After Confederation,
the newly formed Dominion of Canada looked to expand its borders from sea to
sea. Even though the government had acquired the former Rupert’s Land they failed
to have full control and use of the land as this transfer only provided
sovereignty over the area. Title had reverted to the First Nations living
there.
One of the
conditions in order to ensure British Columbia would
join Confederation at the time was the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in
order to connect it to the rest of the nation. This major infrastructure
project would have to go through the interior of the newly acquired land which
was all First Nation territory.
Canadian law, as set out in the Royal Proclamation, recognized that the First Nations who inhabited these lands prior to European contact had title to the land. In order to satisfy British Columbia's request and the growing need for land by eastern settlers and new immigrants, treaties would have to be created with the First Nation people.
The Royal Proclamation occurred in 1763, and is considered to be the foundation of treaty-making in Canada. The Royal Proclamation stated that the only authoritative government that was able to purchase land from First Nations people was the British Crown. One of the stipulations of this agreement was that First Nations people were to be informed and attend a public assembly regarding the sale of their lands.
When the 1867 British North America Act was enacted, a division of power was established between the Dominion of Canada government and its provinces that separated First Nation people and settlers. The federal government retained responsibility for providing health care, education, property rights and creating other laws that would affect the First Nations people, and the Provinces were responsible for everyone else. With the new federal government now replacing the British Crown as the leading authority and responsible for handling First Nations land transfers, they had a fiduciary duty to act in the First Nations best interests and to uphold the honour of the Crown, neither of which were adhered to.
Both the Royal
Proclamation and the British North America Act impacted the procedures of
government and First Nations negotiations. They set the stage for future
negotiations that would occur, including the Numbered Treaties that would begin
in 1871 with Treaty 1.
The Numbered Treaties are a series of eleven treaties signed between the First Nations and Canada from 1871 to 1921. These treaty agreements were created to allow the Government of Canada to pursue settlement and resource extraction in the affected regions, which include modern-day Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and parts of Ontario, B.C. and the Northwest Territories.
These treaties came
in two waves; Numbers 1 through 7 from 1871 to 1877 and Numbers 8 through 11
from 1899 to 1921. In the first wave, the treaties were key to advancing
European settlement across the Prairie regions as
well as the development of the CPR. In the second wave, resource extraction was the main motive for government officials.
In these treaties,
the First Nations were coerced and tricked into giving up aboriginal title to
vast amounts of land, in exchange for reserves for
their exclusive use and various promises of schools, food, and farming
assistance as well as other entitlements such as hunting and fishing rights. The
First Nations people couldn’t read the documents that were prepared and were
relying instead on the oral agreements made at the negotiating table, (as long
as the sun shines, the grass grows and the rivers flow) which would later lead
to contention and discord.
The
Indigenous understanding of the spirit and intent of the Numbered treaties was a nation-to-nation agreement, similar to the spirit of the original Peace
and Friendship Treaties signed on the East Coast prior to 1779 where there was
no surrender of rights to the
lands and resources they had traditionally used and occupied.
However, the Government of Canada modelled the Numbered Treaties on the agreements made earlier by the Upper Canada Land Surrenders (1764-1862) and the Robinson and Douglas treaties whereby Indigenous signatories relinquished any claim to the lands specified in the treaties in exchange for a payment in goods, continued occupation of reserved lands, annuities, and the right to hunt and fish on Crown lands.
The Douglas treaties (1850-1854) were for small parcels of land to set
up HBC settlements on Vancouver Island whereas the Robinson treaties (1850) were
for vast swaths of land around Lakes Huron and Superior so they could be
exploited for mining. The Robinson treaties also provided for a share in the wealth that would be gained by exploiting the land but, like so many clauses in all of the subsequent treaties, this was never lived up to.
The
treaties also included clauses for schools and/or teachers to educate
Indigenous children on reserve, and a provision for agricultural implements, seeds, and
training to ensure the transition from a mobile to a sedentary life. The intent was to encourage all
Indigenous signatories of the treaties to settle on reserve
lands, build permanent communities, adopt agriculture, and permit the state to
educate their children. Unfortunately it was a road to ruin paved with good intentions as one event after another subsequently upended what could only be termed a utopian fantasy.
