The Indian Commissioners: Agents of the State and Indian Policy in Canada's Prairie West, 1873-1932.

Frits Pannekoek is an associate professor of heritage studies, director
of information resources at the University of Calgary, and the author of
A Snug Little Flock: The Social Origins of the Riel Resistance of
1869–70.

This book will confirm the worst fears of non-Aboriginal Canadians and verify what Aboriginal Canadians always knew—the Indian Commissioners were, for the most part, a sorry lot and should be held accountable for the even sorrier state of Aboriginal peoples in Western Canada today. The organization of the book is very straightforward - an introduction followed by a chapter on each of the commissars: J.A.N. Provencher described in Donald Smith’s foreword as a “gregarious bon vivant,” David Laird, as having “the look” and disposition of a “country parson,” Edgar Dewdney as a John A. Macdonald lackey, Hayter Reed as an Iron Hearted penny pincher, A.E. Forget as a witty political fence sitter, and William Morris Graham as a civil servant of failed ambition. Hayter Reed (1888-1892) was without a doubt the most odious of the lot. Where he saw inadequate rations, he cut them further as the only way to cultivate a work habit. Like the rest, he believed the West was Ontario’s future frontier and did all he could to contain the Aboriginal people so as to render them a docile labouring class to the new Western Ontarian landowner. Each of the chapters has its own tale to tell, but the stories all connect and illustrate the critical role of the Indian commissioners in pacifying Aboriginal peoples to allow for the economical control of land. Canadian imperialism was always done on the cheap.

If there is a short coming of the book it is that it lacks a theoretical integration. I suspect that this was an original criticism, which the short conclusion is supposed to remedy. It wisely reminds us that the Aboriginal people had agency during this period and did not accept what the commissioners might force or at best persuade. The books is a must-have companion for those interested in nineteenth and early twentieth century Western Canada.