Hi there i need help in writing a reading review. This is the question and the reading will be attached in the files. Reading Reviews: Two short (one page) critical reviews of assigned readings are r

Hi there i need help in writing a reading review. This is the question and the reading will be attached in the files. Reading Reviews: Two short (one page) critical reviews of assigned readings are r
The Adoption of Frances T: Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption in Twentieth-Century Canada ALLYSON STEVENSON Abstract: This article offers a case study of a transracial adoption involving a mixed-heritage child and a legally Indian adoptive couple. The legal adoption of ‘‘Frances T’’ in 1937, considered to be ‘‘in the best interests of the child’’ by social welfare professionals, took on gendered and racialized meaning in the discourse of the Indian Affairs bureaucrats who subsequently attempted to overturn it. The article uses the case to examine Canadian settler-colonial beliefs about blood and belonging. It also explores the complications that emerged as legally defined Indian people came into contact with provincial child welfare legislation. With the goal of eliminating Indigenous legal and kinship forms, the Indian Act colonized adoption so it could be used as a method of assimilation rather than as a traditional form of Indigenous alliance creation and childcare. The case highlights the themes of Indigenous kinship and sovereignty, legislated Indian identity, and the growing involvement of social workers in the lives of Aboriginal people in the mid- to late- twentieth century. Keywords : adoption; race; gender; Indian Act; identity ; elimination; assimilation; Aboriginal; Indigenous; Canada Re ´ sume ´ analytique : Nous vous pre ´ sentons ici une e ´ tude de cas portant sur une adoption trans-raciale d’une enfant d’he ´ ritage mixte par un couple adoptif d’Indiens le ´ gaux. L’adoption de « Frances T » en 1937, juge ´ ee ˆ tre « dans le meilleur inte ´ re ˆ t de l ’enfant » par les professionnels des services sociaux, pris une significa- tion sexue ´ e et raciste dans le discours des bureaucrates des affaires indiennes qui, par la suite, tente ` rent d’annuler cette de ´ cision. Dans cet article, nous utilisons ce cas pour examiner les croyances des colonisateurs au sujet des liens du sang et d’appartenance. Nous explorons e ´ galement les complications qui apparurent alors que les personnes ayant e ´ te ´ reconnues par la loi comme e ´ tant Indiens entre ` rent en rapport avec la le ´ gislation provinciale sur la protection de l ’enfance. Ayant pour but d’e ´ liminer les formes de liens de parente ´ et de le ´ galite ´ indige ` ne la Loi sur les Indiens « colonisa » l ’adoption pour en faire un moyen d’assimilation pluto ˆ t qu’en faire une formule traditionnelle indige ` ne pour forger des alliances et prote ´ ger les enfants. Ce cas met l ’accent sur les the ` mes de souverainete ´ et parente ´ indige ` nes et sur le ro ˆ le grandissant des travailleurs sociaux dans la vie des peuples indige ` nes durant la dernie ` re moitie ´ du vingtie ` me sie ` cle. Mots-cle ´ s : adoption; race; genre; Loi sur les Indiens; identite ´ ;e ´ limination; assimilation; autochtone; peuples indige ` nes; Canada Canadian Journal of History / Annales canadiennes d’histoire 50.362015 doi : 10.3138/ cjh.ach.50.3.004 The provincial government of Manitoba Canada recently apologized for the traumas inflicted on Aboriginal people as a result of the ‘‘Sixties Scoop.’’ This term is often used to describe government programs in the 1960s in which social workers placed Aboriginal children in non-Aboriginal foster and adoptive homes as a way of compelling them to accept white middle- class norms. 1The apology came in response to survivors of Aboriginal transracial adoption policies, who joined with Aboriginal leaders and others in asserting that these policies were an important but largely ignored facet of the government ’s long-held assimilation strategy, and moreover, that they constituted a serious wrong for which the government should take responsibility. As this article tries to demonstrate, transracial adoption has in fact been implicated in the cultural genocide of Canada’s Indigenous peoples for some time. 2Focusing on the adoption case of Frances G— T—, a mixed-ancestry child who was adopted into a legally Indian family in the 1930s, this article examines how adoption was crafted into a method of state-directed Indigenous assimilation by officials in the Indian Affairs Branch. By eliminating competing forms of adoption, officials ensured that legal adoptions with Indian parents and children would conform to Euro-Canadian racialized understandings of Indigenous identity. As we shall see, the adoption of a child officially designated as white into an Indian family caused bureaucrats in the Indian Affairs Branch in Ottawa an extraordinary amount of anxiety. 3While it had long been assumed that Indian people would move from Indian homes to white schools and communities through assimilation and enfranchisement policies, this case illustrates how officials legally challenged an adoption that pro- duced the reverse. 4Frances’ adoption and re-designation as legally Indian posed a serious threat to the longstanding policy of Indian assimilation and called into question the racial and gender hierarchies that were being 1 ‘‘Greg Selinger, Manitoba premier, apologizes for Sixties Scoop,’’ 18 June 2015, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/greg-selinger-manitoba-premier- apologizes-for-sixties-scoop-1.3118049, accessed 4 September 2015. The term ‘‘Sixties Scoop,’’ was coined by Patrick Johnston in Native Children and the Child Welfare System , The Canadian Council on Social Development (Toronto, 1983). 2 Ovide Mercredi and Clem Chartier, ‘‘The Status of Child Welfare Services for the Indigenous Peoples of Canada: The Problem, the Law and the Solution,’’ paper presented at the Indian Child Welfare Rights Conference, Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, 19 March 1981. 3 I have omitted information such as names and locations that might identify any of the children and family members who appear in the archival record. This has been done to protect their privacy. 4 The exception to this would be when a white woman marrying an Indian man would take her husband’s Indian status, as would any of their children. allyson stevenson 470 CJH/ACH 50.362015 established through Indian Act (1876) membership codes. 5The adoption of Frances T— reveals an official obsession over the transgression of racial boundaries which, in reversing the standard order of things, this case pro- duced. 6Indian Affairs Branch staff sought to retain decision-making power over issues of blood, belonging, and Indian status, and in 1951 revised the sections of the Indian Act pertaining to adoption so that settler-colonial elimination goals were not subverted by the legal re-designation that could be afforded by modern adoption. 7 The case of Frances T— provides an opportunity to illustrate how the intimate domain of the Indian family became a matter of concern for the most powerful persons in the country as they debated issues of blood, belonging, and the subversive potential of Indigenous adoption. Elsewhere I have argued that First Nations people used Euro-Canadian adoption laws in a manner that was consistent with Indigenous adoption protocols and family caring strategies. I demonstrated that a process of indigeniza- tion of legal adoption was underway as Indian people used the law to strengthen and support traditional kinship systems. 8Through the ongoing colonization of Indigenous kinship systems, including adoption, the Indian Act has sought to individualize tribal people and discipline the wide variation of Indigenous gender relations and kinship practices into the Euro-Canadian nuclear family norm. 9 5 The term ‘‘Indian’’ in the context of this paper denotes Indigenous peoples who have retained the legal designation ‘‘Indian’’ as defined by the Indian Act. 6 For a discussion of the child removal policies of Australia, see Margaret D. Jacobs, White Mother to a Dark Race: Settler Colonialism, Maternalism, and the Removal of Indigenous Children in the American West and Australia, 1880–1940 (Lincoln, 2009). 