Our Land: Native Rights in Canada

J.R. (Jim) Miller is Canada Research Chair of History at the University
of Saskatchewan and the author of Reflections on Native-Newcomer
Relations: Selected Essays and Lethal Legacy: Current Native
Controversies in Canada.

Donald Purich, Director of the University of Saskatchewan’s Native Law Centre, provides a useful introduction to the complicated area of native issues in Canada in Our Land. He summarizes Indian-European relations, the emergence of treaties and reserves, the administration of policies aimed at the assimilation of native peoples, and the contemporary debates over constitutional, economic, and legal matters. In general, Our Land is based on previously published works by other scholars, but frequent use is also made of primary documents from both the Canadian and Indian governments.

Our Land is strongest on the most contemporary topics. Its brief survey of relations after the coming of the Europeans is somewhat marred by a tendency to portray the indigenous peoples as passive objects on whom the unscrupulous new-comers worked their designs. This portrayal is at odds with the most recent work of fur trade and military historians, who see the Indians as agents who shaped the relationship just as much as did the Europeans. Once Purich passes Confederation his touch is surer. His analysis of government paternalism under the Indian Act perhaps exaggerates the effectiveness of Ottawa’s control over native peoples, and it errs in claiming that graduation from university or entry into a learned profession automatically propelled an Indian into enfranchisement and loss of aboriginal status (p. 127). However, the treatment of twentieth-century topics — particularly Métis matters and the issue of aboriginal self-government — is first-rate.

Our Land is a valuable introduction to the complicated world of native affairs in Canada. Everyone interested in these matters is in Donald Purich’s debt.