Sandford Fleming

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.