7 I use the term ‘‘modern adoption’’ to signify the rationalized methodology of social work professionals who took over the mediation of adoptions, regard- less of whether the adoptions took place in Indigenous or non-Indigenous contexts. This term is drawn from the scholarship of Ellen Herman, Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern Unites States (Chicago, 2008). 8 See Allyson Stevenson, ‘‘Intimate Integration: A Study of Aboriginal Trans- racial Adoption in Saskatchewan, 1944–1984’’ (PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 2015). Adoption protocols widely vary between Indigenous groups as well have evolved and changed over time. The term ‘‘custom adoption’’ denotes a community-based method of making relatives. I use the terms ‘‘traditional adoption’’ and ‘‘Indigenous adoption’’ to refer to the pre- professional era of Aboriginal adoption when band-level decision-making was still operative. 9 See Joan Sangster, Regulating Girls and Women: Sexuality, Family and Law in Ontario, 1920–1960 (Don Mills, 2001) and Sarah Carter, The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation-Building in Western Canada to 1915 (Edmonton, 2005). Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 471 CJH/ACH 50.362015 The scholarship of J.R. Miller has had a profound and lasting impact on the historical writing of Canada’s settler-colonial past. Beginning with Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens , Miller synthesized the emergent field of Native-Newcomer relations. 10In addition, he applied an interpretive frame- work that firmly abolished the smug notion of Euro-Canadian cultural and political superiority that had long been a hallmark of Canadian historical writing. 11 Followed shortly thereafter by the companion reader, Sweet Promises: A Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada , Miller compiled the core scholarship that formed the foundation of the new field, taking into consideration time period and geographical variation, gender, and cultural specificity as key attributes for future endeavors. 12 National in scope, Miller ’s careful scholarship in Skyscrapersdivided the history of newcomer and Native interactions into three distinctive eras — those of cooperation, coercion, and confrontation — and consistently emphasized the agency of Indigenous peoples. Looking simultaneously at government policy, historical context, and Aboriginal responses, Miller helped to establish the field of Native-Newcomer relations as a critical and dynamic area at an essential time when Canada was reevaluating its relationship with Indige- nous peoples. Building on Miller’s work, this article uses the Frances T— adoption case to illuminate larger themes and identify important ruptures. This case reveals the problematic logic of the racial and gendered definitions that the Indian Act used to determine who is and who is not an Indian, while also drawing attention to conflicts between federal and provincial legal regimes when it came to the care of children. 13 In addition, it bears witness to the official erasure of the Me ´ tis people as a distinct Indigenous group, as Frances’s identity was constructed as either ‘‘Indian’’ or ‘‘white.’’ The Frances T— case first appears in archival records dated 21 February 1939, two years after the original adoption. The Indian Affairs Branch, under the Department of Mines and Resources at the time, submitted a 10 J.R. Miller, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens: A History of Indian-White Relations in Canada, 3rd ed. (Toronto, 2000). 11 To appreciate the state of pre-1989 Canadian historiography, see Bruce G. Trigger, ‘‘The Indian Image in Canadian History,’’ in Natives and Newcomers: Canada’s ‘‘Heroic Age’’ Reconsidered (Montreal, 1985), chapter one. 12 J.R. Miller, Sweet Promises: A Reader on Indian-White Relations in Canada (Toronto, 1991). 13 ‘‘Frances G— T— Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C— of the Chipewyan Indian Band Whether the effect of adoption of child by Indian couple would confer full Indian status upon the child having regard to the definition of Indian in the Indian Act,’’ File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC). The documents pertaining to this case were found in the RG 13 Collection, the Records of the Department of Justice. allyson stevenson 472 CJH/ACH 50.362015 request to the Department of Justice to obtain an attorney in order to over- turn the adoption, which had occurred in Alberta on 15 February 1937, of young Frances G. T—. 14 A young mixed-ancestry child with a Me´ tis mother and white father, Frances T— had been legally adopted by an Indian couple of the Fort Chipewyan Band in Alberta. At issue in the case was the child’s non-Indian status prior to her adoption, and the sub- sequent confusion regarding her legal status after her adoption by a status Indian couple. The department solicitor raised the issue first as a test case to determine whether Indian status could be conferred through legal adoption. Edmonton lawyer C.E. Gariepy agreed to take the case to over- turn the adoption of Frances G. T— by Joseph C— and his wife and in effect remove Frances from their care. An individual with Indian status did not necessarily possess an Indian bloodline according to the definitions established by the Indian Act. For example, a non-Indian woman could become legally Indian through marriage to an Indian man. As familial relationships established by law, marriage and legal adoption were not dramatically different from one another, and so the Indian Affairs Branch worried that, similarly, provin- cial child welfare legislation could turn non-Indian children into legally Indian children through legal adoption. With the increasing acceptance of adoption across Canada, it was feared that Indian families might seek to adopt children without Indian status and thereby increase federal obliga- tions. There was concern that since no explicit legislation barred adopted children from Indian status, adoption could potentially reverse the goals of reducing the Indian population in Canada. In the past, officials had managed to prevent the adoption of children that were legally non-Indian by Indigenous families because they were typically notified in advance. 15 In the Frances T— case, however, the Indian Affairs Branch was not con- sulted before the adoption went forward, and was thus unable to prevent it from taking place. The problematic adoption of Frances T— had triggered a letter from an official in Ottawa in the Indian Affairs Branch by the name of Mr. Cory, who wrote seeking legal advice about overturning the adoption. He sub- mitted the following to lawyer Edouard Gariepy : 14 There does not appear to be any reference to this case in the RG 10, likely because the adoption took place through the Alberta provincial courts and the child would thus have had a file in the privacy-protected Child Welfare branch of the Alberta Department of Public Welfare. 15 For a fuller discussion of other similar cases, see Stevenson, ‘‘Intimate Integra- tion,’’ especially chapter 3. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 473 CJH/ACH 50.362015 I am of the opinion that this child being adopted under provincial legisla- tion and Order of the Provincial courts falls within the category of Indian within the meaning of the Indian Act. . . .[According to the Act], ‘‘Indian’’ means (i) any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a particu- lar band. (ii) any child of such person. It was, of course, unfortunate that the Department was not consulted prior to the Order of the Court so that the views could be placed before his Honor Judge Dubuc. In view of all the circumstances, it is suggested that the consideration should be given towards having the order set aside, if possible. Failing this then, as I see it the Department must necessarily supply relief, education and other services as and if the child were the true daughter of Joseph C— and his wife. 16 Clearly, with the existing wording of Indian Act legislation, Frances T— had become a legal child of her parents, and thus legally Indian. This development proved troublesome to the Branch whose mandate for over half a century had been to reduce the number of Indian people under its control. The acceptance of this adoption could potentially set a precedent whereby non-Indian children could become Indians through adoption. The department sought to set aside the adoption and reassert its control over Indian membership and family making.Using an obscure clause in the Indian Act, the Branch began proceed- ings for the removal of Frances from the care of her Indian parents. Among other things, the Branch wanted to determine whether Section 30 of the Indian Act gave the adopted child grounds for a claim against the trust fund administered by the Crown. It was felt that the child could be deemed to be encroaching on a specialized trust set aside for ‘‘legitimate Indians.’’ Gariepy agreed to give the matter consideration and consulted with the provincial Attorney General. Because the adoption had already been in place for two years, the Attorney General did not believe the case could be successful. However, based on Sections 34 (2) and 90 (2) of the Indian Act, Gariepy thought that the order could be overturned because the adoptive father, who as an Indian was considered a ward, was not allowed to take on contractual obligations without the written consent of the superintendent general. In addition, Gariepy inserted his personal opinion that in the interest of the child herself, she, ‘‘only being [of ] limited Indian blood, should not remain and be raised in the Indian fashion.’’ 17He agreed to pursue the matter based on the fact that the Department of Indian Affairs had not consented to the adoption. Beyond the specific questions the case raised, there were deeper matters related to blood-based understandings of race and degeneration at play. 16 Memorandum of 11 February 1939 from Mr. Cory for Mr. MacInnis, Indian Affairs Branch, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 17 Ibid. allyson stevenson 474 CJH/ACH 50.362015 The possibility that adoption could confer Indian status on non-Indian children disturbed white officials, who were perhaps all too aware of the poor state of care they offered their Indian charges. To potentially allow a white child to suffer the indignities of Indian status and all that entailed, challenged the binary thinking that enabled department officials, and the public at large, to justify and rationalize poverty and poor health on Indian reserves across the country. 18 Also at issue was who had control over the matter. Indian people using provincial legislation could potentially restore members who had lost their Indian status and left communities due to the Indian Act ’s enfranchisement provisions. This case, and potentially others that might follow, called into question the gendered and racialized param- eters used to restrict band membership. 19 The background information provided for Frances revealed a complex Me ´ tis identity that officials continually sought to discipline into manage- able Euro-Canadian definitions of either Indian or white. 20Frances’s Me ´ tis mother Jennie (LaR) T— was born in 1896 in Red Deer, Alberta to Me ´ tis 18 The connection between colonization and the ill health of Indian peoples in Canada has been documented by Maureen Lux, Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880–1940 (Toronto, 2001) and more recently by James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starva- tion, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (Regina, 2013), p. 177. Daschuk looks espe- cially at the prevalence of tuberculosis among Indian people on the plains and the poor housing and conditions on reserves, both of which, having never been properly addressed, have led to current health crises. See also Mary Ellen Kelm, Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia, 1900–1950 (Vancouver, 1998). 19 The term enfranchisement refers to the process of moving from the protected legal status of ‘‘Indian’’ — whose bearers, as government ‘‘wards,’’ were ineligible for citizenship rights such as voting, drinking alcohol, and owning property — to non-Indian, or Canadian, with full citizenship status. First enfranchisement, and then elimination of Indian status, has continued to be the primary objective of the Department of Indian Affairs from its origins with the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857. The Indian Act allowed for volun- tary enfranchisement for those who met the criteria, and for involuntary en- franchisement, such as when Indian women married a non-Indian, or when a male received a university degree or joined the clergy. On the impact of enfranchisement policies on Indigenous families, see Bonita Lawrence, Real Indians and Others: Mixed Blood Urban Native Peoples and Indigenous Nationhood (Lincoln, 2004); Martin Cannon, ‘‘The Regulation of First Nations Sexuality,’’ Canadian Journal of Native Studies 18.1 (1998), pp. 1–18; and Pamela Palmater, Beyond Blood: Rethinking Indigenous Identity (Saskatoon, 2011), especially chapter one. 20 On the theme of hybrid identities in the modern nation-state, see Camilla Charity Augustus, ‘‘Mixed Race, Legal Space: Official Discourse, Indigeneity, and Racial Mixing in Canada, the United States, and Australia, 1850–1950’’ (PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 2013). Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 475 CJH/ACH 50.362015 parents. Her first marriage in 1914 was to Me´ tis Henry N—, who went overseas and was killed in action. In August 1915, she married William T—, a white man who then died in 1927. Frances was born in 1927, and in June 1935, she and her older sister were left in the care of Alex A—, Chief of the Cree Band of Rivie ` re Qui Barre, Alberta. Shortly thereafter, the children came to the attention of provincial child welfare officials. The case file on the adoption stated that, ‘‘Mrs. C at this point states she arranged to take the child in question from Alex A—, her brother, and got the child June 1935. Through questioning, Gertrude (a sister to Frances) T— states the mother was of Indian blood and her father a white man, fur- ther that she believes the mother was a relation to Chief Harry Cardinal who now resides at Anzac. . .’’ 21 This genealogy of relations alludes to some type of family relationship between Frances’s Me ´ tis mother and the C— family, although the nature of the relationship remains unclear. Following a discussion with officials at the Department of Child Welfare, D.B. Mackenzie, the provincial attorney general for Alberta who had been contacted by the Indian Affairs Branch to set aside the adoption, refused to do so. In reply to the federal department he stated, ‘‘From information obtained in [the Child Welfare] department I gather that no great hardship will be done to anyone if the adoption is now ratified by the proper official of the Indian Department.’’ 22He cited past practice: As you probably know, half-breed children have been placed on Indian Reserves under Adoption Orders in the past with the full knowledge and approval of the Dominion Government officials in charge of said reserves. A better approach according to the Solicitor, would be to leave the child with her parents. It would appear to me therefore, that Ottawa should be asked to consider issuing more exact instructions as to the proceedings to be adopted in the future and to consider leaving this particular child with the Indian foster parents with whom she has been living happily for something like two years. 23 The fascination over Frances T—’s race and the refusal to accept that the adoption was legitimate, reveals a preoccupation with patrilineal descent and fears of racial degeneration. 24 After this mild rebuke, Indian Affairs 21 Memorandum for the Deputy Minister of Justice, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 22 D.B. MacKenzie, Solicitor, Attorney-General ’s Department, to C. Gariepy, re: Adoption of Frances T—, 27 March 1939, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 23 Ibid. 24 On the image of Aboriginal women in popular discourse, see Sarah Carter, Capturing Women: The Manipulation of Cultural Imagery in Canada’s Prairie West. (Montreal, 1997), especially chapter five. allyson stevenson 476 CJH/ACH 50.362015 officials stated emphatically, ‘‘Frances T— is not a half-breed but a white girl, and to recognize the adoption of a white child by Indians and the consequent Indian status of such child, would be out of the question from the view point of this branch.’’ 