| INDEX →→ I. The Founders → II. The Settlers → III. The New Nation → IV. Appendix →→ TERMS OF USE © Northern Blue Publishing. A licence is required for institutional or commercial use of any material in these pages. Please read the Terms of Use. |
4. Aboriginal Treaties
From Canadian History Portal - HCO
| Aboriginal Treaties - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Student Activities | Student Projects |
Background to the Treaties
An intense struggle developed in the last few decades of the nineteenth century, as Canada expanded westward. It was more than simply a conflict over land. It went much deeper than that. It was a clash of two opposing ways of life, a profound disagreement of values, and ultimately, a collision of cultures.
An intense struggle developed in the last few decades of the nineteenth century as Canada expanded westward. It was more than a conflict over land. It was a clash of two opposing ways of life, a profound disagreement of values, and ultimately, a collision of cultures.
From the days of first contact, there had been a fundamental difference between the Aboriginal view of land and the European belief. For Aboriginal people, the land could no more be claimed or owed than could the sky or air. It was something that the Creator had given communally for all to share. All would use it, all would benefit from it, and all would seek to conserve and protect it for future generations. For Europeans, land was something to be claimed and owned. From their perspective, land should be utilized for individual profit, wealth, and advantage. A conflict between these two views was inevitable.
To many Canadians, particularly land dealers and incoming settlers, the Aboriginal people on the western prairies were an obstacle. They were considered to be in the way of progress and therefore to be removed or set aside. Some Canadians, particularly the managers of the CPR and Hudson's Bay Company, who now owned large tracts of land , wanted the land to be organized and surveyed before settlers arrived. This was the opposite of what happened in the United States where governmental organizations and structures came after land rushes by settlers. Aboriginal peoples, who had lived and hunted the prairies for generations, were either callously ignored or forcefully displaced.
Most Canadians believed that the best thing that could happen was that the Aboriginal populations would become farmers or herders and eventually assimilated. Most Aboriginal people, on the other hand, wanted to preserve their culture, language, and nomadic way of life. Many were resigned, however, to the fact that their buffalo oriented culture had to disappear, and wanted to take up cattle grazing in order to survive. It was at this point that the Government of Canada sent men like Adams Archibald, Alexander Morris and David Laird west to negotiate treaties with the native people in the name of the Crown.
Unlike most contracts, which provide for real mutual benefit, these treaties were one-sided. Most Aboriginal Nations did not want to sign them. A number of factors gave them no alternative. First, increasing settlement threatened their way of life. Macdonald's National Policy was beginning to bring more and more settlers. Thanks to the North-West Mounted Police and the extension of the railway the trickle of settlers became a flood. When the Aboriginal peoples looked southward, they saw the tragic experience of their American cousins who had their lands taken with hundreds of people killed in the process. Perhaps treaties offered a better option.
Added to that concern was the disappearance of the buffalo. Once numbering over ten million, random killing had decimated their numbers. The buffalo, no longer simply harvested for food and other essential elements of life, was now hunted down for sport. Farmers supported the slaughter, arguing that the buffalo herds interfered with their crops. Ranchers saw them as competition for gazing of their herds.
Strangely, substantial numbers of buffalo, not wanting to cross the Canadian Pacific and Northern Pacific railway tracks, failed to migrate north of the border in the 1880s. The situation grew critical. By the end of the decade, the plains buffalo, despite an 1879 law aimed at protecting them, were nearly extinct. Only a small herd was left in Canada, kept fenced in at a farm west of Winnipeg by Samuel Bedson. The Aboriginal peoples of the prairies faced the threat of starvation. Perhaps farming on government reserve lands, obtained through treaties, offered a way out.
RESOURCE: For the viewpoint of a US naturalist, you can read William T. Hornaday's 1889 book, The Extermination of the American Bison.
Finally, a third calamity befell the Aboriginal people - sickness and disease. Not having been exposed to European diseases; such as, smallpox, tuberculosis, and measles, the aboriginals had absolutely no immunity. The death toll was tragically high. Several of the numbered treaties were negotiated at a time when the Aboriginal Nation had experienced starvation or disease, or sometimes both. Sick and vulnerable, they were forced to accept inequitable terms.
