La capacité juridique collective des Premières Nations avant la Loi sur les Indiens l’exemple des Abénakis d’Odanak

Abstract

This article examines the transformations in the legal capacity of aboriginal communities within the Canadian colonial legal order between the end of the 18^th century and the adoption of the first “Indian” acts in 1850. It shows how the growing tendency in the 19^th century to view corporate status as deriving solely from the state contributed to the erasure of the legal capacity of aboriginal communities. Having first been granted legal capacity as a religious body (missions) in the 1830s, aboriginal communities were subsequently assimilated to bodies of a political nature lacking corporate status. Legal personality thus turned out to be a legal instrument that facilitated the dispossession of First Nations. The demonstration is based on the case of the Abenaki community of Odanak (in present-day Quebec).