25 Gariepy agreed, replying that ‘‘For the purpose of the application, it was sufficient to show that this child was not the daughter of Indian parents, that she could not be considered Indian.’’ 26However, Gariepy was not as concerned about race in his grasp of the matter : ‘‘As a matter of fact from inquiries made by the Indian Agent and the rcmp, it is clear that she is the daughter of a half-breed mother and a white father. This could make her a quarter breed Indian.’’ 27 Based strictly on the objective facts, he felt the adoption unwise, ‘‘To accept the adoption order, as to for instance that fact the C— couple are treaty Indians, are destitute etc., would be a very bad precedent, as apparently the Department here having to do with Child Welfare would be very pleased to have Indian Affairs Br. take care of any half breed or child being part white and part half breed.’’ 28Gariepy suggests that compounding the fears of racial mixing and boundary reversal was the worry that provincial child welfare departments, which were hard-pressed to find homes for Indigenous children in white society, might begin placing problematic mixed-race children in Indian families. Local doctor P.W. Head of Fort Chipewyan was familiar with the Indian people of the area, and on 26 May 1939, echoed the fears of the department officials: ‘‘This girl who has never known much of a proper home is taken fairly well to the Indian mode of life, but I do not consider it a suitable life for her as her views are very likely to change as she gets older. Moreover the aspects of schooling and general welfare will diminish rather than increase with the ageing of her foster parents. Personally I do not like the idea of a three quarter white child being made a treaty Indian.’’ 29 Like the unredeemed captive Eunice Williams, adopted into a Mohawk family at Kahnawake in 1704, Frances T— crossed racial boundaries in reverse, troubling the settler colonial imagination. At the age of seven, Eunice Williams was marched north to Canada after a raid on Deerfield, Massa- chusetts, and for all intents and purposes became Mohawk, speaking the language to the point of forgetting English and later marrying and having 25 Letter, Department of Mines and Resources, Indian Affairs Branch, to Edouard Gariepy, 22 April 1939, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 26 Letter Gariepy to Deputy Minister of Justice, 12 May 1939, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 29 P.W. Head, M.D., to C.E. Gariepy, May 26, 1939, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 477 CJH/ACH 50.362015 children. Despite attempts to induce her to return, she refused to go back to her Anglo-American family and remained an unredeemed captive. 30 As Sarah Carter has found regarding sensational captivity narratives in the early settlement period, ‘‘Assumptions about the ‘wretched fate’ that awaited these girls once they grew up both promoted and confirmed the negative images of Aboriginal women that were firmly embedded in the colonial imagination.’’ 31 After failing to obtain the desired result from officials in Alberta, the Branch referred the matter to the federal Deputy Minister of Justice, E. Miall, for his legal opinion. On 19 July 1940 he provided the final word. Based on his analysis of the 1927 Indian Act, Alberta’s child welfare law, and the way in which the term childhad been defined in past cases, Miall stated clearly and unequivocally that Indian status could be created through adoption. 32 Deputy Minister of Justice Miall looked to the Indian Act to answer the questions of status, since Section 2(d) ii of the Indian Act defined Indian as the child of ‘‘any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a particular band.’’ 33 Since the Act did not cover the issue of adoption, it was then necessary to define the meaning of child. He then looked to both provincial and federal legislation. The Alberta Adoption of Infants Act, section 45(i), stated that ‘‘an order of adoption shall b) make such child, for the purposes of the custody of the person and filial and paternal duties and rights, for all intents and purposes the child of the adopting parent; c) give the child the same rights to claim for nurture, maintenance and education upon his adopting parent that he would have were the adopting parent his natural parent.’’ 34Based on the legally estab- lished parent-child relationship created through adoption legislation, Miall concluded that Section 45(10) provides that: a person who has been adopted in accordance with the provisions of this Part shall, upon the intestacy of an adopting parent, take the same share of property which the adopting parent could dispose of by will as he would have taken if born to such parent in lawful wedlock and he shall stand, in regard to the legal descendants but to other kindred of such adopting parent, in the same position as if he had been born to him. 35 30 John Demos, Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America (New York, 1994), p. 142. 31 Carter, Capturing Women , p. 157. 32 Deputy Minister of Justice to Director of Indian Affairs, re: Adoption of Frances G. T— by Indians of the Chipewyan Band, Alberta, 19 July 1940, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. allyson stevenson 478 CJH/ACH 50.362015 Thus, based on a reading of both the definition of Indian in the Indian Act and ‘‘adopted child’’ in the Alberta Adoption of Infants Act, Frances T— had become an Indian through the powerfully worded legal protections that adoption legislation defined.Adoption proved to be a unique mechanism for providing vulnerable children with social and legal belonging, and could potentially affirm Indigenous kinship systems that often used adoption to enlarge families, to care for orphaned children and to incorporate members from outside the community. In this case, after all, there appears to have been some kind of a kinship connection between Frances T—’s mother and her adop- tive Indian family. In his report, Miall was also careful to indicate that: Frances G— T— is to be considered as the child of Joseph and Angel- ique C— I surmise that the interest of the iabin the status of this girl has to do with the distribution of moneys or potential inheritance within the Band of an interest in the Band property and is not directed to the propor- tion of Indian blood. By section 14 an Indian woman, marrying a person other than an Indian, ceases in every respect within the meaning of the Act to be an Indian, and I am therefore not putting forward any sugges- tion that the girl ’s status as an Indian derives otherwise than from the adoption. 36 Miall pointed out the relative unimportance of race and Indian blood quantum in the past administration of the Act by referring to Treaty 8, signed in 1899 with the Chipewyan Indians and the promise to pay every family head five dollars. He inferred that this clause had contemporary significance to the Indian family stating, ‘‘I suggest that effect can only be given to this promise if payment be made to the head of the family in respect of each person who, in the eyes of the law, is a member of this family. I submit, therefore, that the effect of the adoption is to confer full Indian status upon Frances G— T—, the child in question.’’ 37 Using the written text of Treaty 8, Miall defined the Indian family as being made up of all members who were legally recognized as under the authority of the head of the family. Thus, race and blood quantum, and gender, for that matter, played no role in determining who became an ‘‘Indian’’ under the definition used by the treaty. As such, adoption, by conferring a legal parent- child relationship, fell under the same category. Despite the clear legal argument made by the Deputy Minister, the Branch refused to recognize the logic of his argument, which essentially rendered the gendered and colonizing framework of the Indian Act and the Indian Affairs Branch null and void when Miall determined, based on the wording of the treaties, 36 Ibid. 37 Memorandum for the Deputy Minister of Justice, 29 July 1940, File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 479 CJH/ACH 50.362015 that neither blood nor race played a role in deciding who qualified as Indian. 