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After obtaining land from Aboriginals
in the Prairies during the 1870s, the federal government was temporarily
satisfied. Catholic missionaries in the area pleaded with the government
throughout the 1880s and 1890s to sign treaties with the sick and
starving Aboriginals in Canada's north, but the government only
handed out a little bit of money. They had reasons: first, the government
had limited resources and did not want to be seen diverting large
amounts of money away from Europeans to Aboriginals. Secondly, the
north's rugged landscape did not appear to be worthy for Canadian-European
settlement.
One event changed these views, however: the Klondike gold rush.
Suddenly, the land was yielding bountiful mineral resources and
attracting new settlement through gold prospecting. With the discovery
of gold in the Yukon in 1896, the government began to finally consider
making new treaties with the northern Aboriginals.
Topics covered in section:
Numbered Treaties Eight to Eleven, 1899 - 1921
Treaty on Migratory Birds, 1916
Numbered Treaties Eight to Eleven,
1899 - 1921
Numbered Treaties Eight to Eleven
Treaties Eight to Eleven were signed over a period of two decades.
Treaty Eight was signed in 1899 so the federal government
could obtain Aboriginal lands to the north of Treaty Six
(found in present-day northern British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan
and south-central Northwest Territories). Treaty Nine was
signed in 1905 and 1906, and dealt with lands in northern Ontario.
Treaty Ten was signed in 1906 and saw land cession deals
struck in northern Alberta. Treaty Eleven was signed in 1921
and dealt with land in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.
These treaties are all very similar to each other and most of the
numbered treaties
that preceded them. However, one concept new to Treaty Eight was
the creation of small family reserves for individual families. This
was to meet the needs of small band groupings like the Woodland
Cree and Dene
tribes that lived in this area.
Despite the fact that northern Aboriginals were not faring well,
the government learned in 1898 that some bands
were not interested in signing Treaty Number Eight. These
bands did not want to live on reserves
like their southern counterparts, and they feared signing the treaty
would destroy their way of life.
Some members of these tribes expressed concerns about the perpetual
nature of these treaties, and virtually all remained suspicious
of the government's track record when it came to keeping its word.
Northern Aboriginals looked closely at the failed attempts to turn
the Prairie Aboriginals into pioneer farmers like the Europeans.
Many Aboriginals on Prairie reserves were suffering from poverty
and starvation.
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Thus, there was now a growing skepticism that the government would
eventually curtail Aboriginal fishing and hunting rights, since
the land allowed for these activities shrunk considerably in these
latter numbered treaties. The government would refute this during
all numbered treaty negotiations, and provided more cash for fishing
net twine and gun ammunition to allay this fear.
Also, the previous treaties had called for the government to take
a census of all Aboriginals living on reserves for the purposes
of paying them a lump sum of cash every year. However, the government
had, by this point, lost count of many Aboriginals. Even today,
we don't know precisely how many Aboriginals are in Canada because
of the poor census taking in the late 1800s.
All of these things would weigh heavily on the minds of many Aboriginals
who cautiously and nervously agreed to sign Treaties Eight to Eleven.
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At the dawn of the twentieth century,
the federal government was paying about three-quarters
of its spending on Aboriginals to those living
on the Prairies, even though they made up only
about one-quarter of the total Aboriginal population
in Canada.
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For more information on the Numbered Treaties,
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Treaty on Migratory Birds, 1916
If the Aboriginals who signed the Numbered Treaties had any right
to feel nervous about potentially losing their hunting, trapping
and fishing rights - the Treaty on Migratory Birds, 1916, signed
between Canada and the U.S. was further cause of alarm. It called
for the conservation of migratory birds between the two countries,
and prevented the hunting of certain endangered bird species.
This treaty was signed without any Aboriginal consultation, even
though it put restrictions on their hunting rights. This treaty
would only presage the loss of hunting and fishing rights to come
in the Williams
Treaties of 1923.
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