The Treaties of Canada with the Indians of Manitoba and the North-West Territories Part 23

The interpreter then introduced the Chiefs and princ.i.p.al men; the Indians slowly seating themselves in regular order in front of the tent. In a few minutes there was perfect quiet and order, when His Honor the Lieutenant-Governor addressed them as follows:

"My Indian brothers, Indians of the plains, I have shaken hands with a few of you, I shake hands with all of you in my heart. G.o.d has given us a good day, I trust his eye is upon us, and that what we do will be for the benefit of his children.

"What I say and what you say, and what we do, is done openly before the whole people. You are, like me and my friends who are with me, children of the Queen. We are of the same blood, the same G.o.d made us and the same Queen rules over us.

"I am a Queen's Councillor, I am her Governor of all these territories, and I am here to speak from her to you. I am here now because for many days the Cree nation have been sending word that they wished to see a Queen's messenger face to face. I told the Queen's Councillors your wishes. I sent you word last year by a man who has gone where we will all go by and by, that a Queen's messenger would meet you this year. I named Forts Carlton and Pitt as the places of meeting, I sent a letter to you saying so, and my heart grew warm when I heard how well you received it.

"As the Queen's chief servant here, I always keep my promises; the winter came and went but I did not forget my word, and I sent a messenger to tell you that I would meet you at Carlton on the 15th of August, and at Fort Pitt on the 5th of September.

"During the winter I went to Ottawa to consult with the other Queen's Councillors about you amongst other matters, and they said to me, 'you promised a Queen's messenger to the Crees, you have been so much with the Indians, that we wish you to go yourself;'

I said 'the journey is long and I am not a strong man, but when a duty is laid upon me I will do it, but,' I said, 'you must give with me two friends and councillors whom I can trust, to help me in the duty;' and now I have with me two friends whom you and I have known long; one of them is of your own blood, the other has been many years amongst you.

"I will, in a short time, give you a message from the Queen, and my Councillors will tell you that the words are true. Before I do so, there are so many things I want to say to you that I scarcely know where to begin. I have been nearly four years Governor of Manitoba and these territories, and from the day I was sworn, I took the Indian by the hand, and those who took it have never let it go.

"Three years ago I went to the north-west angle of Lake of the Woods, and there I met the Chippewa nation, I gave them a message and they talked with me and when they understood they took my hand.

Some were away, next year I sent messengers to them and I made a treaty between the Queen and them; there are numbered of those altogether four thousand. I then went to Lake Qu'Appelle the year after, and met the Crees and Chippewas there, gave them my message, and they took my hand. Last summer I went to Lake Winnipeg and gave the Queen's message to the Swampy Crees and they and I, acting for the Queen, came together heart to heart; and now that the Indians of the east understand the Queen and her Councillors, I come to you. And why is all this done? I will tell you; it is because you are the subjects of the Queen as I am. She cares as much for one of you as she does for one of her white subjects. The other day a party of Iroquois Indians were taken to England across the ocean; the Queen heard of it and sent to them, saying, 'I want to see my red children,' took their hands and gave each of them her picture, and sent them away happy with her goodness.

"Before I came here I was one of the Queen's Councillors at Ottawa.

We have many Indians there as here, but for many years there has been friendship between the British, and the Indians. We respect the Indians as brothers and as men. Let me give you a proof it.

Years ago there was war between the British and the Americans; there was a great battle; there were two brave Chief warriors on the British side, one wore the red coat, the other dressed as you do, but they fought side by side as brothers; the one was Brock and the other was Tec.u.mseth whose memory will never die; the blood of both watered the ground; the bones of Tec.u.mseth were hid by his friends; the remains of Brock by his, and now a great pile of stone stands up toward heaven in his memory. And now the white man is searching for the remains of Tec.u.mseth, and when found they will build another monument in honour of the Indian.

"I hope the days of fighting are over, but notwithstanding the whites are as much your friends in these days of peace, as in war.

"The many Indians in the place that I have left are happy, prosperous, contented and growing in numbers. A meeting of the Grand Council of the Six Nation Indians was held a month ago; they now number six thousand souls. They met to thank the Queen and to say that they were content, and why are they content? Because many years ago the Queen's Councillors saw that the Indians that would come after, must be cared for, they saw that the means of living were pa.s.sing away from the Indians, they knew that women and children were sometimes without food; they sent men to speak to the Indians, they said your children must be educated, they must be taught to raise food for themselves. The Indians heard them, the Councillors gave them seed, land, food, taught their children and let them feel that they were of one blood with the whites. Now, what we have found to work so well where I came from we want to have here in our territories, and I am happy to say that my heart is gladdened by the way the Indians have met me.

