Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877-1927

Canada is regularly presented as a country where liberalism has ensured freedom and equality for all. Yet with the expansion of settlers into the First Nations territories that became southern Alberta and BC, liberalism proved to be an exclusionary rather than inclusionary force. Between 1877 and 1927, government officials, police officers, church representatives, ordinary settlers, and many others operated to exclude and reform Indigenous people. Presenting Anglo-Canadian liberal capitalist values and structures and interests as normal, natural, and beyond reproach devalued virtually every aspect of Indigenous cultures. This book explores the means used to facilitate and justify colonization, their effects on Indigenous economic, political, social, and spiritual lives, and how they were resisted.

About the Author

Keith D. Smith is Chair of the Department of First Nations Studies and teaches in the Department of History at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Reviews

As an introduction to postmodern ideas and analysis, the contribution Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance makes to Canadian Aboriginal history is significant. Sophisticated, thoroughly researched, and readable, it provides a very useful framework for analyzing familiar events in the history of Aboriginal/non-Aboriginal relations in Canada and colonialism everywhere.

HNet, Humanities and Social Sciences Online

Smith concludes that ‘disciplinary surveillance’ of aboriginal people as employed by the federal government has persisted to the present day, despite the evidence of sporadic resistance by individuals and groups. What makes this book even more timely, is that the Canadian government continues to monitor the activities of aboriginal people who resist incursions on their indigenous rights and territories.

BC Studies: The British Columbian Quarterly

Table of Contents

1. Acknowledgements
2. Chapter 1. The Liberal Surveillance Complex
3. Chapter 2. The Transformation of Indigenous Territory
4. Chapter 3. Churches, Police Forces, and the Department of Indian Affairs
5. Chapter 4. Disciplinary Surveillance and the Department of Indian Affairs
6. Chapter 5. The British Columbia Interior and the Treaty 7 Region to 1877
7. Chapter 6. The British Columbia Interior, 1877 to 1927
8. Chapter 7. The Treaty 7 Region After 1877
9. Chapter 8. Exclusionary Liberalism in World War I and Beyond
10. Notes / Bibliography / Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.