In 1899 the Canadian government passed legislation to replace theappointment of Mi’kmaw leaders and Mi’kmaw politicalpractices with the triennial system, a Euro-Canadian system ofdemocratic band council elections. Officials in Ottawa assumed thefederally mandated and supervised system would redefine Mi’kmawpolitics. They were wrong.
Drawing on reports and correspondence of the Department of IndianAffairs, Martha Walls details the rich life of Mi’kmaw politicsbetween 1899 and 1951. She shows that many Mi’kmaw communitiesrejected, ignored, or amended federal electoral legislation, whileothers accepted it only sporadically, not in acquiescence toOttawa’s assimilative project but to meet specific communityneeds and goals. Compelling and timely, this book supports Aboriginalclaims to self-governance and complicates understandings of state powerby showing that the Mi’kmaw, rather than succumbing to imposedpolitical models, retained political practices that distinguished themfrom their Euro-Canadian neighbours.
