_THE INDIANS._
Indian Population--The Government Policy--Indian Instincts--The
Hudson’s Bay Company--Fidelity and Truthfulness of Indians--
Aptitude for Certain Pursuits--The Future of the Red Man.
In the foregoing chapters I have alluded more than once to the Indian
population scattered over the Dominion and more especially remarkable
in the North-West and British Columbia. It is a subject to command
attention when the future of Canada is at all considered. Fortunately
it is one concerning which little anxiety need be felt. The Government
on one side recognizes its obligations to the Red man, and is desirous
of doing him justice. The Indian is satisfied that there is a desire
to treat him fairly. The land formerly held by them and now owned
by the Dominion has not been ruthlessly seized, arbitrarily held in
possession by squatters and remorseless traders. It has been obtained
by treaty on principles of right and justice, and has been ceded to the
commonwealth for an agreed equivalent; when the settler enters upon
possession, he simply takes his holding on Government land.
The decrease of the Indian population has steadily advanced since
the settlement of the east coast by the first Anglo-Saxon in the
seventeenth century. The number of the native race at that date must
be always a matter of conjecture. Catlin estimated it at that time to
have been fourteen millions, and half a century ago he described it as
reduced to two millions. All the early writers of Canada describe the
populous condition of the Indian tribes. That they no longer present
this character is undoubted. General Lefroy, in a paper read before the
Canadian Institute, of Toronto, in 1858, estimated the total number of
Indians in North America at 250,000. Even without intercourse with the
white man, their desolating wars, the frequent scarcity of food and
the want of knowledge of the means by which life can be preserved, all
had their influence. As the country became more occupied and under the
control of the European, their territory became narrowed, and hence
the greater cause of quarrel arose. Then the Indians of the Mohawk and
those of Lake Huron became mixed up in the wars of the English and
French. During the revolutionary war with the United States and the war
of 1812 the tribes took opposite sides, while there were whole races
who lived in open hostility to the white man.
Except in the North-West, they have almost passed out of mind. In
Ontario they are seldom thought of, but in the neighbourhood where they
are seen, nevertheless their number amounts to 18,000. In Quebec they
attract greater attention; their number, however is only 12,000. In the
Maritime Provinces they number 4,000. At present the estimated number
of Indians east of the Rocky Mountains is 51,500; in British Columbia
proper there are nearly 36,500; in the more northern Hudson’s Bay
Territories, Labrador and the Arctic coast, 9,000. In the North-West,
at no late date, there was much to unsettle confidence, in view of the
rapid strides with which settlement was advancing, and in view also
of the difficulty which appears inherently to attend the solution of
this important problem in political economy; more especially when we
consider the constant turmoil and difficulty experienced in the United
States. But the solution has been found, as much else in life, by
following the very simple principle of justice and honesty.
There are now in the North-West under the immediate care of the
Government 10,000 Indians. The proximate cost of beef and flour
furnished them is twelve cents per head per day.
It may confidently be affirmed that the present satisfactory condition
of our North-West Indian relations is entirely owing to the admirable
government of the Hudson’s Bay Company. One principle observed was
never to allow the Indian to suffer from starvation. Provisions under
conditions of privation were given to those in need; but the recipients
were made clearly to understand that it was an advance of goods to be
repaid in the future. Those receiving assistance when in want, or to
enable them to start for the hunting grounds were held to give back the
value of what was then given, when the recipient was in a condition
to do so. A principle was accordingly established, which the Dominion
Government is endeavouring to enforce: that the Indian should never
regard himself as an object of charity, specially to be provided
for. He is by these means taught that to beg is discreditable, and
to receive Government rations as alms is personally dishonourable to
himself. He is taught self-reliance, for he is made to understand that
the rations, or clothing, or powder must be repaid by work or otherwise
as he can satisfy the claim.
The duty has accordingly been imposed on those able to work to make
some return for what they have received. Such as these labour under the
eye of the farm instructor on each reserve. If there be no work there
will be no food, a principle perfectly within Indian comprehension and
sense of justice. Moreover, what labour they give redounds to their own
personal advantage. The strides to civilization may not be immediate,
but they are perceptible, and progress is in that direction. Above all
things, the Indian is satisfied, for he feels that he is treated with
justice.
