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Letter from Sir John A. MacdonaldThe following is an excerpt from a letter sent from Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald to Adams George Archibald, the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, on November 18, 1870.

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Comments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words.

November 18, 1870

Sir,

We are looking anxiously for your report as to Indian titles both within Manitoba and without; and as to the best means of extin-guishing [terminating] the Indian titles in the valley of Saskatch-ewan. Would you kindly give us your views on that point, officially and unofficially? We should take immediate steps to extinguish the Indian titles somewhere in the Fertile Belt in the valley of Sas-katchewan, and open it for settlement. There will otherwise be an influx of squatters who will seize upon the most eligible positions and greatly disturb the symmetry [organization] of future surveys ….

(Signed)Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald

As quoted in Joseph Pope (ed.), Correspondence of Sir John Macdonald: Selections from the correspondence of the Right Honourable Sir John Alexander Macdonald, G. C. B (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Company, 1921), p. 141, Internet archive, March 17, 2010, http://archive.org/stream/correspondenceof00macduoft#page/n7/mode/2up (Accessed March 29, 2012).


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Negotiations for Treaties 1 and 2Excerpt from a book The treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-west territories, that was published in 1880 and was written by Alexander Morris, the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba from 1872 to 1877.

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The treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-west territoriesAlexander Morris, 1880

The Indians in Manitoba, in the fall of 1870, had applied to the Lieutenant-Governor to enter into a treaty with them, and had been informed that in the ensuing [following] year negotiations would be opened with them. They were full of uneasiness, owing to the in-flux [increase] of population … and had in some instances obstructed [blocked] settlers and surveyors. In view of the anxiety and uneasi-ness prevailing, these gentlemen were of opinion “that it was de-sirable to secure the extinction [termination] of Indian title not only to the lands within Manitoba, but also so much of the timber grounds east and north of the Province as were required for imme-diate entry and use, and also of a large tract [area] of cultivable [able to be used for agriculture] ground … of the Portage, where there were very few Indian inhabitants.” It was therefore resolved to open negotiations at the Lower Fort Garry, or Stone Fort, with the Indians of the Province, and certain adjacent timber districts ….

Alexander Morris, The treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-west territories: Including the negotiations on which they were based, and other information relating thereto (Toronto, ON: Belfords, Clarke and Company Publishers, 1880), pp. 25–26 | GoogleBooks, 2012, http://books.google.ca/ebooks/reader?id=BXYsAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA25 (Accessed March 29, 2012).


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Treaties 1 and 2 signedExcerpt from a letter sent by Indian Commissioner Wemyss M. Simpson to the Secretary of State for the Provinces, on November 3, 1871.

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November 3, 1871

Sir,

The negotiation with these bands therefore occupied little time, and on the 21st August, 1871, a treaty was concluded by which a tract [area] of country three times as large as the Province of Manitoba was surrendered by the Indians to the Crown ….

Of the land ceded [surrendered in a treaty] in the Province of Man-itoba, it will be hardly necessary for me to speak, as His Excellen-cy the Governor-General is already in possession of accurate infor-mation touching its fertility and resources; but I may observe that, valuable as are these lands, they are fully equaled if not exceeded by the country of which the Government now comes into possession, by virtue of the treaty concluded at Manitoba Post. Already, set-tlers from the Provinces in Canada and elsewhere are pushing their way beyond the limits of the Province of Manitoba; and there is nothing but the arbitrary [subjective] limits of that province ….

The Indians of both parts have a firm belief in the honor and in-tegrity of Her Majesty’s representatives, and are fully impressed [convinced] with the idea that the amelioration [improvement] of their present condition is one of the objects of Her Majesty in mak-ing these treaties.

Alexander Morris, The treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, including the negotiations on which they were based, and other information relating thereto (Toronto, ON: Belfords, Clarke and Company, 1880), p. 42, GoogleBooks, 2012, http://books.google.ca/ebooks/reader?id=BXYsAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA42 (Accessed December 14, 2011).


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Negotiations for Treaty 3Excerpt from a letter sent on October 14, 1873, by Alexander Morris, who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba from 1872 to 1877 in which Morris documents the negotiations of Treaty 3.

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Numbered TreatiesComments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words.

