Indian Act Essay

493 Words2 Pages
The Indian Act When Canada became a country the Indian act was passed, which gave the government power to control First Nations. They put restrictions on land ownership, banned the potlatch and any other ceremonies, brought in residential schools, and discriminated all First Nations in an attempt to “civilize”, and prepare them for mainstream society. First Nation people were not permitted to own any land or sell the land they used to have before the Indian act, which put restrictions on owning or running a business. Reserves were meant to be temporary lasting until First Nations were assimilated in the mainstream society, also if an Indian woman married a white man she would lose her status and have to sell or give up any land she owned on the reserve and would never be aloud to live on the reserve again. When potlatches and other ceremonies were banned the First Nations lost a lot of their culture and oral history which led to big problems with the traditional governance system. Many artifacts were confiscated, and a lot of people got arrested for practicing illegal ceremonies. One of the worst things to happen to the First Nations was residential schools. They were designed by the churches to teach the values and language of the colonizing culture, by taking the children away from their families and making it mandatory to attend the schools. The children lost their culture, language, and spiritual practices. The church didn’t receive a lot of funding so the students did class room work for half of the day and doing practical things like cooking, cleaning, and gardening to keep the school going and themselves feed, and if they didn’t obey their teachers most would experience abuse.
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