ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to apply postcolonial analysis and Michel Foucault's ideas on government to the study of colonial governmentality in the context of the aboriginals in the prairie region of Canada from 1870-1890. It offers a framework for understanding colonial governmentality by focusing on questions which relate to the political rationality and the pragmatic government of the aboriginal mode of life. While liberalism has most often been referred to as a political ideology that accentuates the optimization of individual liberty and its protection from intrusion by the state, those who have followed Foucault's work have rejected the normative discourse of liberalism and opted for a more critical interpretation of its activity of rule. The geographical space of Rupert's Land comprised 'a territory which is one third larger than all of Europe, covering a space sufficient for the establishment of kingdoms and empires'.
