Canada and the Imposition of Poverty Essay

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Dispossession and the imposition of poverty

Britain colonized the Mi’kmaq in 1713 when they took control of it. The English conquered, controlled, and degraded the indigenous people who were Indians. They referred to them as red-skinned. They destroyed Nova Scotia in an uncivilized way. They also employed evil plans and ways to rule there, just like they did in their other colonies “in North America.” Discrimination and disrespectful names were given to natives by English high officials are the signs of racism and cruelty against the North Americans. They used words such as “execrable race” and “vilest of brutes.” The English maintained the belief that whites were much superior to the Amerindians. The colonel’s plan of eliminating the Indians illustrated the cruelty of the English. He thought of exposing them to diseases like smallpox and hunting them with dogs as the Spaniards did.

The Edge of Extinction

As from 1492, when Columbus landed, the Amerindians had experienced intense racial abuse. In 1837, the U.S President publicly said that he viewed Indians as an obstacle to the realization of civilization and progress of any nation, which led to the remarks of evicting them. The number of Indians reduced significantly during the 154 following years that Great Britain colonized the Mi’kmaq. Many of them could not withstand the cruelty and harsh treatment of the English, who had a mission to defeat and extinct them. The English saw their large numbers as a threat for more than seventy-five years and, therefore, had to develop ways of weakening them. Thus, as from 1713, the English invaded them and used force to the extent of affecting their population through military warfare, feeding them poisonous foods and deliberate germs infections. The smallpox epidemics in Cape Breton that killed many Indians in 1732-33 demonstrated the severity of this infection. Moreover, in 1746 in Nova Scotia, a contagious fever spread by the French military that killed thousands in a place was occupied by an Indian community.

Confederation and the Indian Act

The politicians from North America discussed the confederation in the 1860s and forwarded it to the Great Britain Parliament. As a result, the British parliament enacted The British North America Act. It proclaimed the establishment of a new country, Canada, in 1867. The Act structured the government into provincial and federal. The First Nations got assistance from Ottawa. This benefited them because Ottawa had enough stock to end starvation, though they faced language barriers because of illiteracy among the significant part of the population. The situation escalated as a result of the changes in the federal government until 1966, when the department to deal with Indian affairs was created. The department of Citizenship and Immigration handled Indians’ affairs, making them internal refugees. However, their situation worsened as they only got to enjoy fewer privileges than other immigrants.

Britain used its military power and knowledge to take advantage of the North Americans to mistreat them. They believed the Amerindians were inferior to them because of their race and, therefore, came up with ways to invade them, weaken them and end up destroying what seemed to be a big force to be reckoned with for many years. Through inhumane techniques, they were able to conquer and take control of the Mi’kmaq from where they later formed the country Canada and made the indigenous landless and marginalized in their own country.

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IvyPanda. (2021) 'Canada and the Imposition of Poverty'. 26 February.

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IvyPanda. 2021. "Canada and the Imposition of Poverty." February 26, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/canada-and-the-imposition-of-poverty/.

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