You're probably all familiar with the case of the Stoney Point reserve that
was appropriated in 1942 for a military base. There are some interesting
parallels to a later (60's, I think), similar example up near Sept-Iles,
Quebec. In that case again, there were two reserves close to each other, one
of which was appropriated for a military base. The other one (Uashat) had a
town growing around it and there was an attempt to appropriate it at the
same time and move the people from both reserves onto a newly created one in
between them (called Maliotenam, or now sometimes Mani-Utenam). The people
in Uashat managed to resist being relocated (through some rather clever
strategies), and in the end most of the people relocated to Maliotenam were
from the reserve that had been appropriated for the military base.
Nevertheless, the two reserves were combined into a single administrative
band, and share many of the problems of conflict within the band as the
Stoney Point/Kettle Point conflict.
So my question is - are these two relocations isolated cases of colonialist
structures and attitudes towards First Nations? Or was there collusion
between Indian Affairs and the Dept. of Defence at some level - i.e. was
the Sept-Iles appropriation done after seeing the result of the Ipperwash
one? Are there other examples of similar appropriation/relocation/combining
of reserves? I have heard there is at least one other example in Alberta,
but have no details.
There is also a similar, though in some ways different, example with the
low-level flight testing over Nitassinan (Labrador/Quebec).
If anyone has more thoughts or examples, I'd appreciate if you would please
post them here or send them to me.
Thanks,
Alan
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Comments from NativeNet listowner, Gary Trujillo (gst@gnosys.svle.ma.us):
I'd like to take this opportunity to indicate that the question asked in
this article represents what I think is a good example of the sort of
thing that we are not presently set up to deal with adequately, but that
I hope it might be possible to tackle in future, using means such as those
to which I referred in my recent article ("NativeNet: some ideas to ponder,"
Thu, 13 Jun 1996).
This question is a fairly sophisticated one, because it requires comparing
a number of situations and developing hypotheses about the formulation of
the policies of governments and their underlying rationale. To deal with
the question adequately requires some knowledge of the history of matters
which may have taken place over some period of time and over a wide geo-
graphic area.
Having a discussion of a subject like this one by means of a mailing list
having a general agenda would never work. We have too many subscribers on
the NATIVE-L list, few of which have the expertise or the interest to deal
with this kind of question. However, for a handful of our subscribers,
this question could be very important - and the results of a joint analysis
could be quite valuable if it could be made the basis of a coordinated
effort to inform a general public (possibly by means of more conventional
media) and/or to attempt to influence government policy in such an area.
My hope is that we will soon have the means to quickly and easily set up
channels devoted to specific issues such as the one represented by this
question. Making those channels operate via the World Wide Web enables
the linking of associated background materials which would be essential
for conducting an meaningful analysis. Each discussion could be served
by a moderator who ensures that the conversation remains focussed and who
deals with any problems that might arise. (It might be possible to attach
a mailing list to each channel, depending on there being a person who would
agree to handle any problems that arise, such as undeliverable messages,
which is the thing that makes mailing lists so much work to operate>)
In any event, it is this objective that I'm presently working to achieve.
I am now in the process of crafting the necessary software, and will report
on my progress as it proceeds.
Gary