October 14, 1873

Sir,

The Chief of Lac Seul band came forward to speak. Others tried to prevent him, but he was secured [granted] a hearing. He stated that he represented four hun-dred people in the north; that they wished a treaty; that they wished a school-master to be sent them to teach their children the knowledge of the white man; that they had begun to cultivate the soil and were growing potatoes and Indian corn, but wished other grain for seed and some agricultural implements and cat-tle.

The Chief spoke under evident apprehension [uneasiness] as to the course he was taking in resisting the other Indians, and displayed much good sense and moral courage …. He was followed by Chief “Blackstone,” who urged the other Chiefs to return to the council and consider my proposals ….

Being desirous of inducing [convincing] them to practice agriculture and to have the means of getting food if their fishing and hunting failed, we would give them certain implements, cattle and grain, once for all, and the extra two dol-lars per head of a money payment. This proposal was received favourably but the spokesmen came forward and said they had some questions to ask before accept-ing my proposal. They wanted suits of clothing every year for all the bands, and fifty dollars for every Chief annually. This I declined, but told them that there were some presents of clothing and food which would be given them this year at the close of treaty …. They then asked that no “fire-water” should be sold on their reserves, and I promised that a regulation to this effect should be intro-duced into the treaty ….

They asked what reserves would be given [to] them, and were informed by Mr. Provencher that reserves of farming and other lands would be given them as previously stated, and that any land actually in cultivation by them would be respected. They asked if the mines would be theirs; I said if they were found on their reserves it would be to their benefit, but not otherwise ….

(Signed)Alexander Morris

Alexander Morris, The treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, including the negotiations on which they were based, and other information relating thereto (Toronto, ON: Belfords, Clarke and Company, 1880), pp. 49–50, GoogleBooks, 2012, http://books.google.ca/ebooks/reader?id=BXYsAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA49 (Accessed March 29, 2012).


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Canadian Pacific Railway landsAdvertisement produced in 1883 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, promoting new settlements in Manitoba and the North West Territories.

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The Reserved SectionsAlong the Main Line as far as Moose Jaw, that is, the sections within one mile of the Railway, are now offered for sale on advan-tageous terms, but only to parties prepared to undertake their cultivation within a specified time.

The Highly Valuable Lands in Southern Manitoba, allotted to the Company south of the Railway Belt, have been transferred to the Canada North West Land Company, to whom the intended purchas-ers must apply….

“Land ticket,” Wikipedia: The free encyclopedia, September 2006, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Land_Ticket.jpg (December 14, 2011) © Public Domain


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Negotiations for Treaty 6Excerpt from a report sent by Alexander Morris to the Canadian government on December 4, 1876, regarding negotiations for Treaty 6.

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December 4, 1876

Negotiations for Treaty 6

They saw the buffalo, the only means of their support, passing away. They were anxious to learn to support themselves by agricul-ture, but felt too ignorant to do so, and they dreaded that during the transition period they would be swept off by disease and fam-ine—already they have suffered terribly from the ravages of mea-sles, scarlet fever and smallpox. It was impossible to listen to them without interest, they were not exacting [did not make big demands], but they were very apprehensive of their future, and thankful, as one of them put it, “a new life was dawning upon them.”

-Alexander Morris



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Excerpt from Treaty 1Excerpt from Treaty 1, signed at Lower Fort Garry in 1871 that was negotiated with the Chippewa and Swampy Cree by Lieutenant-Governor Archibald, the representative of the Crown.

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Treaty 1Lieutenant-Governer ArchibaldLower Fort Garry, 1871

Your Great Mother [The British Queen] wishes the good of all races under her sway. She wishes her red children to be happy and con-tented. She wishes them to live in comfort. She would like them to adopt the habits of the whites, to till land and raise food, and store it up against a time of want …. Your Great Mother, therefore, will lay aside for you “lots” of land to be used by you and your children forever. She will not allow the white men to intrude upon these lots. She will make rules to keep them for you, so that as long as the sun shall shine, there shall be no Indian who has not a place that he can call his home, where he can go and pitch his camp, or if he chooses, build his house and till his land.

As quoted in Gerald Friesen, The Canadian prairies: A history (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 1987), pp. 138–139.