"We are not here as traders, I do not come as to buy or sell horses or goods, I come to you, children of the Queen, to try to help you; when I say yes, I mean it, and when I say no, I mean it too.

"I want you to think of my words, I want to tell you that what we talk about is very important. What I trust and hope we will do is not for to-day or to-morrow only; what I will promise, and what I believe and hope you will take, is to last as long as that sun shines and yonder river flows.

"You have to think of those who will come after you, and it will be a remembrance for me as long as I live, if I can go away feeling that I have done well for you. I believe we can understand each other, if not it will be the first occasion on which the Indians have not done so. If you are as anxious for your own welfare as I am, I am certain of what will happen.

"The day is pa.s.sing. I thank you for the respectful reception you have given me. I will do here as I have done on former occasions. I hope you will speak your minds as fully and as plainly as if I was one of yourselves.

"I wish you to think of what I have said. I wish you to present your Chiefs to me to-day if you are ready, if not then we will wait until to-morrow."

Here the Indians requested an adjournment until next day in order that they might meet in council; this was granted, and the first day's proceedings terminated.

Late in the evening the escort of Mounted Police was reinforced by a detachment, accompanied by their band, under command of Col.

Jarvis, making a force of nearly one hundred men and officers.

SECOND DAY

August 19th.

The Lieutenant-Governor and Commissioners, with the Mounted Police escort, headed by their band, proceeded to the camp to meet the Indians at 10:30 a.m. The Indians having a.s.sembled in regular order with their two leading Chiefs, Mis-tah-wah-sis and Ah-tuck-ah-coop seated in front, the Governor said:

"My friends, we have another bright day before us, and I trust that when it closes our faces will continue as bright as the day before us. I spoke yesterday as a friend to friends, as a brother to brothers, as a father to his children. I did not want to hurry you, I wanted you to think of my words, and now I will be glad if you will do as I asked you then, present your Chiefs to me, and I shall be glad to hear the words of the Indians through the voice of their Chiefs, or whoever they may appoint."

The head men then brought forward Mis-tah-wah-sis, of the Carlton Indians, representing seventy-six lodges. Ah-tuck-ah-coop, of the Wood Indians, representing about seventy lodges. These were acknowledged as the leading Chiefs, after them came James Smith, of the Fort-a-la-Corne Indians, fifty lodges. John Smith, of the Prince Albert and South Branch Indians, fifty lodges. The Chip-ee-wayan, of the Plain Indians, sixty lodges. Yah-yah-tah-kus-kin-un, of the Fishing or Sturgeon lake Indians, twenty lodges. Pee-yahan-kah-mihk-oo-sit, thirty lodges.

Wah-wee-kah-nich-kah-oh-tah-mah-hote, of the River Indians, fifty lodges.

Here a messenger came from the Indians under Chief Beardy, camped at Duck Lake, eight miles from the main camp. He shook hands with the Governor and said, "I am at a loss at this time what to say, for the Indians' mind cannot be all the same, that is why I came to tell the Governor the right of it; with a good heart I plead at this time, it is not my own work, I would like to know his mind just now and hear the terms of the treaty."

The Governor said in reply: "If your Chief and his people had been in their places here, they would have heard with the rest what I had to say. You refused to meet me here, yet you sent and asked me to give you provisions, but I refused to do so unless you joined the others; and now I will not tell my message to this messenger until I tell all the rest; he can hear with the rest and take back my words to his chief." The messenger expressed himself satisfied, and took his seat with the others.

On the Indians expressing themselves ready to hear the message, the Governor said:

"First I wish to talk to you about what I regard as something affecting the lives of yourselves and the lives of your children.

Often when I thought of the future of the Indian my heart was sad within me. I saw that the large game was getting scarcer and scarcer, and I feared that the Indians would melt away like snow in spring before the sun. It was my duty as Governor to think of them, and I wondered if the Indians of the plains and lakes could not do as their brothers where I came from did. And now, when I think of it, I see a bright sky before me. I have been nearly four years working among my Indian brothers, and I am glad indeed to find that many of them are seeking to have homes of their own, having gardens and sending their children to school.

"Last spring I went to see some of the Chippewas, this year I went again and I was glad to see houses built, gardens planted and wood cut for more houses. Understand me, I do not want to interfere with your hunting and fishing. I want you to pursue it through the country, as you have heretofore done; but I would like your children to be able to find food for themselves and their children that come after them. Sometimes when you go to hunt you can leave your wives and children at home to take care of your gardens.

