Allied Tribes of British Columbia

As Allied Tribes of British Columbia ( allies tribes of British Columbia) called himself an organization founded in 1916 by Indian tribes in British Columbia, in western Canada. It included 16 tribal groups that had joined themselves to maintain and enforce their land claims. However, they broke up in 1927, as Indians to exercise their rights was prohibited.

Trigger for the merger

Trigger for the merger was the formation of the McKenna - McBride Commission, which had been used in order to solve the " land question ", and adjust the size of the reserves. She was in her studies, which lasted since 1913, come a long way and had submitted proposals for the reduction of numerous reserves. In addition, however, there was not only within the Commission's arguments, but also between the Federal Government and the Government of the province.

The approximately 25,000 affected Indians of the province tried to also get involved. 1916 allied themselves to the Indian Rights Association and the Interior Tribes of British Columbia to act together against the decisions of the Commission may. Already in the previous year, some of them had come together to support the demand of the Nisga'a according to a contract.

Struggle for land rights and prohibitions

The representative of the Government of Canada, WE Ditchburn, and the representative of the province, JW Clark, should represent the interests of the Indians with the anthropologist James Teit. But part died in 1922, so that the Indians were again without representation. The result was the final Ditchburn -Clark Report, which provided for a reduction of reserves, practically without their participation.

After the London Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in 1921 was the first time like a landmark ruling in favor of a tribe ( in Nigeria), tried the allied tribes of British Columbia to take their case to the Royal Council body also. These three chiefs traveled to London, who met there to the Canadian High Commission. This promised to forward the relevant documents to King George V.

The government in Ottawa prompted a meeting, but in which the responsible Deputy Superintendent of the Department of Indian Affairs Duncan Campbell Scott, who pursued a hard-line assimilation, rejecting the claims of the tribes. On the contrary, the Indian Act ( Indian Act ) was tightened. Now it has been banned the Indians to engage lawyers without permission of the Superintendent - General - as Scott claimed to protect the Indians against "exploitation by lawyers and agitators ".

Thus, the business base was extracted and installed every effect possible, the Allied Tribes of British Columbia. The organization disbanded.