For Indigenous signatories, these agreements had a stronger emphasis on shared usage, rights, and responsibility for the lands being ceded, rather than a complete surrender of land. For the state, these treaties were considered a massive land surrender, bringing Indigenous peoples under the jurisdiction and law of the new Dominion.
When the Colony of British Columbia joined Confederation in 1871 it did not recognize Indigenous title so it felt there was no need for treaties and, other than the Douglas Treaties and Treaty 8 signed by the Federal government to resolve problems related to the Klondike Gold Rush, treaties were not signed with any First Nations for the rest of British Columbia. With most of B.C. now considered unceded land, this was clearly both a mistake and a short sighted strategy.
With Treaties 1-7, there was some resistance from members of the First Nations to the treaty process and a growing anxiety that it would allow a flood of settlers, but many also saw it as a way to secure much needed assistance. The First Nations at this time were suffering from disease, famine, and conflict due to the changing dynamics of the west.
First Nations
people were being decimated by disease, specifically smallpox and tuberculosis, which
had catastrophic ramifications for several groups. They also began to
suffer from famine due to the near extinction of the buffalo. They were eager
to receive food aid and other assistance from the government, which they believed
would be offered following the implementation of treaties.
Some First Nation groups also sought to ensure some form of education would be provided to them through the implementation of the treaties. Education was crucial to the First Nations because their cultural way of life was rapidly diminishing. They believed that the promise of education would not only help curb the loss of culture but also ensure their children's future success in a newly developed West. They were to be sadly disappointed.
The Great Sioux War had a direct Canadian connection. While many of the Lakota Sioux surrendered at the various agencies along the Missouri River or in northwestern Nebraska, Chief Sitting Bull led a large contingent of at least 5,000 across the international border (Medicine Line) into Canada. Sitting Bull met up with Crowfoot, the leader of the Blackfoot, and Big Bear, the leader of the Cree, who both turned down his request to form an army to fight the U.S. government and the Canadian North-West Mounted Police.
The
arrival of these refugees applied additional pressure on the food stocks of the
Plains and, beginning in 1879, famine swept repeatedly across the Prairies.
Provisions promised under treaties were not supplied. Those who rejected treaty
and the reserves, including the Cree under Chief Big Bear, faced even more hardship.
What’s more, Ottawa exploited these conditions to try to push the recalcitrant
factions onto reserves. Canadian authorities knew that famine was on the march,
they had resources warehoused nearby, and yet withheld supplies in order to
achieve the submission of the Cree and their neighbours to Canadian authority.
With no more buffalo there wasn’t enough food to feed Sitting Bull and his people and the Canadian government also refused his request to move onto a reserve. Hunger and desperation eventually forced Sitting Bull to return to the U.S. where he surrendered on July 19, 1881. In 1882 Big Bear finally signed Treaty 6 and moved onto a reserve.
There was, however, one group left out of the treaty settlement process and that was the Metis. To address this issue and provide a way of granting formal title to their lands the federal government in 1879 introduced the "script system". The script (which was essentially a promissory note) came in two forms; money or land based on $1.00 an acre (i.e. $80, $160, or $240 or 80, 160, or 240 acres) and were not transferable. Script was to be issued to the head of a Metis household and could be used to purchase a homestead. Unfortunately it wasn't easy for Metis people to obtain their script, it took years for the government to survey the available land, and the legal process for the exchange was complicated and lengthly. The delays stretched into years and ultimately ended up in Supreme Court for final settlement.
By the end of the 19th century all of North America was now in the hands of the settlers. In the U.S. whatever Indigenous people remained were on reservations, and in Canada, after being tricked into surrendering their land to the government, First Nations were now living on reserves. It had taken 400 years since Cabot first arrived, and many battles, but the Doctrine of Discovery (terra nullius) had eventually prevailed, and the Indigenous peoples who hadn’t been murdered by settlers and soldiers or killed by disease were forced to give up their land and way of life. Now began the battle against assimilation.