No need of a chief for this band: The Maritime Mi'kmaq and Federal Electoral Legislation, 1899-1951

In 1899 the Canadian government passed legislation to replace thecommunity appointment of Mi'kmaw leaders and Mi'kmaw politicalpractices with the triennial system, a Euro-Canadian system ofdemocratic band council elections. Officials in Ottawa assumed thefederally mandated and supervised system would redefine Mi'kmawpolitics. They were wrong. Many Mi'kmaw communities rejected oramended the legislation, while others accepted it only sporadically tomeet specific community needs and goals. Compelling and timely, thisbook supports Aboriginal claims to self-governance and complicatesunderstandings of state power by showing that the Mi'kmaw, ratherthan succumbing to imposed political models, retained politicalpractices that distinguished them from their Euro-Canadianneighbours.