3. I would urge that the officers of the Mounted Police be entrusted to make the annual payments to the Indians under this treaty. The Chiefs themselves requested this, and I said I believed the Government would gladly consent to the arrangement. The Indians have confidence in the Police, and it might be some time before they would acquire the same respect for strangers.
4. The organization of the Blackfeet bands is somewhat different from that of the Saulteaux and Crees. They have large bands with head and minor Chiefs, and as they preferred that this arrangement should remain unchanged, the Commissioners gladly acceded to their desire, as expense would be saved to the Government in clothing, were councillors and head men not named. The Stonies, however asked to be allowed councillors, and their request was granted to the extent of two to each Chief.
5. Copies of the treaty printed on parchment should be forwarded to Fort McLeod in good time to be delivered to each head and minor Chief at next year's payment of annuities.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
DAVID LAIRD,
Lieut.-Gov., and Special Indian Commissioner.
Report from correspondence in The Globe newspaper, Toronto.
FORT McLEOD, October 4, 1877.
The treaty with the Blackfeet nation has been concluded satisfactorily, and was signed by the Chiefs of the Blackfeet, Blood, Piegan and Sarcee tribes, in the presence of the Commissioners--Governor Laird and Col. McLeod, C.M.G., and of Major Irvine, Assistant Commissioner, North-West Mounted Police, and officers of the Police Force, at the Council House, near "Ridge under the Water," or "The Blackfoot Crossing" the Great Bow River, on the 22nd September last.
On the morning of the 4th of September, Col. McLeod received information from the ubiquitous Indian that the Queen's father (Lieut.-Gov. Laird) was at Little Bow River, thirty miles north from McLeod, and was accompanied by the "Buffalo Bull" (Major Irvine), and that they would arrive before the sun sank below the western horizon. At three p.m. the Commissioner left Fort McLeod, accompanied by a guard of honor of one hundred mounted men, to meet and escort the representative of Vice-Royalty to the first white settlement in the Blackfeet country. The Governor was met three miles north of Willow Creek, and expressed his surprise and pleasure at the splendid appearance of the well-mounted, well-equipped, well-drilled body of men who formed the guard of honour. When the head of the column forming the escort wound round the bend of Willow Creek, and the extensive wooded valley on which McLeod is built appeared in view, the guns, which had been unlimbered and placed in position on the highest of the bluffs which girdle the north side of Old Man's River, fired a salute of thirteen guns. On the arrival of the cortege at the upper or south end of the village, the police band took the lead and welcomed the Governor with its lively music. The whole white, Half-breed and Indian population of McLeod turned out to obtain a view of the great man who had arrived. At the request of the leading inhabitants of
McLeod the carriage of the Governor was halted in the centre of the village, and the following neatly worded address was read and presented to His Honor by Mr. John C. Bell: