Tommy Prince, from the Brokenhead Ojibway Nation in Manitoba, became one of Canada's most decorated Indigenous soldiers of the Second World War, earning the Military Medal and the American Silver Star with an elite Canadian–American commando unit. Yet as a status First Nations man, he came home to a country where the Indian Act still controlled much of his life, where most First Nations people could not vote in federal elections without giving up their status, and where veterans' benefits were harder for him to reach than for the men he had fought beside. His story captures the central question of this lesson: how did First Nations, Métis and Inuit people experience a period of economic collapse and world war while living under policies designed to control and assimilate them?
Three peoples, three sets of policies
| People | Key policies and events, 1929–1945 | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| First Nations | The Indian Act, enforced by Indian agents; bans on ceremonies such as the potlatch and Sun Dance still in the law; residential schools (80 operating in 1931, the most at any one time); the 1934 Dominion Franchise Act barred First Nations people living on reserves from voting federally, except some veterans; the 1930 Natural Resources Transfer Agreements put Prairie Crown lands under provincial control | Daily life controlled by agents; children separated from families and languages; little political voice; hunting and trapping increasingly limited by provincial game laws, though hunting for food on unoccupied Crown land was protected |
| Métis | Not covered by the Indian Act or treaties, so the federal government denied responsibility. Many Prairie Métis lived in poverty as "road allowance people" on strips of unused public land. Métis leaders formed an Alberta association in 1932; Alberta's Ewing Commission (1934–1936) led to the Métis Population Betterment Act (1938) | The Act set aside land for Métis communities in Alberta, the basis of today's Métis Settlements, but elsewhere Métis remained without a land base or recognition |
| Inuit | In 1939 the Supreme Court of Canada ruled (Re Eskimos) that Inuit fell under federal responsibility like First Nations. From 1941 the government issued Inuit numbered identification discs ("E-numbers") instead of using their names. Inuit were also barred from federal voting by the 1934 Act | Federal officials began to manage Inuit lives more directly; the disc system, used for decades, is remembered as dehumanizing. Inuit won the federal vote in 1950 |
The Depression in Indigenous communities
The Depression hit many Indigenous communities hard. Fur prices collapsed, so trapping families earned far less; seasonal jobs in farming, fishing, lumbering and on the railways vanished; and relief on reserves, handed out by Indian agents, was often minimal. In the North, families became more dependent on trading posts for flour, ammunition and other goods bought on credit. Underfunded residential schools remained overcrowded, with poor food and high rates of disease, and children were punished for speaking their languages. Indigenous people organized despite these barriers: Métis leaders such as Joseph Dion, Malcolm Norris and Jim Brady built political associations, and First Nations leaders kept pressing for treaty rights. New industries could also cause harm: from the 1930s, Sahtu Dene men from Délı̨nę carried sacks of radioactive ore (mined for radium and later uranium) from the Port Radium mine on Great Bear Lake without being told of the danger, and the community links many later deaths from cancer to that work.
Serving in the Second World War
Indian Affairs recorded just over 3,000 status First Nations people who enlisted, a figure historians consider an undercount, and an unknown number of Métis, Inuit and non-status Indigenous people also served. People enlisted for many reasons: loyalty to the Crown as treaty partners, a family tradition of service from the First World War, a desire to defend their homes, or the chance of a steady wage after the Depression. Many found that soldiers in the ranks treated them as equals.
- Sergeant Tommy Prince (Brokenhead Ojibway Nation) served with the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and the First Special Service Force (the "Devil's Brigade"), earning the Military Medal and the US Silver Star; he later served in Korea.
- Charles "Checker" Tomkins (also spelled Tompkins), a Métis soldier from Grouard, Alberta, who spoke Cree, was one of the Cree code talkers. Working with US forces in England, he translated secret military messages into Cree so enemies could not understand them. Sworn to secrecy, he only told his story shortly before his death in 2003.
- Mary Greyeyes of Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, Saskatchewan, joined the Canadian Women's Army Corps in 1942, becoming known as the first First Nations woman to enlist, and served in London, England.
- On the home front, many First Nations communities raised money and supplies for war charities, and Indigenous workers took jobs in war industries.
Unequal sacrifice: land, status and benefits
- Conscription and treaties: many First Nations argued that their treaties promised they would not be forced to fight in Britain's wars. Home-defence conscription applied to status First Nations men from 1940, and only in December 1944 were men covered by certain numbered treaties (including Treaties 3, 8 and 11) exempted from overseas service.
- Land taken for the war: in April 1942, after the Stoney Point community voted against surrendering its reserve, the federal government used the War Measures Act to take it for an army training base, Camp Ipperwash, and moved families to the Kettle Point reserve. The land was promised back after the war but was kept for decades, a grievance behind the Ipperwash crisis of 1995. Other reserves also lost land for airfields and bases.
- Lost status: under the Indian Act, some First Nations soldiers and their families lost Indian status, for example through enfranchisement or rules about long absences from the reserve, and with it their membership rights in their own nations.
- Veterans' benefits: under the Veterans' Land Act (1942), non-Indigenous veterans could get help buying land, but First Nations veterans who wanted to stay on their reserves received smaller grants controlled by Indian agents, and many were never told what benefits they could claim. Métis veterans faced similar gaps.