Indian Act 150: An Introduction

By Katie Carson, Sarah Kittilsen, and Sean Carleton

Canada 150—the sesquicentennial celebration of the country’s confederation—was marked with pomp and circumstance, as the Federal Government encouraged Canadians across the country to commemorate what it called “one of Canada’s proudest moments.” April 12, 2026 will mark another sesquicentennial: 150 years since the Canadian government passed the Indian Act, the cornerstone of the legislative apparatus that continues to govern Indigenous-settler relations in the country today. While the Act does not hold the same pride of place within Canada’s historical narrative, it too has played, and continues to play, a fundamental role in the trajectory of this settler-colonial state. Its 150th year can also provide an impetus for consideration and reflection.

Indian Act 150 is a year-long series that calls attention to the anniversary of a piece of formative legislation, one that today’s liberal state would rather ignore. It invites scholars, public intellectuals, graduate students, and community members to consider the 150-year-long history of the Indian Act, the histories that have been produced about it, and the future of Indigenous-settler relations in Canada.

Bob Joseph—authour of 21 Things™ You May Not Know About the Indian Act and most recently, 21 Things™ You Need to Know About Indigenous Self Governance—will kick off the series at the end of January. Today, Sean Carleton, a contributing editor with Active History, will offer some introductory comments on the history and historiography of the Indian Act in Canada.

Katie Carson & Sarah Kittilsen, series editors.

The Indian Act at 150: History and Historiography

150 years after its implementation, the Indian Act remains a significant and controversial part of the Canadian government’s legal apparatus. The law is one of the most important components shaping Canada’s settler colonial statecraft. The Indian Act’s effects for First Nations have been – and continue to be – wide-ranging, restrictive, and mostly detrimental.

As an amalgamation of previous colonial laws, the Indian Act became a cornerstone of Canada’s solution to the so-called “Indian Problem.” It introduced a variety of coercive measures designed to undermine and attack the group life of the original peoples of the lands today called Canada.

Canada’s “Indian Affairs” machinery – including its burgeoning bureaucracy composed of civil servants in Ottawa and Indian Agents and field staff across the country – was reorganized to oversee and enforce the law’s deliberate attack on the group life of Indigenous Peoples to facilitate assimilation/elimination, settler capitalist development, and Canadian nation-building. At the same time, Indigenous Peoples navigated the Indian Act’s imposed and often paternalistic power to defend sovereignty, Indigenous lifeways, and more-than-human relations, even if in increasingly circumscribed ways.

Coming into power on April 12, 1876, the Government of Canada was quick to make amendments. Starting in the 1880s, the federal government tightened Canada’s control of First Nations by, for example, limiting the agricultural power of First Nations; banning important cultural and ceremonial practices such as the Potlatch and Sun Dance; enforcing enfranchisement; making the attendance of children at colonial schools compulsory; and prohibiting the forming of political organizations (such as the League of Indians) or the hiring of legal counsel to pursue land claims, among many others. This is to say nothing of the imposition of the band council system, which the Indian Act legitimizes, as a means of undermining and replacing Indigenous governance systems and enforcing Canada’s settler capitalist rule. In the mid-to-late twentieth century, the government amended the Indian Act to remove some of its more draconian elements, but the law continued to directly shape the lives of First Nations.

In the 1960s, the federal government considered eliminating the Indian Act altogether before backtracking due to First Nations’ protest – given the government’s assimilationist ambitions – and there are some Indigenous leaders today who argue it is time to get rid of the Indian Act, though for entirely different reasons. The Indian Act is a double-edged sword, and there is little consensus on what is to be done.

Despite its ongoing significance to the lives of many First Nations, the Indian Act has received somewhat scant and intermittent attention from historians. There are, of course, many excellent scholars who have examined its intricacies and nuances as they relate to various topics, such as agricultural and welfare policies, colonial schooling, and gender discrimination; however, there is surprisingly not a defining scholarly history of the Indian Act and its consequences. Instead, the historiography consists of a series of excellent studies – outlined in the select bibliography below – that all call attention, sometimes in indirect ways, to different aspects of the Indian Act’s impact.

This series, then, seeks to push the Indian Act – during its sesquicentennial, its 150^th anniversary – further into the public spotlight and to show that there is still much to know.

