Assimilation Of Aboriginals In Canada

First Nations is a term used to define Aboriginal people in Canada who are not Métis or Inuit. First Nations people are commonly identified by other names, such as Indians, Natives, Native Canadians, and Native Americans. Using any general term almost always involves an explanation as these names can cause problems. After watching the Ted talk I realized having only one viewpoint to a story can limit the ideas we are able to obtain from it. The Ted talk connects with First Nations as it opens our minds allowing us as viewers to get a new perspective on our prior knowledge. This has led me to question what we are being taught about First Nations and whether it’s the truth.

Over the past decades, Aboriginal people (the original people or indigenous occupants of a particular country), have been oppressed by the Canadian society and continue to live under racism resulting in gender/ class oppression. The history of Colonialism, and Capitalism has played a significant role in the construction and impact of how Aborignal people are treated and viewed presently in the Canadian society. The struggles, injustices, prejudice, and discrimination that have plagued Aboriginal peoples for more than three centuries are still grim realities today. The failures of Canada's racist policies toward Aboriginal peoples are reflected in the high levels of unemployment and poor education.

Canada ­as a nation is known to the world for being loving, courteous, and typically very welcoming of all ethnicities. Nevertheless, the treatment of Canada’s Indigenous population over the past decades, appears to suggest otherwise. Indigenous people have been tormented and oppressed by the Canadian society for hundreds of years and remain to live under discrimination resulting in cultural brutality. This, and more, has caused severe negative cultural consequences, psychological and sociological effects. The history of the seclusion of Indigenous people has played a prominent aspect in the development and impact of how Indigenous people are treated and perceived in today’s society. Unfortunately, our history with respect to the treatment of Indigenous communities is not something in which we should take pride in. The Indian Act of 1876 is an excellent model of how the behavior of racial and cultural superiority attributed to the destruction of Indigenous culture and beliefs. The Indian Act established by the Canadian government is a policy of Aboriginal assimilation which compels Indigenous parents under threat of prosecution to integrate their children into Residential Schools. As a nation, we are reminded by past actions that has prompted the weakening of the identity of Indigenous peoples. Residential schools has also contributed to the annihilation of Indigenous culture which was to kill the Indian in the child by isolating them from the influence of their parents and

Aboriginal-Canadians have an excessive history of mistreatment and discrimination in Canada. Europeans considered Canada’s First Nations as savages, eventually residential schools were created which in extreme cases were comparable to Prisoner of War camps. According to Evelyn Kallen, “Substandard housing breeding disease and death, closed schools due to lack of teachers, heat, and/or running water are only two examples of continuing, dehumanizing life conditions on many reserves” (198). Although, extensive improvements have been made to reservations and Aboriginal rights, more improvement remains necessary. Allan Blakeney stated, “An important starting point of course, is that Aboriginal people in Canada do not, as a group, occupy high

The Aboriginal peoples of Canada had gone through many situations to get to where they are today with their education system. Pain, sorrow, doubt, and hope are all feelings brought to mind when thinking about the history and the future of Aboriginal education. By taking a look at the past, anyone can see that the right to education for Aboriginal peoples has been fought about as early as the 1870s. This is still is a pressing issue today. Elder teachings, residential, reserve and post-secondary schools have all been concerning events of the past as well as the present. Though education has improved for the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, there are still many concerns and needs of reconciliation for the past to improve the future.

Assimilation policy proposed that ‘full blood’ Indigenous people should be allowed to ‘die out’ through a process of natural elimination, while ‘half-castes’ were encouraged to assimilate into the white community. This approach was founded on the assumption of black inferiority and white superiority. It was assumed that Indigenous people would enjoy the same quality of life as white Australians if they adopted European customs and everyone would live together as a single white Australian community. In actuality, assimilation policy further destroyed Indigenous identity, culture and families. It also was justification for the removal of Indigenous children from their

To many people, Canada exemplifies a country that fulfills human rights and equality being the country of ‘freedom’. However, the Canadian government has distorted certain information including poverty that impacts many Aboriginal individuals daily. In theory, it is impossible to effectively analysis the impact that the past has imposed on Aboriginal people in Canada today. With this being said addressed below are several important historical government actions and legislations such as the Indian Act, Royal Proclamation, force segregation on reserves, and residential schooling impacting Aboriginal Canadians social conditions today. Fundamentally my goal is to address the idea that historical events are a crucial factor impacting Aboriginal

Concerns of violent victimization and self-destructive tendencies in Aboriginal communities have become a significant issue in Aboriginal movements worldwide. In Canada, it has taken the specific form of feminist-inspired campaigns for only those Indigenous females that are missing and murdered. The highly vocalized 2015 campaign for the 42nd Canadian Federal Election drew much attention to the fate of missing and murdered Indigenous women. However, the attention on females suggests that the inherent implication that Indigenous men’s attitudes toward Indigenous women are the problem and that the men are not victims of violence themselves. This essay will first acknowledge the chronic problem of violence in the place of Indigenous peoples in first world societies and the continuing social problems that marginalize their position. This paper will then examine the Aboriginal peoples of Canada, the violence in their communities, and whether or not Indigenous men and their masculinities have an appropriate place in the national picture regarding the missing and murdered Indigenous women. I will conclude with a consideration of the extent to which if men do have an appropriate place in the inquiry and which policy recommendations are required to address the issues that Aboriginal people confront.

