Abstract

During an election of chiefs in the summer of 1899, Indian Agent George Long was locked until evening in the schoolhouse where the polls were stationed by the bandmembers of the St. Regis reserve. The event was not a random coincidence, but an organized protest by the people of the community, whose relationship with the agent had grown increasingly hostile since he was stationed at the reserve in 1887. Elections for chiefs were an ongoing issue in St. Regis (known today as Ahkwesáhsne) ever since the implementation of the electoral system imposed by the Indian Act of 1876. The current research investigates the operation of the Department of Indian
Affairs in Ahkwesáhsne during a twenty-year period, from 1880 to 1900, a decisive period for the bureaucratic and administrative formation of the Department. Through a reading of the agent’s letterbooks, and other archival materials, this research provides a micro historical lens into the operation of four different agents stationed at the St. Regis agency. The thesis focuses on the agents’ management of the reserve and their implementation of election. It aims to show how the agents acted in self-interest, and that their authoritative supervision produced hostile relations with the band. This research tells not only the story of state formation and the professionalization of government employees, but it also reveals the collective activism and resistance with which the Department and its agents were met.