People of Terra Nullius: Betrayal and Rebirth in Aboriginal Canada

John Van West is a policy analyst at the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

In the author’s words, this book distils “one man’s education in
twenty five years of meeting, talking to and learning from Aboriginal
people in Canada.” It provides us with an extraordinary understanding
of how the “European invasion” and the policies of French- and
English-settler governments “wrapped around aboriginal people like
tentacles of an octopus, squeezing the life out of them.”

With surgical precision, Richardson tells us how this was accomplished,
in the final instance, through the Indian Act. This act has
paternalistically exercised control over almost every conceivable aspect
of aboriginal life, and excepting some devolution of powers to First
Nations in more recent times, it continues to regulate the everyday
lives of Native people. Richardson tells us that at various times the
act placed on Indian assemblies, movements, and speech restrictions not
unlike those measures “later used by the apartheid system in South
Africa.” The potlatch, for example, was outlawed as early as 1884,
and, in 1927, it became a criminal offence for any lawyer to receive
money for prosecuting a claim on behalf of Indian people. These
oppressive measures, incredibly, were not repealed until 1951.

Although shocking, this story is not written without hope. It tells of
the rebirth and empowerment that will eventually enable Canada’s First
Nations to reassert governance over lands and resources taken through
intervening history. This compelling book, enriched by maps and
black-and-white illustrations, should be read by educators and included
as required reading in core curriculum studies. Above all else, it
should be read by government officials and policy-makers involved in
Native Affairs, to assist them in the process of making whole the lives
of Canada’s Native people.