JurisTalk – “Paradise Lost? The Constitutional Politics of ‘Indian’ Enfranchisement in Canada, 1857-1900” With Dr. Coel Kirkby, Sydney Law School, The University of Sydney

• In-person event
• D492, Loeb Building, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

Speaker: Dr. Coel Kirkby

Sydney Law School, The University of Sydney

Paradise Lost? The Constitutional Politics of ‘Indian’ Enfranchisement in Canada, 1857-1900

Abstract: Enfranchisement was the legal process for an individual or community to end their legal status as ‘Indians’ under the Indian Act as a prelude to assimilation. In this paper I aim to recover the Canadian government’s imposition of its constitutional vision on Wendat and Lenape, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Wendat and Lenape, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee in the nineteenth century. I first trace how and why the Canadian government created the enfranchisement process as the primary legal means to solve the so-called ‘Indian problem’ by dismembering and ultimately assimilating Indian bands. I then recover the untold story of the seventy or so cases of successful enfranchisement in the Wendat and Lenape, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee nations. The Six Nations story is especially important given the extensive written and oral sources for one exceptional enfranchisement applicant: Dr Oronhyatekha (aka Mr. Peter Martin). His strange case illuminates the one man’s lived experiment in imagining and building a radical constitutional vision of a Mohawk paradise on earth.

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Juris Talks Poster – Dr. Coel Kirkby