The ‘Sarcee War’: Fragmented Citizenship and the City

Abstract

In 1880, the Tsuu T'ina Nation (then the Sarcee band) staged a small, armed protest known as the ‘Sarcee War’, in Calgary, Alberta, to demand food and a separate reserve from the Siksika, with whom they had been assigned land. This paper argues that this protest reveals the material and political roots of Aboriginal citizenship: a fragmented and differentiated political body, unified through contingent agreements. The Tsuu T'ina actions, the choice of location and their specific demands reveal an assertion of rights that differ from the ‘standard’ idea of Canadian citizenship (then and now) and articulate a complex process of ‘othering’ and belonging.

This research was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Calgary Institute for the Humanities at the University of Calgary. The author would also like to thank Vanessa Mathews, Stephanie Watt and David Rossiter for their valuable assistance with the research and Engin Isin for his comments on earlier drafts.

Notes

1. A scanned image of a pass for a Tsuu T'ina from 1892 may be found on the website of the Glenbow Archives at http://www.glenbow.org/archpics/sarcee.jpg.