"I am glad to know that some of you have already begun to build and to plant; and I would like on behalf of the Queen to give each band that desires it a home of their own; I want to act in this matter while it is time. The country is wide and you are scattered, other people will come in. Now unless the places where you would like to live are secured soon there might be difficulty. The white man might come and settle on the very place where you would like to be.

Now what I and my brother Commissioners would like to do is this: we wish to give each band who will accept of it a place where they may live; we wish to give you as much or more land than you need; we wish to send a man that surveys the land to mark it off, so you will know it is your own, and no one will interfere with you. What I would propose to do is what we have done in other places. For every family of five a reserve to themselves of one square mile.

Then, as you may not all have made up your minds where you would like to live, I will tell you how that will be arranged: we would do as has been done with happiest results at the North-West Angle.

We would send next year a surveyor to agree with you as to the place you would like.

"There is one thing I would say about the reserves. The land I name is much more than you will ever be able to farm, and it may be that you would like to do as your brothers where I came from did.

"They, when they found they had too much land, asked the Queen to it sell for them; they kept as much as they could want, and the price for which the remainder was sold was put away to increase for them, and many bands now have a yearly income from the land.

"But understand me, once the reserve is set aside, it could not be sold unless with the consent of the Queen and the Indians; as long as the Indians wish, it will stand there for their good; no one can take their homes.

"Of course, if when a reserve is chosen, a white man had already settled there, his rights must be respected. The rights and interests of the whites and half-breeds are as dear to the Queen as those of the Indians. She deals justly by all, and I am sure my Indian brothers would like to deal with others as they would have others to deal with them. I think you can now understand the question of homes.

"When the Indians settle on a reserve and have a sufficient number of children to be taught, the Queen would maintain a school.

Another thing, that affects you all, some of you have temptations as the white men have, and therefore the fire-water which does so much harm will not be allowed to be sold or used in the reserve.

Then before I leave the question of reserves I will tell you how we will help you to make your homes there. We would give to every family actually cultivating the soil the following articles, viz., two hoes, one spade, one scythe, one axe, and then to help in breaking the land, one plough and two harrows for every ten families; and to help you to put up houses we give to each Chief for his band, one chest of carpenter's tools, one cross-cut saw, five hand saws, one pit saw and files, five augers and one grindstone. Then if a band settles on its reserves the people will require something to aid them in breaking the soil. They could not draw the ploughs themselves, therefore we will give to each Chief for the use of his band one or two yokes of oxen according to the number in the band. In order to encourage the keeping of cattle we would give each band a bull and four cows; having all these things we would give each band enough potatoes, oats, barley and wheat for seed to plant the land actually broken. This would be done once for all to encourage them to grow for themselves.

"Chiefs ought to be respected, they ought to be looked up to by their people; they ought to have good Councillors; the Chiefs and Councillors should consult for the good of the people; the Queen expects Indians and whites to obey her laws; she expects them to live at peace with other Indians and with the white men; the Chiefs and Councillors should teach their people so, and once the Queen approves a Chief or Councillor he cannot be removed unless he behaves badly.

"The Chiefs and head men are not to be lightly put aside. When a treaty is made they become servants of the Queen; they are to try and keep order amongst their people. We will try to keep order in the whole country.

"A Chief has his braves; you see here the braves of our Queen, and why are they here? To see that no white man does wrong to the Indian. To see that none give liquor to the Indian. To see that the Indians do no harm to each other. Three years ago some Americans killed some Indians; when the Queen's Councillors heard of it they said, we will send men there to protect the Indians, the Queen's subjects shall not be shot down by the Americans; now you understand why the police force is in this country, and you should rejoice.

"I have said a Chief was to be respected; I wear a uniform because I am an officer of the Queen, the officers of the police wear uniforms as servants of the Queen. So we give to Chiefs and Councillors good and suitable uniform indicating their office, to wear on these and other great days.

"We recognize four head men to each large band and two to each small one.

"I have always been much pleased when Indians came to me and showed me medals given to their grandfathers and transmitted to them; now we have with us silver medals that no Chief need be ashamed to wear, and I have no doubt that when the Chiefs are gone, they will be pa.s.sed on to their children. In addition each Chief will be given a flag to put over his lodge to show that he is a Chief.

"I told you yesterday that I and my brother Commissioners were not here as traders.

"There is one thing I ought to have mentioned in addition to what I have already named, that is, if a treaty is made here and at Fort Pitt, we will give every year to the Indians included in it, one thousand five hundred dollars' worth of ammunition and twine.

"You think only for yourselves, we have to think of the Indians all over the country, we cannot treat one better than another, it would not be just, we will therefore do this, and what I tell you now is the last.