We must, on our side, be reasonable in our expectations. We must
remember that the Indian has never been habituated to steady labour,
and it should not be a matter of bewilderment if he is vacillating and
irregular in accepting that condition. For countless generations his
life has been nomadic. He has been lord of the soil, bred a warrior,
and the white men who has been the cause of the change in his condition
should bear with him and be patient, and extend him help and aid. It is
not only the Indian who finds it hard to accept the life of monotonous
employment, day out, day in. Many of our race who, at a somewhat
advanced period in their career are set down to patient effort, find it
no little of a trial. The hand of little employment hath the daintier
sense, and we must look to two or three generations passing away before
the Indian will take his place in the family of civilized man. He has
much of his former life to unlearn; he has to struggle against the
instincts of his blood; he has to accept the great truth that labour is
honourable. Those human lilies of the valley who toil not, neither do
they spin, do not hold the same high grade in human estimation which
they obtained a century back. No doctrine is more recognized than that
every right is co-existent with a duty. The Indian has to reach the
condition of understanding that he can only hold his place by the
side of the white man by fulfilling the obligations attendant on the
position he claims.
The white man engaged in the effort to elevate the Indian, must not
be discouraged if the attempt made on his part does not at once
lead to little more than perceptible results. He must look forward
to much patient perseverance for many years, and he must guard
against discouragement. If he has difficulties to meet there is also
much in the Indian character by which they are fitted for peculiar
employment; as guardians of rivers, as herdsmen, as boatmen; and they
have extraordinary aptitude for any calling which exacts readiness of
resource and quickness of perception. Moreover, the Indian in many
ways displays much artistic skill. The Indians of the Pacific coast
especially are noted for their taste. This is exemplified in the really
fine models of ship architecture seen in their large sea-going canoes.
They are also distinguished for carving in wood and their work in
metals.
They are capable of taking part in many profitable occupations. In
British Columbia they are preferred as labourers to the Chinamen. The
Indian has proved himself to be an excellent assistant on a farm. He is
useful in a saw-mill, and in such manufactures as he can undertake. He
can be relied upon as an overseer of rivers and to protect fisheries.
He can be trained to look after forests and to prevent the wholesale
destruction of timber, so often the result of carelessness and
imprudence. As forester and guardian of the observance of the game laws
he would be invaluable; and it is only by strict observance of our
regulations with regard to the season in which fish and game can be
hunted and killed that its preservation can be assured. Who more fit
for this duty?
The Indians have already some minor industries, by which they show
strong commercial instincts. They split cedar logs by means of yew
wedges, which they sell to the northern tribes for seal or whale
oil, blankets and dried fish. The seal fisheries which they carry on
are of great extent. The annual value is named at $200,000. Speaking
generally of them in British Columbia, they are in no way held in this
western part of the Dominion, where they are well known, to be the
unimpressible animals many assert them to be. I can myself trace many
strong indications of progress, and I do not think that many years will
pass before this fact has been clearly established.
Many are now receiving instruction in agriculture. They are furnished
with the necessary implements and seed. Cattle have also been given
them. If in some instances there have been failures, the majority of
those to whom these advantages have been extended have fairly profited
by them.
On many of the reserves much interest has been shewn in agriculture,
with the important result that the grain raised has reduced the number
of rations issued. It is proposed to introduce on their farms pigs to
breed from. It is held that many will understand that they are not
at once to be killed and eaten. If successful, it will prove a step
of importance; on one side inculcating thrift, on the other being a
provision against want. Even the Blackfeet, who a few years back were
continually on the war-path, have settled down to peaceable pursuits.
Most families have a small farm or garden in place of the wigwam. An
attempt is to be made to establish industrial schools. But the Indians
do not willingly see their children separated from them.
The Sioux, who were driven out of the United States twelve years back,
came to Manitoba with the stigma of the atrocities they were charged
with; into these I will not enter. They asked a home. They prayed to be
allowed to be hewers of wood and drawers of water. No special privilege
was claimed by them. The desire was granted; and they have never
violated the hospitality extended to them. Their career has been one of
patient labour.
The Hudson Bay Company obtained control over the Indian, by its
inflexible regard to its obligations. They never falsified their word.
The love of truth in the Indian in his natural condition is one of
the marked features of his character. It is a virtue he respects in
others, for he himself practices it. It has been said that such was
the confidence in every officer of the Company, hence in every white
man, that an Indian would accept a few pencil words which he could
not understand, on a sheet of paper, from a stranger, telling him to
present it as a certificate at a certain post in payment for provisions
or skins or any service rendered.
The fidelity of the Indian to his engagements is best known by those
who have intercourse with him. However the fact may be disputed by
mere petulant abuse, it is uncontradictable. A proof of the strongest
character can be adduced, even at this hour, by the agents of the
Hudson’s Bay Company. There are many localities where the business
is not sufficient to support a resident storekeeper, where there are
none but Indians. At the same time there are requirements of traffic
which cannot be ignored. This condition is met by an arrangement of a
simple character, but it is only possible when unvarying good faith and
honesty are observed. The Hudson’s Bay Company erect a store, generally
a large log shanty; glass being difficult to obtain, generally the
windows are made of parchment. The door is only secured against the
intrusion of wild animals, that is to say, it is securely fastened
from the outside by a latch or bar. So any one can enter it at any
time. Here are stored such supplies as the Indian may need: blankets,
clothing, arms, powder, shot and such articles as are used by the Red
man. When an Indian in the district requires any article from the
store, he enters and takes what he wants, leaving behind the requisite
number of skins in barter, denoting by some mark the individuality of
the deposit. A tariff of equivalents has been established, and the
Indian knows precisely what he has to leave behind for the value of
that which he takes away. This arrangement has existed for many years.