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Aboriginal request for helpPetition sent in 1871 by Sweet Grass (Wikaskokiseyin), the Cree Chief from the North Saskatchewan River, to Lieutenant-Governor Alexander Morris.

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Great Father, – I shake hands with you, and bid you welcome. We heard our lands were sold and we did not like it; we don’t want to sell our lands; it is our property, and no one has a right to sell them.

Our country is getting ruined of fur-bearing animals, hitherto our sole support, and now we are poor and want help—we want you to pity us. We want cattle, tools, agricultural implements [tools], and assis-tance in everything when we come to settle—our country is no lon-ger able to support us.

Make provision for us against years of starvation. We have had great starvation the past winter, and the small-pox took away many of our people, the old, young, and children. We want you to stop the Americans from coming to trade on our lands, and giving the fire-water, ammunition and arms to our enemies the Blackfeet.

We made a peace this winter with the Blackfeet. Our young men are foolish, it may not last long. We want you to come and see us and to speak with us. If you can’t come yourself, send someone in your place.

(Signed)Cree Chief Wikaskokiseyin



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Interest in negotiating a treatyThe following document is a petition of the Chokitapix (Blackfeet) Chiefs to Lieutenant-Governor Morris, President of the Council for the North West Territories.

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Numbered TreatiesComments in brackets are not part of the original document. They have been added to assist the reader with difficult words.

… [A]t a general Council of the Nation held by respective tribe of Blackfeet, Bloods andPeigans in the Fall of 1875, it was decided to draw the attention of our honour-able Council of the North West to the following facts ….

2. That in the Winter of 1871 a message of Lieut. Governor Archibald was for-warded to … promise us that the Government, or the white man, would not take the Indian lands without a Council of Her Majesty’s Commissioner and the respective Chiefs of the Nation.

3. That the white men have already taken the best location and built houses in any place theypleased in our “hunting grounds.”

4. That the Half-breeds [Métis] and Cree Indians in large Camps are hunting Buf-falo, bothsummer and Winter in the very centre of our lands.

5. That the land is pretty well taken up by white men and no Indian Commissioner has visited us yet.

6. That we pray for an Indian Commissioner to visit us at the Hand Hills, Red Deer River, thisyear and let us know the time that he will visit us, so that we could hold a Council with him, forputting a stop to the invasion of our Country, till our Treaty be made with the Government.

7. That we are perfectly willing the Mounted Police and the Missionary should remain in theCountry, for we are much indebted to them for important services.

8. That we feel perfectly confident that the representatives of Our Great Moth-er, Her Majestythe Queen, will do prompt [quick] Justice to her Indian children. Praying that the Ottawa Government will grant us our Petition, or do in the matter what to you and your Honourable Council of the North West may seem meet; -Your Petition-ers Remain, Your Excellency’s Humble Servants.

As quoted in Walter Hildebrandt, Dorothy First Rider and Sarah Carter, The true spirit and original intent of Treaty 7 (Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996), pp. 276–277.


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Disagreements surrounding Treaty 6Response from three prominent Cree Chiefs, Mistawasis (Big Child), Ahtahkakoop (Star Blanket) and Wikaskokiseyin (Sweet Grass), to concerns made by Chief Poundmaker in 1876 surrounding the negotiations of Treaty 6.

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Mistawasis: I speak directly to Poundmaker and The Badger and those others who object to signing this treaty. Have you anything better to offer our people? ... [T]he Great White Queen Mother [the British Queen] has offered us a way of life when the buffalo are no more. Gone they will be before many snows have come to cover our heads or graves if such should be ….

Ahtahkakoop: [His people could not] stop the power of the white man from spreading over the land like the grasshoppers that cloud the sky and then fall to consume every blade of grass and every leaf on the trees in their path …. I for one will take the hand that is of-fered …. I will accept the Queen’s hand for my people.

Wikaskokiseyin: I have pity on all those who have to live by the buffalo. If I am spared until this time next year I want my brother to commence [begin] to act for me, thinking thereby that the buf-falo may be protected. It is for that reason I give you my hand. If spared, I shall commence at once to clear a small piece of land for myself, and others of my kinsmen will do the same. We will commence hand in hand to protect the buffalo.