38 Despite the apparent hegemony of the Indian Act, this early example may indicate that the indigenization of adoption laws began to emerge as Indian people used the protections of adoption to support kinship obliga- tions in the face of various challenges, from the oppressive control by the department to the day-to-day struggles of poverty, isolation, illness, and death. However, the possibility that Indian status could be conferred by adoption posed the risk of flaunting the colonizing imperatives based on racist and sexist constructions of Indian identity. In response, the Branch sought to impose its own narrow definition of who could and could not qualify as Indian and to restrict the ability of Indian people to define adoption according to their own notions of family and kinship outside the legalized definition of Indian. This case is significant in that it provides an early example of the tensions that emerged when federal attempts to reduce and legally eliminate Indian women and children conflicted with the provincial child welfare prerogative. The mandate of social work practices and the developing pro- vincial child welfare systems was to seek legislation and policies that were ‘‘in the best interests of the child,’’ and legal adoption attempted to ensure the permanent care of children in families. The conflict between provincial adoption laws and the federally-defined Indian status as created by the Indian Act became more pronounced over time. This was especially true after the revisions to the Indian Act in 1951 made provincial laws applica- ble to Indian people on reserves and in cities, and explicitly racialized adoption to apply to ‘‘Indian’’ children only. 39 Frances T—’s Aboriginal adoption offers a counter-narrative of colonization with regard to kinship, race, gender, and legal status. When looking at the communication be- tween highly-placed government bureaucrats about the case, one witnesses the primary objectives of the Indian Act: reducing the number of those who counted as ‘Indian,’ minimizing the legal responsibility for Indians, and ultimately eliminating ‘Indians’ altogether. Officials furthered these objectives not only through restrictive laws designed to manage relations 38 Two further memoranda were sent to Deputy Minister of Justice Miall, further arguing against admitting Frances as an Indian, as defined by the Indian Act; File 9-139664, Vol. 2581, Pt. 1, 21 February 1939, RG 13, LAC. 39 The shift can be seen by comparing the 1927 and 1951 versions of Indian Act. In 1927, ‘‘Indian’’ means i) any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a particular band ii) any child of such person, iii) any woman who is or was lawfully married to such a person (Indian Act, R.S., c. 81, s. 1 d). In 1951, ‘‘child’’ included a legally adopted Indianchild (Indian Act, c.29, s. 1 b), italics mine. allyson stevenson 480 CJH/ACH 50.362015 between Indian and non-Indian peoples, but also through the redefinition of Indian child in 1951.Introduced in 1951, a newly revised Indian Act reflected the Canadian government ’s effort to modernize Indian policy after World War II. Decades of Indigenous peoples’ political organizing, their unprecedented service in the armed forces during the war, and a sympathetic Canadian public, all drew the government ’s attention to the need for reform. A Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons to Con- sider and Examine the Indian Act ( jschsc) sat from 1946 to 1948, and Indian leaders from across Canada were invited to present their views on the policies of the department and to give their assessment of conditions on reserves. 40 The Canadian government believed that revising the Indian Act would lead Indians to embrace modern industrial society and prepare Indian people for future full Canadian citizenship. As historian John Leslie has pointed out, the immediate post-war period is one of profound histor- ical importance to the study of Canadian Indian policy, as it provides a historical bridge between the earlier protectionist era and the new integra- tionist era. 41 An important aspect of the policy goals since the creation of the department had been the elimination of the Indian people, or, as Duncan Campbell Scott put it bluntly in 1920, ‘‘to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic, and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.’’ 42 A policy of ‘‘integration’’ became the stated goal for Indian Affairs, which would allow Indian people to retain aspects of their culture while embrac- ing the political and social values of the rest of Canadians. The joint submission of the Canadian Welfare Council ( cwc) and the Canadian Association of Social Workers ( casw) carried the most weight when the committee sought direction for its new drive toward integration. In it, the cwcandcasw mapped out a new role for social welfare experts and the helping services of professional social scientists in solving the Indian problem. The submission stated that ‘‘in our judgment, the only defensible goal for a national program must be the full assimilation of Indians into Canadian life, which involves not only their admission to full citizenship, but the right and opportunity for them to participate freelywith 40 John F. Leslie, ‘‘Assimilation, Integration, or Termination? The Development of Canadian Indian Policy, 1943–1963’’ (PhD diss., Carleton University, 1999), p. 9. 41 Ibid., p. 4. 42 This famous line by Duncan Campbell Scott is taken from J.R. Miller, Sky- scrapers Hide the Heavens , p. 281. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 481 CJH/ACH50.362015 other citizens in all community affairs.’’ 43The definition of integration and assimilation for these social welfare experts meant that Indians would no longer be reduced to receiving second-rate services from voluntary organ- izations and Indian agents. Instead, they would be joining the rest of Canada as fellow citizens in embracing the therapeutic ministrations of professionals, whether social workers, doctors, or educators. The subse- quent Indian Act of 1951 did not make a provision for Indians to secure their full Canadian citizenship through any other means than by voluntarily relinquishing their Indian status. They did not become eligible to vote while retaining their Indian status until 1960. The cwc andcasw documented the vast discrepancy between white and Indian communities in social indicators like tuberculosis, infant mor- tality, educational levels, and housing, and attributed it to the state of dependence Indian people had been forced to endure as a result of their protected status. They supported full citizenship rights for Indian people since they had demonstrated their willingness to participate in the two World Wars. 44 Although they commented on aspects of Indian policy such as education and health and noted how these were interrelated, they considered social issues to be the most pressing ones and also the area where the caswandcwc could offer support. The problems identified as stemming from a lack of properly administered services were: 1. [W]ide open prostitution. . .with Indian girls becoming diseased and pregnant. 2. Indian juvenile delinquents, apprehended off the reserve, are in most cases returned forthwith without any attempt being made for their treatment or reform. 3. The practice of adopting Indian children is loosely conceived and exe- cuted and is usually devoid of the careful legal and social protection given white children. Frequently children are simply absorbed into the homes of relatives or neighbours without any legal status. 4. A child either legitimate or illegitimate of a Treaty Indian woman and a white man is precluded from absorption into the maternal grand- parent ’s home, even though socially such a placement is desirable and would thereby establish normal family contacts. 5. Owing to the fact that the wards of the Dominion Government are not eligible for benefits under provincial legislation, Indian children who are neglected lack the protection afforded under social legislation avail- able to children in white communities. 