In the 19th century, The Canadian government believed that it was their job to educate the Aboriginal people in Canada. European settlers felt that the aboriginal people were savage, ignorant, and like children needed guidance, and needed to be “civilized”. Ultimately, they wanted to assimilate the Aboriginal people into Canadian and Christian ways of living life in Canada. The Canadian government came up with a policy called “aggressive assimilation” to be taught at industrial schools that would be run by the churches and government funded. They chose children to go to these schools because they are easier to manipulate and mold than the adults and felt that school was the best way to do so. With the hopes of the assimilated children will teach their children their new way of life and that their traditions and culture will diminish or be completely gone in a few generations. In the 1880’s, the government began to construct the residential schools across Canada. Authorities often would take kids from their home, to isolate them from their family and familiar communities. In 1920 is when the Indian Act came in effect where every Aboriginal child was obligated to attend a residential school and it was illegal for them to go to any other institution.

The Canadian native aboriginals are the original indigenous settlers of North Canada in Canada. They are made up of the Inuit, Metis and the First nation. Through archeological evidence old crow flats seem to the earliest known settlement sites for the aboriginals. Other archeological evidence reveals the following characteristics of the Aboriginal culture: ceremonial architecture, permanent settlement, agriculture and complex social hierarchy. A number of treaties and laws have been enacted amongst the First nation and European immigrants throughout Canada. For instance the Aboriginal self-government right was a step to assimilate them in Canadian society. This allows for a chance to manage

The Residential School System was formed in the 1880’s, and ended in the last few decades of the 20th century. These schools were implemented by the government and aimed to educate aboriginal children by the church’s teaching. The actions taken to integrate aboriginals into Euro-Canadian and Christian ways of a normal Canadian society, were often damaging to the students. This system forced children to separate from their families for a long period of time, and most who attended ended up being abused by those who worked there. Assimilation is inevitable to an extent, but a culture may be able to stay alive while following the nations collective ideas and laws.

Aboriginals have faced histories and centuries of oppression. From a system of state sanctioned apartheid, institutionalized racism, and de facto discrimination, aboriginals across Canada have been marginalized, victimized and alienated. Treated unjustly by federal and provincial governments, and by the legal system, aboriginals faced de jure segregation through policies of assimilation within residential schools, land reserves, and potlatch bans for the intention of dissolving aboriginal cultures into Canadian society. Moreover, under the doctrine of discovery, doctrine of occupation, and doctrine of adverse possession which elevated the rights of Canadians, aboriginals were forced out of their native lands and disenfranchised. To this day, although significant improvements to Aboriginal rights have been made, the tradition continues, as aboriginals still face systemic prejudices and stigmas within greater society and kept out of the bastions of opportunity. Since the affirmation of the Constitution Act in 1982, the court has acquired massive roles within interpreting and concentrating the broad texts of what necessitates aboriginal rights.

In our society, people with different cultures, backgrounds, and religions were considered unequal. One of the many people that were treated unequally in Canadian History were the Aboriginals. Before the war began, Aboriginals were not treated fairly by the Canadian government. Aboriginals struggled to get a permanent job therefore clearly displaying Aboriginals struggling to get the resources they need in order to survive. Canada’s leader ignored this situation and continued to discriminate Aboriginals (Marshall 2). Several times, Aboriginals were being used by their own country to do their dirty jobs. The Canadian government did not want to risk “true Canadian” lives, so they used the Aboriginals. By the 1990’s, one would think that the government would come to their senses and realize that the Aboriginals are just like any other human being. However, this was not the case because the Canadian Government tried stealing and taking Aboriginal belongings for their own needs later on. Ultimately, the Aboriginal people were mainly treated unequally by the Government in the Great War, The Manhattan Project, and the Oka Crisis.

An agreement called Indian Residential Schools Settlement Act is where Native Canadians is taken away from their families and placed in Canadian residential school system during 20th century. That demonstrates the consequences of assimilation in every residential schools. Devaluation of their culture and religion is one of the consequences of imperialism addressed by the policy. Natives are forced to have European culture and leave their own culture to fit in with everybody else; going to a residential school is one of the most common ways of assimilation. Residential Schools in Canada started in 1831, where natives have encountered traumatic, physical and sexual abuse from the schools that were directed by churches. Any communications with

One conspicuous aspect of the assimilation policy was the forcible removal of Aboriginal children from their families and communities. The Indigenous children were removed from their families, as the White Australian government thought that Indigenous children were exposed to immoral influences from their Aboriginal families and communities and were vulnerable from danger, abuse and neglect. These children were taken to missions and reserves, where they spent their childhood in foster care without contact with their family. When the Aboriginal Protection Board officially adopted the policy in 1951, there was an increase in the removal of Aboriginal children from their families. Most