In the 1950s, the United States came up with a plan to solve what it called the “Indian Problem.” It would assimilate Native Americans by moving them to cities and eliminating reservations.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ mission is to enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes and Alaska Natives.

The main goals of Indian reservations were to bring Native Americans under U.S. government control, minimize conflict between Indians and settlers and encourage Native Americans to take on the ways of the white man.

The agency was supervised by an Indian agent, a civilian appointed by the president of the United States to serve as an ambassador to Native American nations living in the region. Agents were responsible for being the eyes, ears, and mouth of the US Bureau of Indian Affairs to Native communities.

Due to this extensive history and experience requirement, the salary of a RAW agent tends to be between INR 0.8-1.3 lakhs per annum. Some other benefits apart from a RAW agent’s salary are: RAW officials get two months of extra pay per financial year.

Indian agents were the Canadian government’s representatives on First Nations reserves from the 1830s to the 1960s.

In August 2017, the Trudeau government announced the dissolution of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada and announced that it will be replaced by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC). This came into effect as of July 15, 2019.

And the Indian Act remains the law of the land in 2015. Though no political party claims to like it, none has made an urgent matter of its abolition. In 1951, a complete redrafting of the Indian Act was undertaken, the 1876 Act fully repealed and replaced by a statute thoroughly modernized by the standards of the day.

Since Canada was created in 1867, the federal government has been in charge of aboriginal affairs. The Indian Act, which was enacted in 1876 and has since been amended, allows the government to control most aspects of aboriginal life: Indian status, land, resources, wills, education, band administration and so on.

The oppression of First Nations women under the Indian Act resulted in long-term poverty, marginalization and violence, which they are still trying to overcome today. Inuit and Métis women were also oppressed and discriminated against, and prevented from: serving in the Canadian armed forces.

Registered Indians, also known as status Indians, have certain rights and benefits not available to non-status Indians, Métis, Inuit or other Canadians. These rights and benefits include on-reserve housing, education and exemptions from federal, provincial and territorial taxes in specific situations.

The Indian Act Comes to Power, 1876 Through the Department of Indian Affairs and its Indian agents, the Indian Act gave the government sweeping powers with regards to First Nations identity, political structures, governance, cultural practices and education.

The Indian Act imposed great personal and cultural tragedy on First Nations, many of which continue to affect communities, families and individuals today.

The Indian Act was created in 1876. The main goal of the Act was to force the First Nations peoples to lose their culture and become like Euro-Canadians. Some of the more important amendments were about schools and First Nations religion. They forced First Nations children to attend residential schools.

The Indian Act was created to assimilate Indigenous peoples into mainstream society and contained policies intended to terminate the cultural, social, economic, and political distinctiveness of Indigenous peoples.

History. As part of a policy of assimilation, the federal government banned the potlatch from 1884 to 1951 in an amendment to the Indian Act. The government and its supporters saw the ceremony as anti-Christian, reckless and wasteful of personal property.

Residential schools were funded under the Indian Act by what was then the federal Department of the Interior. Adopted in 1876 as An Act to amend and consolidate the laws respecting Indians, it consolidated all previous laws placing Indigenous communities, land and finances under federal control.

Integral to the meaning of the potlatch today, especially among the Kwakwaka’wakw and other Coastal First Nations, is the Canadian governments banning of the ceremony through legal means. Potlatching was made illegal in 1885, and the prohibition was not lifted until 1951 (Cole and Chaikin 1990).

1904