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A Cornparison of Canadian and American Treaty-Making Policy With A Cornparison of Canadian and American Treaty-Making Policy with the Plains Indians, 1867- 1877 by Ji11 St. Germain, B.A., M.A, M.L.1-S. A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. School of Canadian Shidies Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario May 11, 1998 Copyright 0 1998 JiIl St. Germain AcquisÏms and Acquisitions et BibliographC Services senrices bibliographiques 395 wehgm Street 395. Ne WeNington OttawaOfJ K1AW ûthwaON K1AON4 Canada canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibiiothkque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seil reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neikthe droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. A bs tract This thesis offers an examination of the long-held self-perception of Canada as a benevolent nation in the realm of Indian policy. Through a cornparison of Canadian and American Indian policy, speciiïcally in an investigation of the ongins, context, terms and programs of the 1 867- 1 868 American treaties at Medicine Lodge Creek and Fort Laramie and the 1870s Canadian Numbered Treaties, questions are raid about the accuracy of this Canadian conviction. Superficial impressions based on the violence of the American west, which contrasts sharply with the more serene Canadian frontier, give way in a closer scrutiny of treaty-making motives and practice to conclusions which challenge conventional wisdom on the nature of Canadian policy. Recem studies of Indian policy in a national context have characterized it as one of "indierence and neglect". This conclusion is confirmed in the broader fiamework offered by a comparative investigation juxtaposing the Canadian and American reserve and "civilkation" prograrns which were elaborated in these treaties. iii Contents Chapter 1 .Introduction ............ .. .................................................................... P- 1 Chapter 2 .Treaty-Making Precedents and Progress..................................... p . 12 Chapter 3 .Treaty-Making Problems................................................................... p . 30 Chapter 4 .The Context of Treaty.Making ...... ... ............................................ p . 53 Chapter 5 .The Making of the Medicine Lodge Cr& Fort Laramie and Numbered Treaties........................................................................... p . 85 Chapter 6 .Reserves ........... ... ........................................................................ p . 108 Chapter 7 - "Civilization"............. ... ............................................................... p . 133 Chapter 8 - The Buffalo, Hunting Rights, and Preservation ........... ... ............... p . 178 Chapter 9 - Ratification, Indian Status and Treaty-Making ............ ............... p . 194 Chapter 10 - Conclusion.......... ...... ................................................................ p . 222 Appendix ....................................................................................................... p . 233 . Bibliography...................................................................................................... p . 255 Appendix Contents A Cornparison of Amencan and Canadian Treaty Terms.............................. p . 234 Numbered Treaties .Comparative Table of Terms ....................................... p . 239 United States Treaty Terms - Medicine Lodge Creek and Fort Laramie .......... p . 247 The information in these treaty tables consists of surnmaries of treaty terms . Quotation marks indicate the use of exact wording . Chapter One - Introduction Ln the Speech £tom the Throne, deiivered in early Febniary, 1877, the usudy parsimonious government of Prime MUii~erAlexander Mackenzie offered a defense of the Indian treaties recently negotiated on its authority, despite what were admitted to be provisions ". ..of a somewhat onerous and exceptional character." Although considerable expense would be incwed by these agreements, it was asserted that "...the Canadian policy is nevertheless the cheapest, ultirnately, if'we compare the results with those of other countries." The govenunent added that Canada's approach '3s above al1 a humane, just and Christian policy." Lest the point stiil elude the parliamentary audience, a more explicit statement of justification was made for the extraordinary expenses these treaties entailed: Notwithstanding the deplorable war waged between the Indian tribes in the United States temtories, and the Government of that country, during the last year, no difficulty has arisen with the Canadian tribes living in the irnrnediate vicinity of the scene of hostilities. ' The implication that a large expenditure of fun& was more desirable than a vicious Plains war was an effective play. and the govemrnent can hardly be faulted for invoking the shadow of the American disaster at the Little Bighom to counter accusations of extravagance. But there was more to the govemment's imagery than the rationaikation of a budgetary matter, dthough in the depression-ridden 1870s a concem for economy was not 1 Speech fiom the Throne, Canada. Debates of the House of Commons, February 8, 1877, p. 3. Introduction unimportant. The comparison to the American experience satisfied a variety of constituencies. In this speech is found the impiicit anti-Amencan stmnd vital to every brand of Canadian nationaiïsm fiom 1867 to the present. Here, too, were the roots of one of the moa deep-seated myths of the Canadian self-image. In historian J.R Miller's words, this speech "...nicely captured both the hgaiity of the Mackenzie govemment and Canadians' smugness about their Indian poli^^."^ The Throne Speech suggests several avenues of investigation with regard to Canadian policy. The first is the explicit comparison to the American situation. The Canadian policy is promoteci as a deliberately benevolent one - "humane, just and Christian". By implication the Amencan one is, at the very lest, none of these things. A second assertion in this speech bolsters the view that the Canadian approach to indian policy was a deliberate one. The suggestion is made that specinc decisions by the Dominion govemment resulted in different developments on the Canadian and Amencan frontier. Again, Canada obviously made the wiser choices. On the surface, the Canadians appear to have had an argument to make for these assumptions. In the l86Os, and through to the subjugation of Geronimo's Apaches in 1886, the United States was involved in almost unrernitting codict somewhere in the West, charactenzed in part by sporadic displays of bnitaiity by the U.S. Amy. The Canadian frontier, in contrast, at lest until 1885, was placid and serene. In the nineteenth century, relying largely on the absence of bloodshed and body counts, and blissfidly ignoring other troubling evidence, it was possible for Canadians to rest assured in the ' J.R. Miller. Skvscrawrs Hide the Heavens. (Toronto, 199 1), p. 162. Introduction conviction of the superiority of their Indian policy. The pervasiveness of this attitude accounts for the surprise of many Canadians in the latter haif of the twentieth centq when co&onteci with the unflattering portraits of Indian life in this country painted starkly by the 1966- 1967 Hawthom Repri and, more recently, in the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples'. Imbued with a notion of Canadian "benevolencey', it is diilicult for people here to accept that Indians in Canada may endure second-class status and perhaps Third World conditions. Even more damaging to the Canadian collective ego than the reaiity of Indian existence within the nation's borders is the possibility that the standard benchmark for cornparison and the major source of evidence for Canadian superiority - Arnerican Indians - might be better off than their couterparts north of the forty-ninth pardel. Images of the American Indian wars of the late nineteenth century, abetted by the twentieth-century film industry may assuage Canadian doubts somewhat, but some facts are hard to reconcile with the Canadian self-image as a more benevolent nation. The most glaring of these, in current Indian nghts debates, revolves around the question of land. Even a cursory glance at a map of reserve lands in these two North American nations confirms a conviction of Canadian parsimony. AI1 Canadian hdian reserves combined constitute less than one half of the present-day Navajo reserve in ri zona.^ With land and resources at the centre of the H.B. Hawthom, (Ed.) Survev of the Conternwrary Indians of Canada: A Rmnon Economic. Political and Education Needs and Policies. 2 vols. Department of Indian AEkis: Ottawa, 1966-1967; Re~ortof the Roval Commission on Aboripiial Peo~les.5 vols. Minister of Supply and SeMces: Ottawa, 1996. 4 Robert White-Harvey, "Rservation Geography and Restoration of Native Self- Governmenty', in Dalhousie Law Journal, l7/2,
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