As Canada and Indigenous Peoples reflect on the future ahead, reckoning with the colonial past and present – including the ongoing effects of the Indian Act – will be an important part of trying to build a respectful and reciprocal relationship of reconciliation.

Sean Carleton is a settler historian and associate professor of history and Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba.

This post was edited under the auspices of the project Historicizing Our Times: Histories of Migration and Climate in the Digital Space, which is supported in part by funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

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Select Bibliography^[1]

Brownlie, Jarvis. A Fatherly Eye: Indian Agents, Government Power, and Aboriginal Resistance in Ontario, 1918–1939. University of Toronto, 2003.

Boldt, Menno. Surviving as Indians: The Challenge of Self-Government. University of Toronto Press, 1993.

Cannon, Martin J. Men, Masculinity, and the Indian Act. University of British Columbia Press, 2020.

Cardinal, Harold. The Unjust Society. M.G. Hurtig Publishers, 1969.

Carter, Sarah. Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990.

Gehl, Lynn. Gehl v. Canada: Challenging Sex Discrimination in the Indian Act. University of Regina Press, 2021.

Joseph, Bob. 21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act: Helping Canadians Make Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples a Reality. Indigenous Training Corporation, 2018.

Kelm, Mary-Ellen and Keith D. Smith, eds. Talking Back to the Indian Act: Critical Readings in Settler Colonial Histories. University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Leighton, Douglas. “A Victorian Civil Servant at Work: Lawrence Vankoughnet and the Canadian Indian Department, 1874–1893.” In As Long as the Sun Shines and Water Flows: A Reader in Canadian Native Studies, edited by A.L. Getty and Antoine S. Lussier, 104-119. University of British Columbia Press, 2000.

Leslie, John and Ron Maguire, eds. The Historical Development of the Indian Act, 2^nd edition. Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, 1978.

MacDonald, David B. The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation. University of Toronto Press, 2019.

McCallum, Mary Jane Logan. Indigenous Women, Work, and History, 1940–1980. University of Manitoba Press, 2014.

Miller, J.R. Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Native-Newcomer Relations, 4^th edition. University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Milloy, John S. “The Early Indian Acts: Developmental Strategy and Constitutional Change.” In Sweet Promises: A Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada, edited by J.R. Miller, 145–154. University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Murdoch, Chandra. “Inheritance and the Indian Act: Political Action and Women’s Property on Southern Ontario Indian Reserves, 1857–1900.” In Family and Justice in the Archives, edited by Peter Gossage and Lisa Moore, 43–61. Concordia University Press, 2024.

Nickle, Sarah A. Assembling Unity: Indigenous Politics, Gender, and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs. University of British Columbia, 2019.

Palmater, Pam. Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity. University of British Columbia Press, 2011.

Pettipas, Katherine. Severing the Ties that Bind: Government Repression of Indigenous Religious Ceremonies on the Prairies. University of Manitoba Press, 1994.

Reynolds, Jim. Canada and Colonialism: An Unfinished History. University of British Columbia Press, Purich Books, 2024.

Shewell, Hugh. ‘Enough to Keep Them Alive’: Indian Social Welfare in Canada, 1873–1965. University of Toronto Press, 2004.

Smith, Keith D. Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous communities in Western Canada, 1877–1927. University of British Columbia Press, 2009.

Stonechild, Blair, and Bill Waiser. Loyal till Death: Indians and the North-West Rebellion. Fifth House Ltd., 1997.

Titley, E. Brian. A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada. University of British Columbia Press, 1986.

Titley, Brian. The Indian Commissioners: Agents of the State and Indian Policy in Canada’s Prairie West, 1873–1932. University of Alberta Press, 2009.

Tobias, John L. “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation: An Outline History of Canada’s Indian Policy.” In Sweet Promises: A Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada, edited by J.R. Miller, 127–144. University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Venne, Sharon Helen. Indian Acts and Amendments 1868-1975: An Indexed Collection. Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan, 1981.

Vogt, David. “‘In the Best Interest of the Indians’: An Ethnohistory of the Canadian Department of Indian Affairs, 1897–1913.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Victoria, 2020.

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[1] I wish to thank Jack Nestor, MA student in History at the University of Manitoba, for research assistance and for helping to assemble the selected bibliography.