Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance

This study explores the application of liberalism between 1877 and 1927 in the land which became southern Alberta and the British Columbia interior. In these regions, liberalism acted as an exclusionary force that enabled the use of extraordinary measures to remove Indigenous peoples from their ancestral territories. The expansion of liberalism, diverse and multifaceted in construction but undeniably debilitating in its impact on First Nations people, was facilitated, fashioned, and justified by means of disciplinary surveillance. This network, which included government officials, police officers, church representatives, and ordinary settlers, inculcated Anglo-Canadian liberal capitalist values, structures, and interests by presenting them as normal, natural, and beyond reproach. At the same time, it worked to exclude or restructure the economic, political, social, and spiritual aspects of Indigenous cultures. While none of this proceeded unchallenged, surveillance served as well to dampen, even if it could never completely quench, opposition.