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Title

Series consists of

5 lower level description(s)

Arrangement structure

Series part of

Indian and Inuit Affairs Program sous-fonds [multiple media] (R216-185-5-E)

Bilingual equivalent

Documents de la Nouvelle-Écosse [document textuel]

Date(s)

1786-1919

Place of creation

No place, unknown, or undetermined

Extent

Language of material

English

Scope and content

Series consists of sundry records created and/or maintained by the Department of Indian Affairs and relating to Indian matters in Nova Scotia. Many of the records appear to have been created or maintained by Samuel Fairbanks. A few records post-date Fairbanks' years with the Department. Volumes 459-461 contain correspondence, accounts, land petitions and returns relating to Indian communities and reserves in Nova Scotia, and each volume contains a schedule of contents. Pre-Confederation material in these volumes dates primarily, but not exclusively, from the years 1852-1867. The post-Confederation records date mainly from the years 1868-1871 and include correspondence between Fairbanks and Joseph Howe and Hector Langevin (his two superiors in Ottawa), incoming correspondence to Fairbanks, drafts and copies of Fairbanks' out-going correspondence, and a few original incoming letters to Howe and Langevin from Fairbanks which bear Secretary of State docket covers (suggesting that they were records maintained at headquarters in Ottawa). The volumes also contain numerous land petitions with sketches and plans. Volume 1718 contains an interest paylist from Ship Harbour, Halifax County, Nova Scotia, paid by Indian Superintendent A. J. Boyd in 1919.

Conditions of access

Terms of use

Copyright belongs to the Crown. In order to protect the fragile originals, the microfilm copies of these records must be consulted rather than the originals.

Finding aid

Finding aid 10-1 is a computer generated volume list. 10-1 (Electronic)

Additional name(s)

Canada. Indian Branch. Agent for Indian Affairs in the Province of Nova Scotia. Indian Branch. Agent for Indian Affairs in the Province of Nova Scotia.

Biography / Administrative history

Under the terms of the Constitution Act, 1867, responsibility for the administration of Indian Affairs was assigned to the federal government. This delineation of responsibility was given concrete expression the following year in the passage of An Act Providing for the Organization of the Department of the Secretary of State of Canada and for the Management of Indian and Ordnance Lands (31 Vict., c.42 - assented to 22 May 1868). Of significance to the Indian population of Nova Scotia was the fact that this legislation repealed provincial statutes governing the administration of Indian affairs and vested Indian lands in that province in the Crown in right of Canada, under the management of the Secretary of State of Canada. Provision was also made under s.39 of the Act for the appointment of agents to carry out the provisions of the legislation. This legislation paved the way for the appointment of federal Indian agents to replace the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Nova Scotia. In September 1868, Samuel Fairbanks, who as Commissioner of Crown Lands in the pre-Confederation colonial government in Nova Scotia had had responsibility for Indian matters, was appointed as the federal government's "agent for Indian Affairs in the Province of Nova Scotia" (Order in Council 816, 18 September 1868). From his headquarters in Halifax, Fairbanks had responsibility for the entire Indian population of the province until April 1871 when, for the purposes of Indian administration, Nova Scotia was divided into 7 districts and local agents were appointed for each district.

Additional information

Source

Government

MIKAN no.

159097