“Anyone not on the list might as well be dead”: Aboriginal Peoples and the Censuses of Canada, 1851–1916

• Main Author: Hamilton, Michelle A.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarship@Western 2007
• Subjects: Aboriginal Peoples; Census; Canada; History; Indian; First Nations; Premières Nations
• Online Access: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/historypub/96; http://www.erudit.org/revue/jcha/2007/v18/n1/018254ar.html?vue=resume

The enumeration of First Nations and Métis peoples in Canada must be considered differently from other ethnic minorities because of their colonial relationship with the state. Over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Aboriginal peoples in Canada became increasingly subject to a separate regulatory body, the Department of Indian Affairs, and legislation such as the Indian Act, both of which affected the information recorded by the census. As the census extended to Canada’s north and west, Indian Affairs officials often acted as census enumerators, and, consequently, its creation of the legal categories of Métis and status Indian blurred the ethnic definitions laid out by the census instructions. Some Aboriginal peoples viewed the census as part of the ongoing process of their nation-to-nation relationship with the British Crown or the Canadian government, but many refused to cooperate with enumerators, seeing them as part of the colonial order which Indian Affairs attempted to impose upon them. Because the public use samples of census data being released by various Canadian universities will result in new social history research, scholars need to understand the ties between colonialism and the enumeration of Aboriginal peoples in order to interpret the data. L’énumération des peuples des Premières Nations et des Métis au Canada doit être considérée autrement que celle des autres minorités ethniques, en raison de leur relation coloniale avec l’État. Au cours du dix-neuvième siècle et au début du vingtième siècle, les Autochtones au Canada sont devenus de plus en plus assujettis à un organisme de réglementation distinct, le ministère des Affaires indiennes, et à la législation comme la Loi sur les Indiens, qui ont tous deux eu une incidence sur les renseignements consignés au moyen du recensement. Comme le recensement s’étendait au nord et à l’est du Canada, les agents des Affaires indiennes agissaient souvent à titre d’énumérateurs du recensement et par conséquent, la création des catégories légales de ...