Museum The Native Brotherhood at Saskatchewan Penitentiary

The Native Brotherhood was formed at Saskatchewan Penitentiary in 1964. Before the 1960s, Indigenous people comprised 1-2% of the penitentiary population. By the end of the 1960s, the penitentiary system began to play a growing role in the lives of Indigenous peoples in Canada. A government report from 1967 concluded that prejudice, discrimination and the legacies of colonialism were driving forces for the growing crisis in overrepresentation. Produced under the eyes of censors, the Native Brotherhood Newscall, captures the power of brotherhood and culture at the moment when this crisis began. Many of the issues raised by the men in the Native Brotherhood are echoed in the Calls to Action formulated decades later by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. The writing in this exhibit was produced by prisoners in the 1960s and 1970s. The artwork was produced by men currently incarcerated at Saskatchewan Penitentiary.

Read by Dean Tanner

Recordings by Lee Lim, INCA Media Labs at the First Nations University of Canada