43 Joint Submission by the Canadian Welfare Council and the Canadian Asso- ciation of Social Workers to the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons appointed to examine and Consider the Indian Act, Ottawa, January 1947, MG 28, I 10, Vol. 118, Canadian Welfare Council, LAC. 44 Ibid., p. 3. allyson stevenson 482 CJH/ACH 50.362015 Instances could be multiplied. No matter what phase of Individual oppor- tunity or family situation is considered, the Indians are at a disadvantage by comparison with other groups in the Canadian community. 45 Social workers sought to bring enlightened adoption practice to Indian children to provide them with what they believed would be the protection of years of accumulated professional expertise. In keeping with this aim, the submission pointed out the injustice of separating women and children from Indian families (through status legislation) as fundamentally prob- lematic and abnormal.The newly understood ‘‘Indian problem’’ was no longer viewed through racial theories of physiological difference or social evolution. In the post- war period, psychological explanations for difference arose. According to an Indian Affairs circular: What is this so-called ‘Indian problem’? In essence it is this: The Indian is too often considered an outsider in our society. His reserve is palisaded with psychological barriers which have prevented close social and eco- nomic contact between Indian and non-Indian. It is the policy of the gov- ernment to help the Indian, caught in an age of transition, to adapt himself to a larger and more complex society, to be able to earn a living within that society if he wishes to do so. But there are many factors which inhibit the Indian in his adaptation to a mid-twentieth century technological world. Most are but dimly understood. 46 Indian Affairs effectively attributed the barriers faced by Indian people from imposed external barriers such as the legislation preventing Indians from leaving the reserve or others from coming onto the reserve, to a collective psychological inferiority complex for which Canadian society bears some responsibility. The role of social welfare experts would be to assist with breaking down the internal ‘psychological barriers’ and to bring to light the ‘dimly understood’ factors that prevented Indian people from embracing the allegedly superior modern world. The newly revised Indian Act had a number of innovations that sought to modernize and regularize the governance of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Three sections are directly implicated in the rise in numbers of Indian children in child welfare systems. First, in Section 2, the definition of ‘‘child’’ was further clarified to make explicit a legally adopted ‘‘Indian’’ child. The final legal decision in the Frances T— case had clearly demon- strated that legal adoption could potentially bestow legal Indian status on 45 Ibid., p. 6. 46 Shewell, ‘‘ Enough to Keep them Alive’’: Indian Welfare in Canada, 1873–1965. (Toronto, 2004), p. 207. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 483 CJH/ACH 50.362015 mixed-race or white children. 47Consequently, ‘‘Indian child’’ was redefined so that non-Indian children were unable to obtain Indian status through adoption, thus ensuring that Indian assimilation and integration would remain a one-way street. Second, Section 87 extended all provincial laws of general application to Indian people and onto reserves. Finally, the section dealing with enfranchisement was expanded, as was the section on band membership. Sections 11 and 12, which were devoted to stipulating who could claim Indian status in Canada for the purpose of the Indian Act, placed much greater emphasis on the male line of descent and the legitimacy of chil- dren. The newly revised Act read: Subject to section 12, a person is eligible to be registered if that person:. . . (c) is a male person who is a direct descendant in the male line of a male person described in paragraph (a) or (b); (d) is the legitimate child of (i) a male person described in paragraph (a) or (b), or (ii) a person described in paragraph (c); (e) is the illegitimate child of a female person described in paragraph (a) (b) or (d) unless the Registrar is satisfied that the father of the child was not an Indian and the Registrar has declared that the child is not entitled to be registered ; (italics mine) (f ) is the wife or widow of a person who is entitled to be registered by virtue of paragraph (a), (b), (c), (d) or (e). Section 12 then further stipulated who was not entitled to be registered as an Indian in two separate sections. The first section referred to individuals who had previously gotten Me ´ tis scrip and their descendants who were not eligible to be registered as legal ‘‘Indians’’ or anyone who had been previously enfranchised. The second section specifically addressed women who got married to a person who is not an Indian. 48 When it was introduced in 1876, the Indian Act reinforced preexisting patriarchal norms when it specified who could claim Indian status and political rights to vote in band elections. However, the 1951 revisions further stipulated that women who married out were now automatically deprived of Indian status and band rights from the date of their marriage. Children of such marriages were also enfranchised along with their mothers and no longer entitled to live on a reserve. In addition, superintendents responsible for Indian Affairs sold whatever property such women may have owned and gave them the proceeds. 49 Previously, women who had married a non-Indian ceased to be Indian but were able to retain their 47 Indian Act, R.S.C. 1951, c. 29, s.1, ss 87. 48 Indian Act, R.S.C. 1971, C.I-6.s.11, quoted in Kathleen Jamieson ,IndianWomen and the Law in Canada: Citizens Minus ([Ottawa], Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1978), pp. 7–8. 49 Jamieson, Indian Women and the Law in Canada, p. 63.allyson stevenson 484 CJH/ACH 50.362015 treaty annuities and community membership. Illegitimate children were also placed in a precarious position, unable to claim Indian status from their mothers if their fathers were found to be non-Indian.The combined outcomes of these changes were quickly apprehended by child welfare experts upon reviewing the legislation prior to it going before Parliament. In March 1951, Reg Davis, Executive Director of the cwc, pointed out, ‘‘While Indians now must conform to all laws of general appli- cation from time to time in force in any province, they should also have the rights of any provincial citizen regarding will, maintenance of children, etc.’’ 50The key difference between the federal legislation and the provincial child welfare legislation lay in the legal relationship between mothers and illegitimate children: The same point arises in regard to illegitimate children (s.11 9e). An un- married mother is the legal guardian of her child, and yet this act would have the effect of depriving the child of that guardianship if his father is not an Indian, and preventing the child from being brought up on the reserve by his mother. This guardianship is recognized in regard to inher- itance (s.48) (13) but it is much more important that the child should have the care of his mother than any money she may leave. The mother should be allowed to give that care on the reserve, if that seems desirable to her. 51 The director also had noticed that there had been no clear policy regarding the extension of social welfare services on reserves. In response, the Department of Citizenship and Immigration (which was now responsible for the Indian Affairs branch) denied the implications for mothers and children. The Department ’s Minister W.E. Harris stated, You speak of illegitimate children, sec 11 (e) I cannot follow the reasoning by which you come to the conclusion that an unmarried Indian mother would cease to be the legal guardian of her child. There is nothing in sec. 11 (e) which has anything to do with the child living on reserve, and I must say that there are literally hundreds of illegitimate children on reserves some of them having an Indian father and some having a white father. We do not put them off reserves (though bands often demand that we should when the father is a white man) but we do not allow them to be entered on the band list . I would appreciate it if you would tell me just how you arrive at the conclusion that the mother is not the guardian of her child under these circumstances, as we have nothing to do with guardian- ship except under section 52 which has to do with the appointing of guardians for the protection of property of infants in estates.’’ 