Subjugating the Indigenous Peoples after the War of 1812

For the Indigenous peoples in Canadian territory, Confederation was simply a continuation of the colonialist subjugation they had been experiencing since the end of the War of 1812. The idea of involving them in the construction of a new political community never occurred to Confederation's architects. The only mention of Indigenous peoples in Canada's new Constitution was in section 91, listing the exclusive legislative powers assigned to the federal Parliament. In this constitutional instrument Indians were simply a subject matter of laws made by a legislature in which they had no representation.

 

--Peter H. Russell, Canada's Odyssey: A Country Based on Incomplete Conquests (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 10.