The pass system was a system of internal passports for Indigenous Canadians between 1885 and 1941. It was administered by the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA), beginning after the 1885 North-West Rebellion as part of a broader effort to confine indigenous people to Indian reserves, then newly formed through the Numbered Treaties. The system, initially intended as a temporary measure to quell disorder in the prairie provinces, eventually became a permanent feature of federal Indian affairs policy.
Parliament never sanctioned the pass system; it was an administrative policy of the Department of Indian Affairs. The system remained in place until 1941; its purpose was to limit the freedom of movement of indigenous populations. Federal officials asserted that "Indians had to be kept separate from the rest of society for their own good, as contact tended to be injurious to them". The pass system was mainly implemented in Alberta and other regions in the western prairies, in Treaty 4, Treaty 6, and Treaty 7 areas.Cree and Saulteaux First Nation band governments representatives signed Treaty 4 or Qu'Appelle Treaty in 1874. Treaty 4 land included most of what is now southern Saskatchewan, as well as small areas in what is now western Manitoba and southeastern Alberta. Signatures to Treaty 6 were added from 1871 to 1877 by Plains Cree and Woods Cree, Assiniboine, and other band governments at Fort Carlton and Fort Pitt. Treaty 7 (1875) was signed by the Blackfoot, First Nation band governments in what is today the southern portion of Alberta. The federal government formally terminated the system in 1941.
The pass system was administered by the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA); its authority to do so derived from a provision of the Indian Act which granted local Indian agents the powers of a justice of the peace. Under the broad powers granted to them to administer the reserves, the agents were responsible for the enforcement of the pass system; this was often done somewhat arbitrarily. Under the pretext of broadly defined vagrancy and loitering offences, North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) officers were authorized to detain Indigenous people who were off reserve without appropriate documentation. Detainees would typically be returned to their reserves; punishment for leaving the reserve without a pass could include imprisonment.
The 2015 report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) investigation described the policies of the pass system, the Indian reserve system, the Indian residential school system as "aggressive assimilation".
Context
(TRC) described the period from 1764 to 1969 as a time of "Displacement and Assimilation." From 1871 through the 1880s, as agricultural settlements expanded across the prairies, the Canadian government signed the Numbered Treaties, established the reserve system, and encouraged First Nations to adopt farming with the creation of industrial boarding schools. By the 1880s, after 80 years of over hunting, bison populations in the western prairies—upon which the First Nations depended—collapsed, leading to famine. Sarah Carter described how, "The buffalo was the foundation of the Plains economy, providing people not only with a crucial source of protein and vitamins but with many other necessities, including shelter, clothing, containers, and tools." In the late 18th and 19th centuries smallpox epidemics decimated indigenous communities. First Nations had no alternative but to accept the government's policies. The TRC report described the policies—including the reserve system, the residential schools, and the pass system—as "aggressive assimilation".
Scope Vancouver Island University historian, Keith D. Smith described the pass system in his 2009 book Liberalism, Surveillance, and Resistance: Indigenous Communities in Western Canada, 1877-1927, as a "highly effective component of a "coercive and flexible" "matrix" of restrictive "laws, regulations, and policies" to "confine Indigenous people to their reserves" and advance the "interests of non-Indigenous settlers." Smith wrote that, "Under this initiative, a reserve resident was required to first secure a written pass from their Indian agent if they wanted to visit family or friends in a nearby village; check on their children at a residential school; participate in a celebration or attend a cultural event in a neighbouring community; leave their reserve to hunt, fish, and collect resources; find paid employment; travel to urban centres; or leave the reserve for any other reason."
The pass system was mainly implemented in Treaty 4, Treaty 6, and Treaty 7 areas, the regions that became the prairie provinces.
