3 - Sovereign Spectacles and Criminal Accusation

Summary

The third chapter studies how a 330-man Northwest Mounted Police force was assembled in response to rumoured law-and-order issues that framed the report’s recommendation. This force marched into Alberta in late 1874 (see Figure 1.2) with plans to deploy Dominion law sovereignly over legally plural contexts. With relatively few officers, and claiming jurisdiction over vast geographies, the force set about arranging spectacular symbolic performances of criminal accusation. Senior police officers met with Indigenous leaders to discuss possible targets for legal governance. Based on meetings with leaders in southern Alberta the Mounted Police negotiated an initial target – a socially injurious liquor trade. A discernible socio-political logic lay behind the symbolic projections of a stable, ascendent, and enduring Dominion rule by criminal law. Theatres of accusation provided performatively staged openings to that law.