“There are no shortcuts”: The Long Road to Treaty 7 Education

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Date
2017-09-14Author
Little, Tarisa D 1987-
ORCID
0000-0002-0555-7719Type
ThesisDegree Level
MastersMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Treaty 7 was signed at Blackfoot Crossing in 1877. According to one Indigenous signatory, Chief Crowfoot of the Niisitapi, treaty commissioners in attendance stated the treaty stood in perpetuity: “As the long as the sun is shining, the rivers flow, and the mountains are seen,” the Tsuut’ina, Stoney Nakoda, and Blackfoot Confederacy: Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika agreed to share the landscape of what is now southern Alberta. This agreement is one of many treaties negotiated between First Nations and the British Crown. Many scholars have looked at Canadian treaties and education history as an overt attempt to erase Indigenous culture, but few have delved deeper into the systematic policies of epistemicide that took place within these negotiations and afterward. This thesis situates this historical process within the communities of Treaty 7 territory and argues that the schooling provided by the Canadian government after 1877 represents a consistent attempt to subvert Indigenous knowledge and pedagogies.
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)Department
HistoryProgram
HistorySupervisor
Labelle, KathrynCommittee
Hoy, Benjamin; Biggs, Lesley; Westman, Clinton; Neufeld, MatthewCopyright Date
August 2017Subject
education
indigenous
aboriginal
first nations
canadian
treaty
alberta
ethnohistory
history
residential school
native-newcomer
colonial
western canadian