52 50 Reg Davis, Executive Director of CWC, to Min. W.E. Harris, Department of Citizenship and Immigration, 27 March 1951; Comments on Bill no. 79 (revi- sions to the Indian Act), MG 28, I 10, Vol. 118, Canadian Welfare Council, LAC. 51 Ibid., p. 2. 52 Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Harris to Reg Davis, Executive Director, CWC, Ottawa, 9 April 1951 (reply), MG 28, I 10, Vol. 118, Canadian Welfare Council, LAC (my italics). Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 485 CJH/ACH 50.362015 Davis replied that there were reports from provincial child welfare workers of the practice of removing illegitimate children from mothers by officials employed by Indian Affairs. In addition, the adoption of these mixed-race children who lacked Indian status could not take place since the legislation stipulated that only legally ‘‘Indian’’ children could be adopted and regis- tered. He further elaborated on his original letter : We have been informed by child welfare workers that there is often real difficulty in arranging for a child whose mother is Indian and whose father is white to be brought up by his mother on reserve. There seems to be a tendency on the part of officials to think that it is preferable for him to be removed from his mother. If he is brought up on the reserve and is not technically Indian, there must be problems for him in relation to his accep- tance by the Indians and his later adjustment as an adult. We recognize that there will be some problems because of a tendency not to accept him in [either] the white or Indian community, but these should not be magni- fied by the fact that he is deprived of the rights of Indians if he and his mother wish him to be Indian. The legislation cannot wholly overcome the difficulties facing such children but it should not increase them. At the same time we are informed that the adoption of children who, because of Indian blood, are difficult to place with white families, is also a constant problem. The adoption by Indians may be very desirable from the point of view of the welfare of the child if by such action the child could become not only a member of the Indian family, but also the cultural group. The proposed Bill makes it socially difficult for the mother to act as a guardian of the child, although legally she has that right. The child, who is technically not an Indian would be on the reserve only on sufferance and not by right. 53 As Davis could see, the legal and social limbo of mixed-race children of unwed Indian mothers made it impossible for them to be adopted into Indian families, and they were unlikely to be adopted into white families as a result of the racial attitudes toward Indigenous people in Canada. The 1951 legislation consequently further marginalized Indigenous mothers and children. 54 53 Executive Director Canadian Welfare Council Reg Davis to Minister ofCitizenship and Immigration Harris, 28 April 1951, MG 28, I 10, Vol. 118, Canadian Welfare Council, LAC. 54 Robin Jarvis Brownlie also points out that the Indian Act membership likely worked against increasing marriages and conformity to middle-class norms as women opted to enter common-law relationships with non-Indians rather than lose status by marriage. See her ‘‘Intimate Surveillance: Indian Affairs, Colonization, and the Regulation of Aboriginal Women’s Sexuality,’’ in Katie Pickles and Myra Rutherdale (eds.), Contact Zones: Aboriginal and Settler Women in Canada’s Colonial Past , (Vancouver, 2005), pp. 169–70. allyson stevenson 486 CJH/ACH 50.362015 Also, while enabling the extension of provincial law to reserves, the bill failed to mention a role for Indian people to assume responsibility for the development of welfare and health services in their communities, merely stating their eligibility to access provincial education. Davis pointed out that: we should also like to see welfare services combined with health as among the items for which bands may take some responsibility. . .We assume that Indians like other people learn to take responsibility by having it given to them, and if the financial assistance were accompanied by edu- cation, individual counselling, as it is available in some of the provinces, we predict that the Indians would need less and less supervision in such matters. 55 The revised Indian Act was passed on 17 May 1951 without the suggested changes. Without clear direction on the issue of child welfare and lacking resolu- tion about the impact of gender discrimination, social welfare developed slowly and unevenly. As Jessa Chupik-Hall has concluded in her study of the introduction of child welfare services to Indian people across Canada, these first forays into the modernization of Indian Affairs evolved into a ‘‘patchwork ’’ of strategies, including using residential schools as child wel- fare institutions, adding foster homes on reserves, working on community development, and removing women and children. 56Once provincial adop- tion laws became applicable on reserves, however, earlier Aboriginal adoption practices — such as family involvement in choosing adoptive kin and band authority to either approve or deny adoptions based on cul- tural and material considerations — no longer occurred. Unintentionally, Aboriginal adoption and childcare practices were colonized in the effort to provide equal services and uniformity. Social workers who had tried to make adoption more scientific did so in an attempt to overcome the Euro-American cultural belief that adoptive bonds between children and parents were inferior to biological relation- ships. 57 Provincial adoption law enshrined the adoptive relation as being as strong as a biological one. Courts issued adoptive children new birth certificates and ensured that adoptive children received the same inheri- tance and legal rights as a natural child. Moreover, records of birth parents 55 Ibid. 56 Jessa Chupik-Hall, ‘‘Good Families Do Not Just Happen: Indigenous People and Child Welfare Services in Canada, 1950–1965 ’’(MA thesis, Trent Univer- sity, 2001), p. 34. 57 Herman, Kinship by Design ,p.7. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 487 CJH/ACH50.362015 were sealed to ensure privacy for all involved. 58 In both Canada and the United States, scientific adoption promised to overcome disadvantages children might have faced at birth, provide social mobility to illegitimate children, and provide childless couples with the opportunity to parent, all while eliminating the possibility that birth families might attempt to retrieve youngsters once their situations improved. Adoption offered per- manency and stability in a hand-picked, ‘‘normal’’ family chosen especially for their adherence to traditional norms. Social workers tried to replicate the biological family as closely as possible by placing children with adop- tive parents who resembled them in intelligence, appearance, and eco- nomic status. The legal kinship ties created through adoption, up to the emergence of transracial adoption, consistently came closer and closer to mirroring the ‘‘normal’’ Euro-Canadian biologically-based nuclear family through both legislation and policy directives. For all intents and purposes, an adopted child became legally equivalent to a child born to the adopting parents in lawful wedlock. 59 The entrenched belief that the solution to the so-called Indian problem lay in removing children from the influence of their parents and recon- figuring kinship relations became reinvigorated with the specialized lan- guage of the expert. With the introduction of the new Indian Act in 1951, two important developments occurred that have had long-lasting effects on the way Aboriginal women and children related to the state. First, the intensification of involuntary enfranchisement policies aimed at Indian women and children eliminated the ability of Indian people to adopt chil- dren who had lost status and raise them on a reserve. This development placed women and children in precarious social and economic situations. 