"'The People Left Out of Treaty 8" A Thesis Submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Masters Degree Department of History College of Arts and Science University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon By Christine Mary Smillie © Copyright Christine Mary Smillie, June 2005 . All rights reserved . Permission To Use In presenting this thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a Masters Degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the Libraries of this University may make it freely available for inspection . I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor or professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department or the Dean of the College in which my thesis work was done . It is understood that any copying, publication, or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission . It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis . Requests for permission to copy or make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to : Head of the Department of History University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5 i "The People Left Out of Treaty 8" Abstract The story of how and why the Canadian government negotiated Treaty 8 with First Nations living in north-western Canada, and its attitude toward the people whom it casually left out of treaty, provide an excellent example of how the Canadian government approached treaty negotiations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries . Treaty 8 is both typical of the other numbered treaties negotiated with First Nations in the late nineteenth century in western Canada as well as different, in that it was the first of the "northern" numbered treaties negotiated with First Nations. This thesis looks at Treaty 8 in both ways : how it illustrates a common approach to treaty making on the part of the Canadian government, and how it differs from other treaties and other treaty negotiation processes . The thesis also tells the story of the people left out of Treaty 8 negotiations in northern Alberta and north-western Saskatchewan, as well as their struggles to obtain justice for this governmental oversight . This thesis looks at a number of issues related to Treaty 8 which earlier historians have either not focused on or overlooked. The first is that the territory covered by Treaty 8 is greater than the area into which treaty commissioners were sent in 1899 and 1900. The second related point is that the government policy of the time that treaties should be ii negotiated at as little expense and cost to the government as possible meant that people were left out of treaty negotiations . M I Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge and thank my thesis advisor, Dr . Jim Miller, who is an exceptional scholar, supervisor and mentor. I also wish to acknowledge the support that I have received from other members of my thesis committee, particularly Dr . Christopher Kent and the late Dr . David De Brou . Dr. De Brou was an excellent teacher and a friend to all of the students in the History Department, undergraduate and graduate students alike . I would like to acknowledge the assistance and support that I received from Dennis Madill at the Claims and Historical Research Centre of the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs in Gatineau, Quebec and from Fred Lennarson, who was generous with both his time and access to his files. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the support that I received from the Messer Fund for Research in Canadian History. iv Dedication This thesis is dedicated to the First Nations people who have been living in the area covered by Treaty 8 for centuries and who have never ceded or surrendered their title to the land, and who are still struggling to get the federal and provincial governments to negotiate a just settlement of their outstanding claims . v Table of Contents Permission to Use I Abstract u Acknowledgements iv Dedication v Table of Contents VI List of Illustrations vii Preface viii 1. An Overview of the Issues Related to Treaty 8 1 2. The People Left Out of Treaty 8 in Northern Alberta 33 3 . Treaty 8 and Northern Saskatchewan 72 4. Conclusion 93 Appendix I 115 Bibliography 118 vi List of Illustrations Map of Treaty 8 Land Area 11 Daishowa map of Traditional Lubicon Territory 100 vii Preface This thesis raises some troubling questions about how the Canadian government negotiated Treaty 8 with First Nations living in northern Alberta, north western Saskatchewan, north-eastern British Columbia and the southern part of the Northwest Territories in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By telling this story, it is not my intention to diminish the importance of the treaties or the treaty-making process to First Nations in Canada. The treaties negotiated between Canada's First Nations and the governments of Canada are seen by First Nations are their "bridge to the future" and should be respected as such. I worked in international development for sixteen years, and learned from that experience that it is critically important that people name their own reality. As a Canadian, I acknowledge that I am bound by the treaties signed between First Nations and the governments of Canada, but as a non-Aboriginal person I also know that they have far less impact on me that on Canada's Aboriginal people . I have been a "Friend of the Lubicon" since 1988 and it is my hope that this thesis will contribute to the efforts of the people left out of Treaty 8 in northern Alberta, including the Lubicon, to achieve their goal of a just settlement of their outstanding claims. viii The People Left Out of Treaty 8 Chapter 1: An Overview of the Issues Related to Treaty 8 The story of how and why the Canadian government negotiated Treaty 8, the way in which the government interpreted and implemented its treaty obligations, and its attitude toward the people whom it casually left out of treaty negotiations provides an excellent example of how the Canadian government approached treaty negotiations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The issues raised by the negotiation and implementation of Treaty 8 also point to the steps which federal and provincial governments need to take to build positive relationships with Aboriginal peoples in Canada in the future . By 1870, the fledgling Dominion government had decided that it needed to open up the Canadian west to white settlement and turned its attention to gaining control over the fertile farmland of the western plains . The approach chosen by the Dominion government to obtain the surrender of Indian territory was to negotiate a treaty, a practice that had been used to clarify relationships between Aboriginal people and the governments of both France and Britain since European contact . "Treaties between the Aboriginal and European nations (and later between Aboriginal nations and Canada) were negotiated and concluded through a treaty-making process that had roots in the traditions of both societies." Western First Nations' reasons for wanting to sign treaties with the Dominion government in the 1870s were complex but largely pragmatic . By the mid 1800s, the fur trade in the west was in decline, white settlers were entering Indian territory in greater and greater numbers, and First Nations were determined to do what they could to get assurances from the government that there would be protection for their way of life and that they would continue to be able to live as before . First Nations became even more anxious to negotiate treaties with the government after the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) sold Rupertsland to the Dominion of Canada in 1870 . Prior to 1870, the HBC had provided some relief to sick, aged, and destitute Indian people in the area that it controlled because of the relationship which the HBC had developed with First Nations and Metis people in Canada during the fur trade era . When Rupertsland was sold by the HBC to the Dominion of Canada in 1870, a clause in the deed of surrender relieved the company of any responsibility for the welfare of Aboriginal people living in that territory and passed that responsibility to the federal government.2 The British North America Act of 1867 also 1 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Final Report. Volume 1 : Looking Forward, Looking Back, (Ottawa: Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 1996), p . 119 2 Arthur J. Ray, Jim Miller, and Frank Tough, Bounty and Benevolence : AHistoryof Saskatchewan Treaties (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000), p . 152 assigned responsibility for "Indians and lands reserved for the Indians" to the federal government. Soon after the transfer, missionaries and HBC officials in the unceded territory began sending petitions to the government on behalf of sick or destitute Indian people . The Plains Indians "had been demoralized by the ravages of epidemics and the illicit whiskey trade, and as the 1870s passed, they witnessed the rapid disappearance of their principal means of sustenance, the buffalo ."4 On the prairies, the petitions on behalf of First Nations wishing to enter into treaty with the federal government coincided with the government's decision to open up the western plains to white settlement . Between 1871 and 1877 the government negotiated the first seven "numbered" treaties with Indians living in this area .