GO rD hIll 500 Years of Indigenous resistance
tion allowed the superintendent general to deprive the traditional
leaders of recognition by stating that the only spokesmen of the
band were those men elected according to...the Indian Act.^40
In 1894, amendments to the Act authorized the forced relocation of Na-
tive children to residential boarding schools, which were seen as superior
to schools on the reserves because they removed the children from the
influence of the Native community. Isolated children in the total con-
trol of Europeans were easier to break; Native languages were forbidden
and all customs, values, religious traditions and even clothing were to be
replaced by European forms. Sexual and physical abuse were common
characteristics of these schools, and their effects have been devastatingly
effective in partially acculturating generations of Native peoples.
The Indian Act followed earlier legislation in that the long-term ob-
jective was the assimilation of Christianized Natives, gradually removing
any “special status” for Native peoples and eliminating reserves and treaty
rights; all of which would make the complete exploitation of the land a
simple task. As part of this strategy of containing and repressing Native
peoples who did not assimilate, and who were thus an obstacle to the
full expansion of Canada, the Indian Act also denied the right to vote to
Native peoples and implemented a pass system similar if not the forerun-
ner to the Pass Laws in the Bantustans of South Africa (it should also be
noted that Asian peoples were denied the right to vote as well and were
subjected to viciously racist campaigns in BC by both the government
and the labour movement; only in 1950 were Native and Asian peoples
given this “illustrious” right).- John L. Tobias, op. cit., pg. 46.