November 16, 2016
“Mi’kmaw Politicism and the Origins of the Micmac Community Development Program, 1900–1957”
Martha Walls, Mount Saint Vincent University
Abstract:
Between 1957 and 1970, the Extension Department of St. Francis Xavier University operated the Micmac Community Development Program (MCDP), intended to build financial and political independence in Mi’kmaw communities in northeastern Nova Scotia. Implicit in the work of MCDP was an assumption that the program would teach the Mi’kmaq political skills with which they would be better able to contest state interferences. This paper challenges this assumption as it explores how, in the decades preceding the MCDP, deeply-rooted and effective Mi’kmaw political mechanisms challenged the most egregious of colonial impositions. The MCDP was no catalyst to Mi’kmaw political action; instead it tapped into an existing and effective Mi’kmaw political network.