MacBAIN: In rebuttal, leave the treaties alone!

In his op-ed in the Western Standard a few days ago, Murray Lytle proposed that “the honour of the Crown demands” that indigenous people should receive a share of Canada’s mineral wealth.There is no historical basis for his argument. In fact, neither the French nor the British — or the Spanish — ever paid so much as $1 to the indigenous peoples for the gold, silver, sugar, copper, timber, furs etc. that were extracted from the New World.Not once, during the 200 years that the Hudson’s Bay Company exercised exclusive trading rights over the 2,414,016 square kilometre area known as Rupert’s Land did it provide so much as .01% of its profits to the indigenous people.The indigenous traders were paid market value for their pelts and hides. Period.In 1850, Commissioner William B. Robinson said he concluded negotiations with the Ojibways on the north shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior “on the basis of a small annuity and the immediate and final settlement [emphasis added] of the matter, rather than [emphasis added] paying the Indians the full amount of all the moneys on hand and a promise of accounting to them for future sales."“The latter course [accounting for future sales/profits] would have entailed much trouble to the Government,” he said, “besides giving an opportunity to evil disposed persons to make the Indians suspicious of any accounts that might be furnished.”It is abundantly clear the government of the day saw no reason whatsoever to provide the approximately 2,400 Ojibways a share of any wealth derived from the vast territory covered by the treaty.It is also worth noting that, around the time of the negotiations, the Commissioner of Crown Lands was on record as saying that the Ojibways living on the north shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior had “emigrated from the United States and were “not the original proprietors of the soil.”Lieutenant-Govenor Alexander Morris negotiated four of the seven numbered treaties the new Dominion of Canada entered into between 1871 and 1877 with the Ojibway, Cree, Blackfoot and other tribes living on the former HBC lands between Thunder Bay and the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.Neither Lieut-Gov. Morris nor any other commissioner gave any indication that the less than 50,000 indigenous people — about half the population of Montreal at that time — were entitled to a share of any wealth that may have been derived from the lands that were being surrendered.In fact, Lieut-Gov. Morris made it clear that the intent of the treaties was that they would become “a self-supporting population”.Other than the annuities of approximately $5 per person and financial support for the education of their children, they were to rely entirely on their own resources.During the negotiations that took place at Fort Carlton, Saskatchewan, in August, 1876, Lieut-Gov. Morris said: “You need not concern yourselves so much about what your grandchildren are going to eat. Your children will be taught and then they will be as well able to take care of themselves as the whites around them….“I cannot undertake the responsibility of promising provision for the poor, blind and lame. In all parts of the Queen’s dominions we have them. The poor whites have as much reason to be helped as the poor Indian. They must be left to the charity and kind hearts of the people. If you are prosperous yourselves you can help your unfortunate brothers ….”While Mr. Lytle might very well be able to mount an argument as to why there should have been an agreement to share the wealth with the indigenous people, the fact remains that no such commitment was considered or made.And I see no compelling reason whatsoever to rewrite the numbered treaties. Mr. Lytle calls for “government-to-government agreements” upon which to base sharing wealth with Indigenous peoples.But, Canada has never had a government-to-government or nation-to-nation agreement with the first peoples of this land.Lieut-Gov. Morris made it abundantly clear that he was dealing with “British Indians on British soil” all of whom were subjects of the British Queen.On signing a treaty, every chief was provided with a silver medal, a blue uniform and a Union Jack to fly above his lodge to show that he was now an “officer of the Queen.”That’s the way it was. That’s the way it should stay.Toronto author Robert MacBain wrote extensively about the numbered treaties in his book Their Home and Native Land

MacBAIN: In rebuttal, leave the treaties alone!

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