Influenced by the Hudson's Bay Company, who wanted to protect some of its best customers and suppliers, the Canadian government chose not to fight a costly and bitter war against the Aboriginal Nations as the United States had done . Instead, Canada negotiated land treaties that gave the Native Peoples reserves and food.
In the fifty years between 1871 and 1921, the Crown signed eleven treaties, seven in a six-year period during the 1870s. Through them, the Crown permanently acquired full title to two million sq km. The Aboriginal People were given lands set aside by the Crown for "the use and benefit of the Indian people. But in many cases, this meant being marginalized on inferior grazing land, and fighting the twin foes of poverty and discrimination.
Signing the Numbered Treaties
Treaties 1 (Stone Fort) and 2 (Manitoba Post) were concluded between August 3 and 21, 1871, between Manitoba Lieutenant-Governor Adams Archibald and a group of Saulteaux (Swampy Cree) and Chippewa (Ojibwa) led by their chief, Yellow Quill. At issue was the desire of white settlers to move into the area west of the Red River settlement, currently occupied by the Saulteaux. Not wanting another rebellion as had occurred the year before in Red River itself, the government offered perpetual land, fishing, and hunting rights. Treaty 3 (Northwest Angle), negotiated with the Ojibwa in 1873, resolved disputed land between the Selkirk settlement and Lake Superior.
Treaty 7, signed in September 22, 1877, at Blackfoot Crossing between NWT Governor David Laird and the Blackfoot, Blood, Peigan, Sarcee, Stoney and other tribes, resulted in the aboriginals giving up title to almost 130 000 square km of southern Alberta. Aboriginal chiefs, such as Big Bear (Mistahimhaskwa) and Poundmaker (Pitikwahanapiwiyin), held out and refused to sign treaties, only doing so when starvation and destitution forced them to do so.
In response to the pleas of the chiefs, Governor General Lord Lorne made a trip west to visit the signers of Treaty 7. On September 10, 1881, he and his staff met with Crowfoot and the other chiefs [in the pictures] at Blackfoot Crossing on the Bow River, and promised them better treatment.
The remaining numbered treaties carved up huge expanses of the prairies and the north so that within fifty years, full land title from the forty-ninth parallel to the Arctic was in the Canadian government's hands.
In most cases, the aboriginals received the worst of the arrangement. They gave up aboriginal title to immense areas of prairie in return for inferior reserve land. In exchange for the permanent loss of their title, the Aboriginal Peoples normally received a lump sum payment, an annual payment, and promises of schools, services, and resources. Unfortunately, those things were not always forthcoming. The treaties stipulated that the Aboriginal People fully abide by all terms, that they obey all laws of Canada, and continue to be loyal subjects of Queen Victoria.
Unfortunately, some government agents, working on reserves, cheated the Aboriginal people. In some cases, they forced them onto poorer grazing land and dispensed inferior food and supplies. Largely because of the treaties, many Aboriginal people became marginalized, constantly struggling to maintain their dignity and to retain their way of life. Subsequent droughts in the 1880s, while they were attempting to adapt to a farming lifestyle, made matters much worse. The complete loss of their culture became a very grave threat.
Many of the most racist and discriminatory terms of the Act remained well into the twentieth century. In 1885 an amendment to the Act was passed that placed restrictions on aboriginal ceremonies, effectively outlawing the Sun Dance and the potlatch. The infamous residential schools, reaching eighty within fifty years, were specifically aimed at teaching the children English and farming and domestic skills, and assimilating Aboriginal children into mainstream Canadian society. In 1886 Chief Crowfoot traveled east with a delegation of western chiefs to complain. Their arguments fell on deaf ears.
In spite of all this early hardship, the first nations of the Canadian plains survived, and their population is now greater than at the time of the treaties. Today they are asserting their powers and rights to have a say in managing their own destinies.
| Aboriginal Treaties - Gallery | Stories & Texts | Web Links | Student Activities | Student Projects |
del.icio.us
digg
facebook
googlebookmark
reddit
stumbleupon
yahoo
