From “the hot-bed of vice” to the “good and well-ordered Christian home”: First Nations Housing and Reform in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationship between First Nations housing and reform in British Columbia between 1849 and 1886. Utilizing published and archival evidence drawn from church and government sources, the essay examines reformers' conceptions of First Nations housing and their concrete efforts to improve it. The essay thereby suggests that housing was an important site in the colonial encounter and that the colonial encounter itself was key to honing and disseminating new ideals related to housing, gender, and the family.

The Community Housing Plan: The Role Of Capacity In Canadian On-Reserve Housing Policy

“…Over time, "assimilation became the enduring justification for federal colonialism" (Milloy, 2008) through which Indigenous customs were conformed to western ideologies. Assimilation was achieved only when Indigenous Peoples "abandoned collective housing and adopted the Western styles thought to both represent and constitute European norms of domestic and familial life" (Perry, 2003). The Indian Act of 1867 became a legislative tool of control that directed First Nations to reserves and a breakdown of traditional governance structures (Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, 2016).…”

“…The history of home and community as a central point of colonial interaction has come at the great expense of Indigenous culture and well-being, altering their relationship to land and social structure (Monk, 2013). This interaction led to a "re-imagined, attempted, resisted, and ultimately refashioned" (Perry, 2003) reorganization of First Nations society (Perry, 2003). On-Reserve housing policy continues to perpetuate this colonial encounter by limiting Indigenous abilities to self-govern through regulations that define their homes and communities.…”

On Seasons of an Indigenous Feminism, Kinship, and the Program of Home Management

“…Reform of the “home” not only involved breaking down extended family kinship systems, but the physical transformation of the home as well. Multiple-family dwellings or spaces that failed to divide domestic spaces were considered “hotbeds of vice” in nineteenth-century British Columbia, and the shed houses of the Coast Salish, with “as many as a dozen families” living together, challenged “the universality of the nuclear family and monogamy” (Perry 2003, 592). As Adele Perry has pointed out, “too many unrelated bodies” signified not only a problem of overcrowding but also one of sexuality (592).…”

“…Jane E. Simonsen and Rose Stremlau have written about the "civilization" of late nineteenthand early twentieth-century Indigenous communities within the United States through an imposed domesticity that positioned middle-class white women's ways as the epitome of civilization (Stremlau 2005;Simonsen 2006). In Canada and other British colonies, field matrons and missionaries played the role of benevolent white mothers to Indigenous women who presumably needed their attention (Rutherdale 2002;Perry 2005;Jacobs 2007;2011). Nurses were sent out "to give talks on sanitation, nutrition, homemaking and childcare," at a time when settler women were still reliant on Indigenous women for assistance with midwifery and other forms of medicine (Burnett 2010, 149).…”

Florida Seminole Housing and the Social Meanings of Sovereignty

“…enabled by tribal gaming revenues, shifted modes of governance previously established through Seminoles' mid-century reliance on federal government funding and administration. Tracing Seminole housing offers insight into the ongoing processes of settler coloniality in the United States, much as scholars have examined housing as a domain of colonialism in other periods and locales (Celik 1997;Comaroff and Comaroff 1992;Mitchell 1991;Wright 1991), including among First Nations in Canada (Harris 2002;Perry 2003). Yet Seminole housing not only tells a story about colonialism, but also illuminates the possibilities, limits, and unexpected entailments of tribal sovereignty.…”