60 While Aboriginal adoption had been used for generations as a method of caring for children in need of security, the legal apparatus of the Indian Act had ensured that only those legally designated as Indians could be adopted. Second, the introduction of Section 87, which enabled provincial laws to be applied to Indian people and on Indian reserves, brought federal patrilineal Indian membership codes into conflict with provincial laws, enabling the rights of the illegitimate child to flow from the mother. 58 Section 30 of Saskatchewan’s Adoption Law, the ‘‘Adoption of Children Act,’’ states, ‘‘A person who has been adopted in accordance with the provi- sions of this part, and his issue, shall notwithstanding any law or statue to the contrary, have the same rights of succession to property from or through the adopting parent as though the person adopted had been born to such parent in lawful wedlock in the date of the order of adoption.’’ Quoted in Mildred Battel, Children Shall Be First: Child Welfare Saskatchewan, 1944–64 (Regina, Saskatchewan Department of Culture and Youth Local History Pro- gram, 1979), p. 115. 59 Ibid. See also Elizabeth Bartholet, Family Bonds: Adoption and the Politics of Parenting (Boston, 1993), pp. 48–49. 60 Brownlie, ‘‘Intimate Surveillance,’’ p. 169. allyson stevenson 488 CJH/ACH 50.362015 The continued ambiguity and confusion have led to ‘‘jurisdictional issues,’’ which in turn have led directly to the dismal state of child welfare in Canada. In addition, as social workers took over the role of mediating adoptions, the professional methods of conducting home studies, ensuring legal marriages, and securing medical certificates, replaced traditional criteria. Once Euro-Canadian citizens embraced the central tenets of indi- vidualized intimate Indian integration and the new colourblind approach to solving the Indian problem, Aboriginal transracial adoption became the vanguard in socialization for democratic citizenship.Whether through the creation or severance of kinship relations, intimate interactions have provided fertile ground for scholars to explore issues of race, gender, and belonging. Sylvia Van Kirk pioneered feminist historical research into the intersection of gender, race, class, and imperialism through the study of changing marriage patterns in fur trade families. 61As we have seen here, those same categories operated in ‘‘modern adoption,’’ whose malleable character enabled Aboriginal children to be recast, not as mem- bers of a doomed and dying race, but as future citizens reared by proper families in the 1960s and 1970s leading to what many now call the ‘‘Sixties Scoop.’’ 62 In Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens , J.R. Miller observed the impact of various enfranchisement policies in the early twentieth century as leading to ‘‘the 61 Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada, 1670–1870 (Winnipeg, 1980). 62 Scholars disagree about the utility of the term ‘‘Sixties Scoop’’ to describe the period when Aboriginal children became over-represented in the child welfare systems across Canada. Those who do use the term feel that the gov- ernment was responsible for the removal of First Nations children without justification, and that it placed them in non-Aboriginal homes with the inten- tion to assimilate them. Cheryl Swidrovich argues that this position fails to recognize the effects of colonization and the endemic nature of the problems in aboriginal communities; see Cheryl Swidrovich, ‘‘Positive Experiences of First Nations Children in Non-Aboriginal Foster or Adoptive Care: De- Constructing the ‘Sixties Scoop,’ ’’ (MA thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 2004), pp. 138–42. Swidrovich’s position is further supported by the research of Raven Sinclair, who agrees that ‘‘Sixties Scoop’’ is a problematic term. See Raven Sinclair, ‘‘All My Relations: Native Transracial Adoption, a Critical Case Study of Cultural Identity ’’ (PhD diss., University of Calgary, 2007), p. 254. Nevertheless, there is no question that during the 1960s Aboriginal children became over-represented in child welfare agencies across Canada and the target of transracial adoption policies. The present article is meant to show how the Indian Act, particularly after 1951, and the actions of officials, led directly to the ‘‘Sixties Scoop.’’ Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 489 CJH/ACH 50.362015 peaceful elimination of Indians as a legal and social fact.’’ 63 Over the last decade, Canadian scholars have identified the period from 1951 to 1969 as one of citizenship and integration. 64 Canadian Indian policy between the 1951 Indian Act and The White Paper of 1969 envisioned a unilateral move- ment whereby the distinctions between Indian people in Canada and other Canadians would be removed by incorporating Indians into the education, health, and welfare systems from which they had previously been excluded. 65 While writing on this period has primarily seen this process from the vantage point of its political goals, integration played out in the personal lives of individuals through fostering and adoption policies, particularly once Indian people became eligible to vote in Canada after 1960. Now, as citizens of the Canadian nation, proper socialization of Indigenous chil- dren took on heightened importance. 66 While there undoubtedly were cases of adoption that served the best interests of Indigenous children, for the majority, transracial adoption was merely the expression in intimate life of the larger administrative and political goal of integration and elimi- nation. In this period, the Euro-Canadian home and the intimate domain of the nuclear family were recruited for the project of establishing new forms of intercultural relations through the colonization of Indigenous kinship. 63 Miller, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens, p. 281. 64 John F. Leslie, ‘‘Assimilation, Integration or Termination? The Development of Canadian Indian Policy, 1943–1963’’ (PhD diss., Carleton University, 1999); Hugh Shewell, ‘‘Enough to Keep Them Alive’’ ; Jessa Chupik-Hall, ‘‘ ‘Good Families Do Not Just Happen’’’; and Byron King Plant, ‘‘The Politics of Indian Administration: A Revisionist History of Intrastate Relations in Mid- Twentieth Century British Columbia ’’(PhD diss., University of Saskatchewan, 2009). 65 The 1969 White Paper, tabled by Minister of Indian Affairs Jean Chre ´ tien in Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal Government, was intended to address the unequal place of Indian people in Canada. It proposed ending the special relationship between the federal government, negotiated through treaties, and repealing the Indian Act. The goal was to eliminate reserves and Indian status as a means of improving the socio-economic status of Indian people in Canada. Indian people soundly rejected The White Paper and forced the government to recognize their unique place in the nation and the treaties that under- pinned it. For more a more detailed description of the 1969 White Paper, see Miller , Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens, pp. 224–232. To see the Indian response, see Harold Cardinal, The Unjust Society: the Tragedy of Canada’s Indians (Edmonton: M.G. Hurtig, 1969). 66 For the connection between democratic citizenship and the new secular ther- apeutic focus on early child socialization see Stevenson, ‘‘Intimate Integra- tion’’, especially chapter five. Adopting a Solution to the Indian Act: From Adopt Indian and Metis (AIM) to REACH in Saskatchewan, 1951–1973. allyson stevenson 490 CJH/ACH 50.362015 allyson stevensoncompleted her PhD in History at the University of Saskatchewan in the Spring of 2015. Her dissertation, entitled ‘‘Intimate Integration: A Study of Transracial Adoption in Saskatchewan, 1944–1984,’’ has been accepted for publica- tion at University of Toronto Press. She currently has a joint term appointment teaching Indigenous Studies and Women and Gender Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. Blood, Belonging, and Aboriginal Transracial Adoption 491 CJH/ACH 50.362015