Anger and frustration in the Canadian west

Guide to Indian Country Page 19

The following pages recount the history of the Northwest Rebellion, a

powerfully explosive time in the making of Canada. The Native people of

the time paid a heavy price for their resistance to the changes that

came with the settlement of the West. It marked the end of the Metis

dream of nationhood and free-roaming lifestyle of the Native Indian.

Big Bear's people were hungry. The buffalo, a once-abundant source of

food on which the Native Indian relied, had been hunted to near

extinction on the Canadian prairie. Mother Earth had provided for the

people of the plains for generations, but no more. With settlers,

soldiers, police and traders arriving in the Northwest in

ever-increasing numbers, the strain put on the resources of the land was

more than nature could bear.

Native leaders needed to provide for their people, but the options left

to them were growing few. Though Big Bear's reputation as chief of the

Plains Cree was great, his people's suffering was greater still.

The government of the Dominion of Canada was using every tactic in its

arsenal to entice Native leaders to sign treaties and choose land on

which to create reserves. Reserve living would mean the end of the

free-roaming lifestyle of the Native Indian. The government wanted

Indians to give up their hunting traditions and embrace farming as a way

of life. This plan was greeted with suspicion by many, but the

government was promising rations of food in exchange for leaders'

signatures on treaties.

Some Native leaders saw this as the only way for the people to avoid

starvation and an uncomfortable life. But some leaders resisted,

thinking the deal from the government offered too little in exchange for

what the Indians were expected to sign away.

Big Bear was one such leader. Treaty Six was signed in 1876, but he

refused to put his name to it. Big Bear had a greater vision for the

Indian people of the West. he felt that, if all the people worked as

one, the government would have to make the needs and concerns of the

original people a priority. If it wanted to develop the West for

settlement, the government would have to treat the demands of the Native

people with the seriousness they deserved.

But time was not on the side of the Indian. The government could

out-wait those who were starving. Though other leaders were of a

similar mind to Big Bears's, they could not let their people go hungry.

With each signature on the treaty, the strength of the Indian's position

was dealt a blow. Big Bear was resolute until 1882, when the suffering

of his people had reached such proportions that he too had to sign.

Big Bear, along with other leaders, had not completely given in to the

government, however. For years, they put off choosing locations for

their reserves. The government decided to put pressure on the Native

leaders and began withholding food rations. Native people were again

going hungry and living in deplorable conditions.

Even those bands that had settled on reserves and taken up farming were

not much better off. They had been promised instructors to teach them

how to farm and equipment to get their new careers started. But the

instructors that were attracted to the West were of poor quality, and

getting supplies to the Indian farmers proved to be a bureaucratic

nightmare.

Desperation and anger were becoming the pervasive moods among Native

Indian bands living in the prairies. The Metis were not faring much

better.

The Metis had been forced out of Manitoba after the Red River Rebellion

of 1869. White settlers migrated to that burgeoning province, taking

over land that the Metis had for years claimed for themselves. At the

time of the rebellion, Louis Riel, the leader of the Metis, had led his

community to a take-over of Fort Garry, where he proclaimed a

provisional government for Manitoba. The Metis won a number concessions

from the Dominion government, including the setting aside of 560,000

hectares of land for the Metis eople, but the land policy was never

implemented and the Metis lost all that they had built.

The Metis were building a new life along the Saskatchewan rivers in the

area known as the Northwest Territory. This area would later become

Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Metis set up their communities and

petitioned the government to provide them deed and title to the lands

they had worked. They wanted to avoid a repeat of the problems they

encountered in Manitoba.

But the Dominion government ignored the Metis petitions and their

concerns. Pressure was being put on the government bg wealthy eastern

businessmen and railroad owners to clear out the French half-breed

communities. Land companies were actively advertizing the west to

prospective settlers and survey teams were arriving in Metis communities

to mark the land.

This caused the Metis great concern. The government surveys were

drawn on a grid system rather than the ribbon system that the Metis

farmers had established. Under the Metis system, each family had a

ribbon of land with a length of river front. The government wanted to

reorganize the community based on the American block system and hoped to

sell these blocks of land to eastern whites.

The Metis were concerned that the land they had worked, the buildings,

roads, churches and schools they had built would all be lost again.

Petition after petition after petition was sent to the government and

all were ignored. By 1884, the Metis were frustrated and angry.

That spring, the Metis leadership held a series of meetings. It was

decided that the first order of business was to retrieve Louis Riel from

the United States, where he had retreated after the Red River

Rebellion. It was decided to send four Metis leaders to Montana, where

Riel was teaching, and implore him to return to Canada to lead the Metis

rights movement. Riel agreed and packed up his family to move north.

Canada looked on this move as a threat. Riel was a trouble maker in

the government's estimation. Butinstead of dealing with the Metis

concerns over land rights, the government of Canada responded by sending

more troops and police to the West.

The recipe for disaster was complete. The brew that was bubbling

wreaked of rebellion and the government was turning up the heat.