I have never heard an instance of the store having been fraudulently
visited, or of the least dishonesty on the part of the Indian. In the
regular periodical visit to these localities, in some cases not oftener
than twice a year, the agents have invariably found everything in order
and satisfactory. In these visits the stock is replenished and the furs
deposited taken possession of. The system still prevails, and until
fraud has been learned from intercourse with the white man it will
continue in the remote districts.
It is difficult amid civilized commerce to find a parallel to the
confidence on one side and to the honesty shewn on the other. If all
the chronicles related of the days of Alfred be true, the national
honesty may then have partaken of the reliability and trustworthiness
of the Indian. But no other record of this character is to be found in
any page of history. It can only exist, indeed, in a simple state of
society in which the dominant class is marked by the strictest honesty
and fidelity to a promise made. It is this tone of personal honour
which the Red man both appreciates and in his own conduct observes,
until it is lost in the vices and misfortunes of a civilization which
generally he has experienced to his ruin, subsequently to be developed
to untiring calumny of his race. Whatever the feelings and weaknesses
of the Indian in his natural condition, in other respects truth and
honesty are his marked characteristics.
There is a special difficulty in British Columbia, found in no other
part of Canada, the custom of holding “pot-laches”: feasts spread over
much time, when extravagant gifts are made. A proclamation was issued
by Lord Lorne forbidding these meetings. It is now proposed to make
them a misdemeanor by statute. In some parts of this Province liquor
has been introduced among the Indians by the Chinese and others, and
in some tribes the spirit of gambling is springing up. In one agency,
however, they have been induced to burn their cards.
A more important proceeding is the introduction into the House of
Commons of a measure to give some of the old tribes self-government.
What is specially required is to make the Indian self-reliant and
self-respecting. If he have to live by the side of whites he can only
be taught a sense of equality with them by removing every remnant
of patronizing protection. Even communities not Indian, not subject
to effort, from whom little exertion is called for, easily drop into
habits of indulgence and indolence. The true policy towards the Indian
is that of extending to him protection from being robbed and abused,
but at the same time teaching him to feel how much of his happiness
depends on his own conduct, and that his future depends largely on
himself.
There are a class of men who reason themselves into the theory that
the best civilization for the Indian is to civilize him off the face
of the country. Such as these seem to forget that the worst faults of
the Red man are those which he has learned from our race. From the days
of Columbus and Cortez until modern times, the white man has looked
upon the Indians as a class of beings to whom he was bound by no tie of
honour. By the wrongs he himself has committed he awakened feelings of
revenge, and one policy only was known, coercion and force. In modern
times, happily, one duty has been recognized, the enforced abstinence
of the Indian from liquor. Throughout the Dominion, but especially in
the North-West, on Canadian soil, the strongest precautions are taken
against the introduction of spirituous liquors. No alcohol is admitted
into Indian territory. Were the contrary course allowed, the Red man
would soon degenerate into the lowest depths of misery and crime. It is
not to be denied that our own race shew many examples of dishonesty
and fraud; but crime with the Indian is found in its most marked form
when in contact with the white man. The experience of all who know them
is that they have great tenacity of purpose, and will endure hardship
and privation uncomplainingly. The advance of events has changed their
whole lives, and in the proportion that governments have recognized
this fact and have endeavoured to adapt the tribes to the new relations
in which they have to live, so are they found to be willing to accept
what lies before them and to be grateful for the consideration which
they receive. The Canadian Government is acting on this principle.
Those who study the question hopefully look forward to the day when
the Indian population of the North-West will turn to pastoral and
agricultural pursuits and constant labour to obtain their bread. The
present peaceable character of the Indian is sufficiently established
by the fact that the mounted police, which consists of five hundred
men, is sufficiently strong to exercise the necessary control over the
fifty thousand of Indian population east of the Rocky Mountains. All
authorities agree in stating that they are under perfect subjection
to law, and that the police are competent to keep out the mischievous
whiskey trader, whose progress through the land is a blight and a curse
where it passes.
It is true that the days of adventure and individual prowess have
passed away, but their energy and power of almost untiring effort
remain. All that is needed is a healthful, well-considered, just policy
to turn these good qualities into the right direction.