Review of The Indian Commissioners: Agents of the State and Indian Policy in Canada's Prairie West, 1873-1932 by E. Brian Titley

Authors

George Colpitts, University of Calgary

Date of this Version

Winter 2011

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 31:1 (Winter 2011).

Comments

Copyright © 2011 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

E. Brian Titley's The Indian Commissioners makes a fine contribution to Great Plains history and, in Canadian studies, the shaping of western Indian policy. The case of Canada's Indian Commissioners, appointed from 1873 to 1909 and again between 1920 and 1932, is worthy of a single study. Titley's thesis is solidly argued: though responsible for putting into practice Ottawa's policies, the five Indian commissioners in the history of the service retained some latitude in carrying them out. Beneficiaries of party patronage, and often enjoying the confidence of either the Prime Minister or various Ministers of Interior, they had backing enough to put their own stamp on policies of special concern to them. These included the treaty processes they oversaw and in some ways shaped, Native residential and industrial schooling, assimilation efforts, and changing reserve land policies.