The Indian Lands Act, 1924
On April 1924, the Canadian parliament passed
The Indian
Lands
Act, 1924 -- An Act for the
settlement of certain
questions between the Governments of Canada and Ontario.
The
architect of the law was the notorious Duncan Campbell Scott --
the same person who expanded the residential school system as
Deputy
Superintendent of Indian Affairs, refused to assist
Indigenous peoples when a tuberculosis epidemic broke out on a
number of reserves and was determined to completely assimilate
Indigenous peoples into Canada as the means of solving the
"Indian Problem."
The
Indian
Lands
Act,
1924 concerns the manner
in
which Canada laid claim to the resources on reserve lands. It is
premised on a Memorandum of Agreement between Charles Stewart,
Superintendent General of Indian Affairs for Canada, and two
Ontario ministers James Lyons, Minister of Lands and Forests and
Charles McCrea, Minister of Mines. This Memorandum of
Agreement was signed in March 1924. Duncan Campbell Scott signed
the memorandum on behalf of Canada. Through the provisions of
this law, the Canadian state set the stage to lay claim to land,
minerals and resources on Indian reserves.
The Indian Lands Act, 1924 notes as the
first
point: "All Indian reserves in the Province of Ontario heretofore
or hereafter set aside shall be administered by the Dominion of
Canada for the benefit of the band or bands of Indian to which
each may have been or may be allotted; portions thereof may, upon
their surrender for the purpose by the said band or bands be
sold, leased or otherwise be disposed of by letter patent under
the Great Seal of Canada..."
Further, "...the Government of the Dominion of
Canada
should
have full power and authority to sell, lease, and convey title in
fee simple or for any less estate to any lands forming part of
any Reserve thereafter surrendered by the Indians..."
Additionally, "Any sale, lease or other
disposition
made...may include or may be limited to the minerals (including
precious metals) contained in or under the lands sold, leased or
otherwise disposed of..."
This act also gave guidelines on any entity
wanting to
enter
reserve land to prospect for minerals: "Any person authorized
under the laws of the Province of Ontario to enter upon land for
the purpose of prospecting for minerals thereupon shall be
permitted to prospect for minerals in any Indian Reserve upon
obtaining permission so to do from the Indian Agent for such
Reserve..."
Under the band council system of governance
imposed by
force
on reserves through the Indian Act, the Chief and Council
reported to the Indian Agent who was the representative of the
Canadian state on a reserve, and were accountable to him, not the
members of their community. Needless to say, there was widespread
resistance to the band council system, which attempted to
displace
age-old traditional forms of governance established by the
Indigenous peoples themselves.
The law also stated that any royalties from such
mining
activities will be shared between Canada and Ontario on an equal
basis. There is no mention in this law of Indigenous peoples
getting any share of the revenues generated from the theft of the
resources in their territories.
The Canadian government brought pressure to bear
on the
reserves in various ways and under the arbitrary rule of the
local Indian Agent many Indigenous peoples lost their livelihoods
because they could not leave the reserve without permission from
the Indian Agent. Little by little band councils were forced to
open their reserves to outside development or lost portions of
their reserve through forced sales.
In recent times, one such case is the Cree
community
of
Attawapiskat where pressure was brought to bear on the band
council and members to permit the South African mining monopoly
De Beers to operate a diamond mine in that community. Since the
mine opened, the community has received a pittance of the
profits,
and promises of jobs for local people have not materialized. The
same pressure is being applied to the communities surrounding the
Ring of Fire in some of the Ojibway and Cree Nations in the
Nishnawbe Aski Nation territory in Northern Ontario.
What took place through The Indian Lands Act,
1924
was the
opposite of what Indigenous leaders understood when they signed
treaties, such as the numbered treaties, with the Canadian state.
The Indigenous peoples never viewed their lands as property to be
bought and sold or that could be forfeited, and those Indigenous
leaders who were forced to sign treaties with Canada never
relinquished their hereditary claims. Today, the organized
resistance of the sovereign Indigenous peoples to attempts by the
Canadian state to impose its will on them and steal their
resources or run pipelines through their territories, is broadly
supported by the Canadian people. They want an end to the crimes
that were, and continue to be, committed against Indigenous
peoples, as the Canadian state continues to serve the biggest
resource monopolies in their plunder of the lands and resources,
violating the hereditary rights of the Indigenous
peoples.
This article was published in
Volume 49 Number 3 - February 2, 2019
Article Link:
The Indian Lands Act, 1924
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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