We welcome you to the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre.

The records on our site emerge from the cultural and physical genocide that the Canadian government and churches conducted through the Indian Residential School System, including the ongoing impacts.

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First Nations potlatch, Alert Bay, British Columbia, between 1905 and 1910. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Potlatch ban

1884
Description
An amendment to the Indian Act banned the potlatch and Tamanawas dances, ceremonies integral to many First Nations cultures in BC. Under the ban, anyone who participated in a potlatch was “guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to imprisonment.”  This ban aimed to both extinguish cultural practices and shift Indigenous peoples to a European economic model. The 1884 amendment was extended in 1895 to outlaw all dances, ceremonies, and festivals.

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