Disinherited Generations: Our Struggle to Reclaim Treaty Rights for First Nations Women and their Descendants by Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer (review)

“You asked, did we talk about this? About losing treaty rights? You don’t know. We were asked never to talk about Indian issues, treaty issues. You were not allowed to do this when we were young. We knew men who had asked questions, and they were taken off the Band List by the Indian Agent. That’s how the government dealt with us in those years. We didn’t stay silent, but we lived with these threats in our lives” (p. 111).

Disinherited Generations documents the lives and work of Alberta First Nations women who courageously spoke out against the widespread extinguishment of treaty rights of First Nations women that was legislated in the Indian Act. The book focuses on Nellie Carlson and Kathleen Steinhauer, both born into the Saddle Lake Cree Nation, disenfranchised upon marriage to non-status Indian men, and founders of and long-time activists with Indian Rights for Indian Women, a national organization that fought gender discrimination in the Indian Act. Disinherited Generations also honours a number of other women involved in the movement including: Jenny Shirt Margetts, also of Saddle Lake, an assertive and determined activist for women’s rights and co-president of the Indian Rights for Indian women; Mary Two Axe Early a Mohawk from Kahnawake, Quebec, who initiated the group Equal Rights for Indian Women in 1967, an organization which became part of the nation-wide Indian Rights for Indian Women; and others. An engaging and inspirational book, Disinherited Generations will have an audience among students, researchers and other people wanting to know more about treaty and Aboriginal rights, activism, the First Nations women’s movement and the Indian Act.

Central to the book is a depiction of the lived realities of First Nations women born under the Indian Act from the late 1920s to the present. The Indian Act outlines a set of wide-ranging regulations and penalties that applies to First Nations people and to reserves; nevertheless, it is practically impossible for First Nations people to have any input into the Act. Importantly the Act defines who is legally recognized as “Indian” – now referred to as a “status Indian”. From 1876 to 1985 this definition was any male person of Indian blood reputed to belong to a particular band, any child of such a person and any woman married to such a person. Not only was Indian status defined by male lineage, it was also impermanent and could be forfeited by some and gained by others – voluntarily and involuntarily. By the Act, any Indian woman who married a non-Indian would lose legal status as Indian, and any non-Indian woman who married an Indian man would gain legal status as Indian. Moreover, any Indian woman who married an Indian man from another band would cease to be a member of her own band and become a member of her husband’s.

The sections of the Act dealing with marriage and status have changed a number of times since 1879, most significantly for Nellie and Kathleen (as they prefer to be called) in 1951 and 1985. Before 1951, women who lost status through marriage did not necessarily lose her rights in practice; in fact, between 1947 and 1951, women who had treaty status and who had married non-status men were defined as “red-ticket holders,” women who had treaty numbers, lived on reserves, received annuities but not all treaty rights (in contrast, “white-ticket holders” were treaty people and “blue-ticket holders” were Métis and non-status Indians). After 1951, the Indian department set up a register of all Indian people and determined that only those who were registered had the legal right to live on reserve, vote in band elections, own a share of band funds; own and inherit property on the reserve...