The role of federal government officials (1879–1890s) John A. Macdonald (1815–1891), Edgar Dewdney (1835–1916), and Hayter Reed (1849–1936) were the three federal officials who were the "most prominent in the development and implementation of Indian policy" during this period. Macdonald was Canada's first Prime Minister from 1867 until 1873 and had a second term from 1878 until 1891. From 1879 to 1887 Macdonald, who was both Superintendent General of Indian Affair and Prime Minister, never visited the First Nations. Macdonald had promised a transcontinental railway to link British Columbia, which had joined the Confederation in 1871, with eastern Canada. When he won his second term, he was under pressure to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. The last spike on November 7, 1885 marked the completion of the railway, for which Macdonald has been honoured by many and condemned by others. Canada's national story often celebrates Macdonald and the CP railway as it brought prosperity to many Canadians. Indigenous peoples were removed from their traditional lands to make way for the CPR, including approximately 5,000 Indigenous people who were "expelled from the Cypress Hills of Saskatchewan in the 1880s alone[...] One tactic used by local Indian agents against recalcitrant bands was to withhold rations." In his 2013 book Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life, Canadian scholar, James Daschuk, described how the "institutionalisation of a pass system, which confined First Nations peoples to reserves, later became a vector for the spread of infectious diseases." Ottawa-based Lawrence Vankoughnet, a top-ranking DIA bureaucrat, is often cited as the person responsible for cutting rations to First Nations reserves after the collapse of the buffalo herds, to minimize costs. Other historians place the blame largely on Dewdney who was known for engaging in power struggles with Vankoughnet. It was Vankoughnet who first alluded to a pass system in his 1884 annual report, claiming it had the potential to "prevent Indians from camping indiscriminately near white settlements."
In 1879, Macdonald had chosen Dewdney to succeed David Laird as Superintendent of Indian Affairs because of Dewdney's "firmness and tact, mature judgement and experience, and 'knowledge of the Indian character'." Dewdney served as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories from December 3, 1881 until his resignation on July 1, 1888 as governor and as commissioner. Dewdney hired Hayter Reed (1849–1936) as his Assistant Commissioner. Reed, who was recommended by Dewdney as his replacement as Indian Commissioner, continued to implement departmental policies that promoted "protection, civilization, and assimilation." Reed said, "If the Indian is to become a source of profit to the country, it is clear that he must be amalgamated with the white population."
Role of local Indian agents In the 1870s, the DIA put in place local Indian agents to "ensure social control and social transformation of First Nations groups." In 1885, the power of the local Indian agents was expanded giving them the authority as a justice of the peace in legal matters, as well as the right to confine Indigenous people to their reserves through the pass system. They already had the power "to recommend a Chief be removed from council and to force children either attend or to refuse a child to attend residential schools."
Resistance and post-rebellion In the mid-1880s in the Saskatchewan District of the North-West Territories, Treaty 6 Cree people led by Mistahimaskwa (Big Bear) (1825–1888) were facing starvation as bison herds disappeared. Big Bear rose up in frustration against the government, and protested treaty agreements. In five months in 1885, the Métis engaged in armed conflict with the Canadian government. These combined events are known as the North-West Rebellion. The armed response from the federal government ended the uprisings and discouraged others. After this unsuccessful rebellion, the Canadian government faced little opposition to its expansion, the arrival of settlers, and the construction of the railway.
Reed, then Indian agent for the Saskatchewan region, asked Macdonald to restrict the movement of Indians and stressed that the security and well-being of the country and the white settlers was at risk. On March 26, 1885, the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) Superintendent attempted to seize what he considered an important supply point. As a result of that confrontation, 12 men of the NWMP died and 11 were wounded. Five Metis and 1 Cree were also killed in the battle.
In 1884 and 1885, the pass system emerged as Dewdney instructed the newly formed North-West Mounted Police to "detain native leaders as they attempted to travel to meetings, breaking up gatherings where legal resistance and court challenges were being discussed, and [used] rations to squeeze the Plains peoples into submission".
Following the 1885 rebellion, Macdonald and his administration introduced the "most restrictive policies and legislation" with the goal of "breaking up the tribal system and assimilating First Nations people". Historian Sarah Carter described the pass system—"first initiated on a large scale" during the 1885 crisis—as the "most notorious of the post-1885 measures." In the post-rebellion years, the eastern regions began to learn about how Plains Indigenous people were starving.