Elias Hill was the only civilized Indian of the nineteenth century. This story begins with the Gradual Civilization Act of 1857, which was passed before Confederation. This Act sought to assimilate Indigenous People into European settler society.
The government created a process whereby a male Indian over the age of 21 could apply for enfranchisement. Women could not apply. For an Indian to be deemed “civilized” and eligible for enfranchisement, an applicant had to be able to read and write in English or French. Applicants had to prove financial independence, maintain a farm free of debt, and secure a personal character reference from an Indian Agent or minister proving strict sobriety and Christian morality.
The colonial government appointed a committee of three people to evaluate each applicant. This panel consisted of the Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, a local Christian missionary, and a third appointed official. The racist government of the time assumed that Indians would jump at the chance to become enfranchised.
The problem is, enfranchisement meant terminating an Indigenous person’s Indian status. The successful applicant had to break all ties with their home community, surrender their treaty rights, and divide communal reserve land into private property plots. If a man was successfully enfranchised, his wife and children would lose their Indian status and be removed from their communities, whether they wanted to or not. Because the penalty for Canadian citizenship was the total loss of culture, family, and treaty rights, Indigenous peoples overwhelmingly resisted the law.
Only three men voluntarily applied for enfranchisement. Of those three applicants, Elias Hill was the only one approved. Hill was a highly educated Mohawk preacher and teacher from the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario. Because he perfectly matched the Victorian ideal of an educated Christian man, the government approved him. The other two applicants were rejected for failing the rigorous morality and literacy checks.
Upon approval, Hill was officially stripped of his Mohawk status. He was legally evicted from his nation and severed from his treaty rights. So, let me get this right. Elias Hill’s ancestors were living their lives for at least 24,000 years, but none of them were civilized until Elias passed a test administered by a priest, Indian agent, and some other white schmuck?
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