--Description taken from"Blackfoot Farming Experiment 1880-1945"--
This thesis argues that the Department of Indian Affairs wished to make the Blackfoot Indians into farmers as a way to end
their economic dependence upon the government of Canada and as a means of assimilating them into the dominant Anglo-Canadian
culture. The Department's economic ends were gained temporarily during the 1910s and 1920s., but the farming program was not able
to adapt to changes in prairie farm conditions in the 1930s and 1940s. Agriculture also proved an ineffective tool for assimilation of
the Blackfoot, as many of the Blackfoot participants in the farming program favoured the retention of important Blackfoot values such
as generosity. The Blackfoot were willing to farm, but not to give up all aspects of their Indian culture.