The Basic Geography: Taking Native Land

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The Basic Geography Taking Native Land

• Intro
• The Cdn Governments Aboriginal Land Policy
• The Numbered Treaties
• The Meaning of the Numbered Treaties
• Native Land Policies in BC Before Confederation
• Making the Reserve System in BC
• Epilogue McKenna-McBride the Question of Title

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Discussion Questions

• Week 5
• How did industrial capitalism mark society in BC?
• Week 7
• In what ways did capitalism alter Metis roles and
  attitudes? To what extent were their new roles
  influenced by changing racial attitudes?

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• Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun, Scorched Earth,
  Clear-Cut Logging on Native Sovereign Lands,
  Shaman Coming to Fix (1991)

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Canadian Government Policy

• Royal Proclamation 1763
• 1850 -- Robinson Treaties
• reserves

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The Numbered Treaties

• Collapse in Subsistence Systems
• Ojibwa HBC
• Pressure on the buffalo
• Cree-Blackfoot War
• Battle of the Oldman River, 1871 -- 200-300 Cree
  and Blackfoot die
• Threat of settlers

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The Numbered Treaties
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Treaty 1

• Lt.-Gov. Archibald of NW Territories
• Wemys Simpson, MP for Algoma
• Lower Fort Garry, 27 July 1871
• as long as the sun shines

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(No Transcript)
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Treaty 1

• Your Great Mother wished the good of all races
  under her sway. She wishes her red children to
  be happy and contented. 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 he
  can call his home

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Treaty 1 Treaty 2

• Provisions of Treaty 1
• natives surrender title to all territory
• Keep the peace
• Respect property of govt and settlers
• Cdns give Natives 3 each in gratuity
• 15 in cash or goods per family of five as
  annuity
• Reserves -- 160 acres per family of five
• School on each reserve
• Protection from whisky traders
• Verbally promise clothing for headmen, farm
  animals and implements

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Treaty 3 Treaty 4

• Provisions of Treaty 3
• Ojibwa must surrender sovereignty
• But get 640 acres pp instead of 160
• Higher gratuity and annuity
• Money for twine and ammuntion
• Farm supplies, including cattle

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Treaty 6

• Plains Cree
• as long as that sun shines and yonder river
  flows
• Poundmaker This is our land, it isnt a piece
  of pemmican to be cut off and give in little
  pieces back to us. It is ours and we will take
  what we want.
• Chiefs Star Blanket (Ahtahkakoop) and Big Child
  (Mistawasis)
• medicine chest
• famine clause
• Treaty 7 (1877) --signed with the Blackfoot

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The Meaning of the Numbered Treaties

• Why did Native leaders negotiate the treaties?
• What did treaties mean?
• May have depended on the people and the treaty --
  Treaty 5 negotiated so quickly -- a round of
  negotiations at 3 sites, each took less than a
  day -- who know what people thought?
• Treaty 3, Mawedopenais I take off my glove and
  give you my hand and with it my birthright and my
  land -- and I hold fast all the promises you
  have made as long as the sun shines and the water
  flows
• Cree elders and Treaty 7 the true spirit and
  original intent

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The Meaning of the Numbered Treaties

• Cree Chiefs Big Bear, Piapot Little Pine refuse
  to sign
• Indian Territory?
• Cree uprising, 1885

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Native Land Policy in BC Before Confederation

• BC government control of land
• Pre-Confederation history of Native land dealings
• Douglas Treaties 14 purchases 3 of VI up
  to 1854
• Douglas system
• large reserves, as marked out by Natives
• right to pre-empt
• ahead of resettlement
• Reserves to be laid out as they may be severally
  appointed by the Indians themselves.
• Fraser Valley 40,000 acres
• 10 acres per family?

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Reserves in the Fraser Valley, 1864
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Native Land Policy in BC Before Confederation

• Joseph Trutch, Minister of Lands and Works, after
  1858
• 10 acres per family
• cut backs
• Why were land policies different in BC?
• Why did the Cdn govt not take these views?
• Was the BC practice so very different?

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Reserves in the Fraser Valley, 1868
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Trutch OReilly in the Fraser Canyon
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Making the Reserve System in BC

• 1871 Confederation
• Cdn Govt assumes
• reserves comparable in size to prairies
• treaties compensation
• Joint Indian Reserve Commission
• Gilbert Malcolm Sproat

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Reserves by Sproat
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Sproat the Joint Indian Reserve Commission

• They must have winter and summer grazing land
  reasonable area and their fishing places Is
  this unreasonable for a law abiding people whose
  land title is extinguished?
• Nlha7kapmx Meeting at Lytton, July 1879

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Reserves by OReilly
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Epilogue McKenna-McBride and the Question of
Title

• The question of title
• Federal
• Provincial
• Native
• McKenna-McBride Commission, 1912-16
• Management of dispossession
• Numbers
• Maps
• Law
• Geography of Resettlement
• Land claims outlawed, 1927

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Issues

• How do Fisher (1st article) and Harris (2nd
  article) differ on the importance of Trutch in
  determining Native land policy in BC? Who is
  more correct?
• Harris (3rd article) suggests that Cultural
  hegemony had triumphed over multiple
  modernities. What does he mean by this? Were
  other options really possible?