No need of a chief for this band
The Maritime Mi'kmaq and Federal Electoral Legislation, 1899-1951
Historical and timely, this compelling account reveals how a resilient
Mi’kmaw political culture shaped and limited the impact of
federal political interference in the twentieth century.
Description
In 1899 the Canadian government passed legislation to replace the
community appointment of Mi'kmaw leaders and Mi'kmaw political
practices with the triennial system, a Euro-Canadian system of
democratic band council elections. Officials in Ottawa assumed the
federally mandated and supervised system would redefine Mi'kmaw
politics. They were wrong. Many Mi'kmaw communities rejected or
amended the legislation, while others accepted it only sporadically to
meet specific community needs and goals. Compelling and timely, this
book supports Aboriginal claims to self-governance and complicates
understandings of state power by showing that the Mi'kmaw, rather
than succumbing to imposed political models, retained political
practices that distinguished them from their Euro-Canadian
neighbours.