical artifacts from some distant
  time. They remain vitally important and relevant
  today.

24
Four historical periods

• Stage 1 Separate Worlds
• Stage 2 Contact and Cooperation
• Stage 3 Displacement and Assimilation
• Stage 4 Negotiation and Renewal

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Stage 1 Separate Worlds

• This land now called Canada was not empty before
  the Europeans came.
• The Americas were not, as the Europeans told
  themselves when they arrived, terra nullius -
  empty land. - RCAP
• A variety of complex societies existed, developed
  and thrived on this continent.

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Stage 2 Contact

• Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people have had
  sustained contact in the Northern half of North
  America for some 500 years, at least in some
  areas.

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Nation to Nation

• The Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared that in
  Indian Territory, the purchase or settlement of
  land was forbidden without Crown approval and a
  treaty between the British Crown and the
  Aboriginal people.
• The Constitution Act, 1982 reaffirms the Royal
  Proclamation of 1763.

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The Treaty Process

• The two sides came away with very different
  interpretations of what had been agreed to.
• From the European perspective, the Natives
  abandoned their claim to the land or ceded
  ownership in exchange for smaller reserves of
  land, cash, supplies and fishing and hunting
  rights.
• From the Native perspective, not sharing that
  sense of land as property, this was rather
  inconceivable. They thought they had agreed to
  share the land.

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(No Transcript)
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The Treaties

• Canadian Encyclopedia
• Royal Proclamation of 1763
• Indian Treaties
• Canada in the Making
• Aboriginals Treaties and Relations
• Atlas of Canada
• Historical Indian Treaties, 1725-1923

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The Legacy of the Treaties

• Significant sections of Canada (i.e. Native land)
  were not covered by treaties.
• In many cases, the treaties were not lived up to
  by the settlers and the Crown (the Canadian
  government).
• Where the Natives did retain land by treaty or by
  tradition, it has been encroached upon over the
  years by settlers, governments and corporations.

32
Primitive Accumulation

• Capitalism is premised on the existence of
  private property and wage labour
• The transformation of non-capitalist into
  capitalist relations of production was described
  by Marx as the process of primitive
  accumulation
• Contemporary Marxist theorist, David Harvey has
  used the term, accumulation by dispossession.

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Primitive Accumulation

• The separation of the Aboriginal Peoples from the
  land and the transformation of that land into
  private property was an aspect of the process of
  primitive accumulation (or accumulation by
  dispossession) in Canada.

34
Stage 3 Displacement and Assimilation

• Historically, the Canadian state has sought to
  assimilate the First Nations by suppressing
  Native languages, cultures and traditions.
• From the 1840s to the 1970s, Native children were
  often placed in residential schools to be
  assimilated into the dominant culture.

35
Paternalism

• The lives of Aboriginal peoples have been tightly
  regulated by the state through the Indian Act and
  related regulations.
• The Indian Act was passed by the federal
  government in 1876, but the approach dates back
  to the 1850s including the Gradual Civilization
  Act of 1857.

36
The Indian Act

• gave the federal government power to define who
  was recognized as an Indian.
• included provisions for suitable Indians to
  become full citizens upon assimilation.
• imposed band councils upon Natives, replacing
  traditional leadership structures.
• allowed the federal government to veto band
  council decisions.
• restricted Indian movement.
• outlawed Native traditions and ceremonies.
• from 1927 to 1951 did not allow Aboriginal people
  to hire lawyers to protect their claims.

37
The Right to Vote

• Status Indians received the right to vote in
  1960.

38
1969 White Paper

• Pierre Trudeau and Indian Affairs Minister Jean
  Chrétien issued a Statement of the Government of
  Canada on Indian Policy, 1969.
• It proposed to get rid of Indian Act and Indian
  Status and treat Aboriginals the same as other
  Canadians.
• Natives saw this as a proposal for assimilation
  and reacted strongly against it. The proposal was
  dropped.

39
Stage 4 Negotiation and Renewal

• Native Rights Movement
• Inspired by the civil rights movement in the US,
  other social movements in the 1960s, and the
  federal White Paper, Native people in Canada
  became more politically organized and mobilized
  in the 60s and 70s.

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Legal Challenges

• Since the early 1970s, Aboriginal people have
  been seeking recognition and protection of their
  rights through the courts.
• Some significant progress has been made but
  Native victories are always partial and tenuous.

41
Constitution Act, 1982

• Despite previous promises the First Nations were
  not allowed to participate in the negotiations
  over the patriation of the constitution.
• Through their protests and the help of political
  allies, Natives managed to get their existing
  aboriginal and treaty rightsrecognized and
  affirmed in the constitution.
• They also received a commitment to further
  constitutional discussions on Aboriginal issues.

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Unsuccessful Constitutional Negotiations

• In 1983, 1984, 1985 and 1987 constitutional
  conferences were held that included
  representatives of the Aboriginal people.
• An amendment to the Constitution was passed in
  1983 that gave further recognition of Aboriginal
  land-claim agreements, protected the rights of
  Native women and recognized that Natives should
  be consulted before any changes to the
  constitution that affected Native people.
• The final 3 conferences on aboriginal
  self-government failed to reach an agreement.

43
Meech Lake Accord

• A proposed constitutional amendment agreed to by
  the First Ministers in 1987 to address Quebecs
  demands.
• Native leaders and Territorial leaders were not
  involved nor their interests included.
• Native opposition helped defeat the accord.
• Native MLA Elijah Harper blocked the passage of
  the accord in the Manitoba legislature, which was
  the final step in its death.

44
Oka/Kanesatake

• In the summer of 1990, near the town of Oka,
  Quebec there was a standoff between the Mohawks
  of Kanesatake and the Quebec provincial police
  and then the Canadian Armed Forces.
• The Mohawks received the support of Natives (and
  many non-Natives) across the country.
• CBC Archives The Oka Crisis

45
Charlottetown Accord

• The Native opposition to Meech and the Oka
  standoff raised the profile of Native issues.
• Native leaders were involved in the negotiation
  of the Charlottetown Accord.
• The accord included an agreement on entrenching
  self-government as a third order of government
  and numerous provisions for special
  representation of Natives within federal
  political institutions
• but the accord was rejected in national
  referendum even by Native voters.

46
Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP)

• was formed in 1991 in response to failure of
  Meech and the crisis at Oka.
• The Commission recommended that a renewed
  relationship between Aboriginal and
  non-Aboriginal people in Canada be established on
  the basis of justice and fairness.

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RCAP recommendation

• The right of self-determination is vested in all
  the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. By virtue of
  this right, Aboriginal peoples are entitled to
  negotiate freely the terms of their relationship
  with Canada and to establish governmental
  structures that they consider appropriate for
  their needs.

48
Aboriginal Self-Government

• the notion of aboriginal self-government
  expresses the desire of Aboriginal people to
  control their own destiny, to run their own lives
  and communities, to achieve self-reliance and
  protect their cultures and identities for future
  generations.

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Self-Government

• Disagreement over the extent of powers and degree
  of autonomy.
• Ensuring financial resources and a significant
  land base for Native self-government is both
  crucial and controversial.

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Conclusion

• Despite the challenges they face, Aboriginal
  Peoples have forced their way onto the political
  agenda in a way that can not be ignored.
• Canadian society as a whole is divided over how
  to respond to Aboriginal demands and issues.
• Colonial attitudes and structures remain powerful
  forces against reconciliation and justice for
  Aboriginal people.