As quoted in J. R. Miller, Compact, contract, covenant: Aboriginal treaty-making in Canada (Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2009), pp. 176–177, 180.

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Western expansionistsExcerpt from a book written by historian J.R. Miller entitled Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty-Making in Canada that was published in 2009.

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If Canada’s political leaders looked forward, they could also see that their best plans for the West required peaceful relations that could best be secured through treaties. As Ontario expansionists never tired of emphasizing, the success of the new Dominion was dependent on the successful develop-ment…of the Prairies. Attracting farmers to the Plains was essential if the region was to mature and play a role in the nation’s future. Obviously, set-tling the West would be difficult, perhaps impossible, if newcomers could not settle in peace. The military option that the United States was pursuing from 1871 onward to pacify its West was simply not available to Canada. For one thing, the Dominion could not afford it. At a time when the entire budget of the federal government was $19 million, the Americans were ex-pending $20 million annually on their western Indian wars.

The final reason that the treaties were the only thinkable approach to in-tegrating Rupert’s Land into the new dominion was the transcontinental railway. Could Canada build a line to the Pacific Ocean, as Ottawa was com-mitted to do, through a Prairie region beset by Indian wars …?

Acquisition of the West required agricultural settlement, which necessitated a railway to bring farmers and their goods into the region and their produce out to tidewater. Constructing a railway through the West made peaceful re-lations with the First Nations indispensable [important], and good relations were not likely, as a variety of First Nations had made clear, without treaties.J. R. Miller, Compact, contract, covenant: Aboriginal treaty-making in Canada (Toronto, ON: University of To-ronto Press, 2009), p. 156.




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Aboriginal motivationsExcerpt from “Canada in the Making,” a website created through a collaboration between the National Library and Archives of Canada, Historica, Early Canadiana Online, and other partners that describes Aboriginal motivations for signing the Numbered Treaties.

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While many Aboriginal nations were sceptical of dealing with the new fed-eral government, they had little choice. Declining buffalo herds and disease put many nations on the verge of extinction. They also risked the loss of their culture and way of life in the face of European settlement. To survive, many Aboriginals negotiated the surrender of land for very little in return: cash and supplies. They were left with small reserves that the government hoped they would farm. “1871–1875: First five numbered treaties,” Canada in the making, 2005, http://www.canadiana.ca/citm/themes/aboriginals/aboriginals7_e.html#numbered (Accessed December 14, 2011) Produced by Canadiana.org




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Development of the treaty systemExcerpt from an article written by Anthony Hall entitled “Indian Treaties” published as part of The Canadian encyclopedia in 2012.

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The development of the treaty system throughout much of western Canada was based as much on economic pragmatism [practicality] as it was on any particular legal view of aboriginal rights. During the 1870s the US govern-ment was spending over $20 million a year fighting plains Indians. This amount was larger than the entire budget of the whole central government in Canada; with these facts of finance before them, federal officials chose to rely heavily on treaties to bring about a relative degree of peaceful acqui-escence [acceptance] among the 35 000 Indian inhabitants of the territories scheduled to be opened up for settlement.[…]

In deciding whether or not to enter these agreements with the Crown, the Ojibwa, Cree and Assiniboine Indians often faced a horizon of fairly limited choices. It was generally made clear to them that non-native newcomers would soon be taking control of most of their lands whether or not treaty deals were reached. Thus they had the option either of fighting to resist the incursion [invasion] of outsiders, perhaps ineffectively, or they could accept some government assistance in making adjustments to the enormous chang-es that were surely coming down on the land. For native people on the Prai-ries, the demise of the great life-sustaining buffalo herds made the prospects for the future seem especially bleak [unwelcoming]. Thus, to some Indians the treaties seemed to present an avenue of adaptation at a moment when all other paths of survival appeared blocked.[…]

By and large the Indian leaders who most readily accepted the treaties were Christians. Their missionaries were often important go-betweens in encour-aging a degree of trust between Crown representatives and native groups. Also prominent among those advancing the treaty process were a number of Metis, who were perhaps best placed to act as intermediaries [mediators] between Indians and newcomers at this crucial time of transition for both societies.Anthony J. Hall, “Indian treaties,” The Canadian encyclopedia, 2012, http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0003983 (Accessed December 14, 2011).



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