In 1899, the Canadian government implemented a policy to replace Mi"kmaw leader selection and other political practices with the triennial system, a Euro-Canadian system of democratic band council elections. Officials in Ottawa assumed the federally mandated and supervised system would redefine Mi"kmaw politics. They were wrong. Drawing on reports and correspondence of the Department of Indian Affairs, Martha Walls details the rich life of Mi"kmaw politics between 1899 and 1951. She shows that many Mi"kmaw communities rejected, ignored, or amended federal electoral legislation. Those communities that did accept triennial elections did so sporadically -- not in acquiescence to Ottawa"s assimilative project, but to meet specific community needs and goals. This compelling and nuanced study complicates understandings of state power by showing that the Mi"kmaw did not succumb to imposed political models but rather retained political practices that distinguished them from their Euro-Canadian neighbours. This timely book offers support for Aboriginal claims at a time when Aboriginal peoples and governments across Canada are attempting to come to terms with the issue of self-governance. It will not only appeal to historians of the Maritimes and Aboriginal-state relations in Canada but also to students and scholars of Native studies, political science, and law.