Hunger, Horses, and Government Men: Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains, 1870-1905Scholars often accept without question that the Indian Act (1876) criminalized First Nations. In this illuminating book, Shelley Gavigan argues that the notion of criminalization captures neither the complexities of Aboriginal participation in the criminal courts nor the significance of the Indian Act as a form of law. Gavigan draws on court files, police and penitentiary records, and newspaper accounts and insights from critical criminology to interrogate state formation and criminal law in the Saskatchewan region of the North-West Territories between 1870 and 1905. By focusing on Aboriginal people's participation in the courts rather than on narrow categories such as "the state" and "the accused," Gavigan allows Aboriginal defendants, witnesses, and informants to emerge in vivid detail and tell the story in their own terms. Their experiences stand as evidence that the criminal law and the Indian Act operated in complex and contradictory ways that included both the mediation and the enforcement of relations of inequality. |
Contents
Introduction | 3 |
1 Legally Framing the Plains
and the First Nations | 24 |
2 Of Course No One Saw Them | 50 |
3 Prisoner Never Gave Me Anything for What He Done | 88 |
4 Make a Better Indian of Him | 121 |
5 Six Women Six Stories | 156 |
Conclusion | 183 |
Afterword | 189 |
Notes | 195 |
Bibliography | 253 |
Other editions - View all
Hunger, Horses, and Government Men: Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains ... Shelley A. M. Gavigan No preview available - 2012 |
Hunger, Horses, and Government Men: Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains ... Shelley A. M. Gavigan No preview available - 2013 |
Common terms and phrases
1st series Aboriginal women accused persons appears assault Assiniboine Ballendine band Battleford Bear’s Beardy Big Bear Blair Stonechild Canadian Plains Research Cardinal charged chief Coll convicted court file court records crime criminal court criminal law Dempsey Dewdney Eagle Child Edgar Dewdney Eugana events of 1885 evidence Gouin guilty horse Hugh Richardson Ibid Indian Act Indian Agent Indian Department Indian policy Information interpreter John jury killed Lake Legal History Lemac Man’s Manitoba Penitentiary Margaret Métis murder Nations North-West Mounted Police North-West Rebellion North-West Territories NWMP offences officer ofthe peace Peaychew Piapot Plains Research Center Poundmaker Prairie prisoner prosecution Qu’Appelle Queen’s Regina Report reserve Royal sic SAB AG CR-Regina SAB SCNWT Crim Sarah Carter Saskatchewan Archives Board Saskatchewan Herald Saulteaux sentence stipendiary magistrate Stonechild and Waiser Supreme Court theft told Toronto Press Treaty Annuity Paylists trial UBC Press University of Toronto Vancouver Vict Western Canada wife witnesses woman