Audiotour Who was the Native Brotherhood?

The Native Brotherhood was established in Saskatchewan Penitentiary in 1964 as part of a grassroots movement by mostly Cree-Speaking Métis men. They had a strong understanding of their cultural heritage, and they wanted to keep speaking their language. Though major policy changes were sweeping through prisons in the 1960s, the changes weren’t designed to address the growing number of Indigenous peoples entering into the penitentiary system. The Native Brotherhood filled this void by developing cultural and spiritual programming; they believed that reconnection with culture and identity was the only viable route to rehabilitation.

Speaking from Saskatchewan Penitentiary in the 1990 NFB production The Spirit Within, Elder Bobby Woods notes that there were “a lot of guys that did time in the hole” and “lost a lot of good time” to achieve access to sweat lodges, pipe ceremonies, and Elders. As the Native Brotherhood movement grew and became more determined in pursuing its goals, the administration used involuntary transfer to dismantle the leadership. This strategy ultimately led to distribution of the movement both regionally and nationally.

In the Newscall, we witness a growing collective of Indigenous prisoners discussing their struggles with discrimination, we read about the pain of being severed from communities and loved ones, and we learn about deaths in custody. Remarkably, these struggles appear in the context of developing camaraderie and explorations and celebrations of identity. The development of ambitious initiatives and frameworks around mental health and reintegration led to the establishment of important programs, but many initiatives were resisted or ignored by a robust and ever-changing prison bureaucracy.

Seth Adema sums up the cultural resurgence work spearheaded by the Native Brotherhood as follows:

            While the Canadian government did not live up to its treaty obligations, as vocalized in political              circles, prisoners showed how the government failed in different terms. The government’s goal              was not to honour treaties, but rather to eliminate Aboriginal peoples as a cultural group and                render the treaties moot. Aboriginal peoples’ cultural strength accentuated this failure of the                  state and positioned themselves on higher ground culturally, spiritually, morally and politically.              In showing how the state had failed to eliminate Aboriginal peoples, and then transforming the              colonial geography of the prison into one of reclaiming their cultural practices, they made one              of the most important political statements of that era, even if it was less publicized than that of              the national Native organizations of the time.

Read by Arron Naytowhow