The indigenous people were capable of adapting to new situations when their traditional culture of following the buffalo disappeared. However, the Canadian government had manipulated the facts to suit their purpose. A similar situation had developed in the United States.
It was the Canadian government’s intention to exert control over the native people from the beginning. In 1871 there was no plan on how to deal with the native people, and it was through the efforts of the Ojibwa nation of the North-West Angle and the Saulteaux in early Manitoba who paved the way for treaty negotiations. The Ojibwa had demanded land rents be paid and suggested a threat of violence for settlers crossing their land or settling there. The Ojibwa and Saulteaux refused the Canadian government’s offer of land reserves and a small cash payment, and requested they be provided with farm animals, horses, wagons and equipment. The Treaty Commissioner, Wemyss Simpson , had written the requests down on a memorandum which he failed to send to Ottawa. The original Treaty 1 and Treaty 2 did not include these items for this reason. They were not incorporated into the treaties until 1874 when the First Nations leaders of Manitoba became irate over the non-inclusion, and an inquiry was launched that resulted in locating Simpson’s memorandum and these items were incorporated in a renegotiated treaty of 1875. After this incident, the Canadian government made these farm items part of all future treaties.
The Plains Cree in 1872-75 had interfered with the geographical survey and erection of telegraph lines on their lands, not wanting to happen to their people what had occurred in the United States’ native people during settlement expansion. This compelled the Canadian government to include in their negotiations the provision of assistance to the Cree to enable them to adapt to an agricultural life. The Cree had proven themselves adaptable over the years when the fur traders ventured into the wilderness, changing their environment of the woods to the plains to hunt for buffalo for the Hudson’s Bay Company. When the buffalo herds declined some of the Cree turned to agriculture.
Cree Leaders
There were three Cree leaders in the early 1870s who wanted to guarantee their rights in the buffalo-hunting culture as long as possible: Piapot (leader of the Cree-Assinboine in the area south of the Qu’Appelle River), and Big Bear and Little Pine (leaders of the two largest Cree bands from the Saskatchewan River district). Chiefs Piapot and Big Bear were also religious leaders. These three warriors had led an armed migration into the Cypress Hills in the late 1860s. They had been negotiating that the buffalo hunt be limited to the natives, and that non-native hunting be regulated. Big Bear had met with Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris at Fort Pitt in 1876 where Morris promised that “non-Indian hunting of the buffalo would be regulated”.[1] It has been asserted by many historians that Big Bear had refused to sign the treaty of 1876, but in fact, he had not signed because he had not been invited to the signing. The three Cree leaders wanted to see how the government would honour the treaties before signing. Piapot negotiated extra farm implements, livestock and assistance in times of drought and starvation into Treaty No. 4 (the Qu’Appelle Treaty) and upon assurances from the Canadian government, signed in 1875.
Big Bear and Little Pine objected to Treaty No. 6 (Fort Pitt and Carlton) as they would be bound by Canadian law, without proper knowledge of the law and would not have any influence with the government. Big Bear had made his concerns known to Morris in 1876 that he did not want to be “enslaved” or controlled like an animal with a noose around its neck.[2]
At this time, the three leaders had over fifty percent of the native population in Treaty 4 and 6 areas located at Cypress Hills in the buffalo territory. By negotiating in these numbers the natives were able to bargain without influence from the other First Nations natives, or agents of the Queen’s government: the NWMP. Lieutenant Governor David Laird recommended in 1878 that the government honour the treaties and establish reserves. He knew that if these were not implemented quickly that the Cree from other treaty locations with complaints would join Big Bear and Little Pine.
Sources:
[1] [2] The American Indian: past and present (1991), Roger L Nichols, p.192-205, [1-2 p.194]
Broken Treaties: United States and Canadian Relations with the Lakotas and Plains Cree (2009), Jill St. Germain, p.313-314.
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