To carry them out, the treaty area has been divided into two Superintendencies, that of Manitoba, including Treaties Numbers One, Two, Three and Four, and that of the North-West Territories, including Treaties Numbers Five, Six and Seven. Mr. Dewdney, late a Member of the House of Commons from British Columbia, has recently been appointed to the latter Superintendency as Chief Superintendent, and has spent the summer among the Indian tribes. He has had large
experience among Indians, and will prove, I have no doubt, an efficient and able officer. His residence will be in his Superintendency, and he will be able to meet the Indians and supervise his deputies. Under the Superintendents are agents having charge of particular districts and the bands within them, who reside among them. The Chief Superintendents and agents are officers of the Department of the Interior, and are directed by and report to the Deputy Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Ottawa, Lawrence Vankoughnet, Esq., who has had long experience of Indian management in the older Provinces, and his superior, Col. Dennis, Deputy Minister of the Interior, who had a large practical acquaintance with the North-West, and the head of the Department, now the Premier of the Dominion, the Right Hon. Sir John Macdonald. The system of management is thus a complete one, and doubtless, day by day, its mode of management, will be perfected and adapted to the growing exigencies and wants of the native population.
THE HALF-BREEDS
Ere passing from the subject, I cannot refrain from alluding to the Half-breed population of the North-West Territories. Those people are mainly of French Canadian descent, though there are a few of Scotch blood in the territories. Their influence with the Indian population is extensive. In Manitoba there is a large population of French Metis and Scotch Half-breeds, and they are proud of their mixed blood. This race is an important factor with regard to all North-West questions. His Excellency the Earl of Dufferin, with his keen appreciation of men and facts, astutely seized the position and thus referred to them in his speech at a banquet in his honor, given by the citizens of the whilome hamlet, and now city of Winnipeg, on the occasion of his visit to the Province of Manitoba in the year 1877.
"There is no doubt that a great deal of the good feeling
thus subsisting between the red men and ourselves is due to the influence and interposition of that invaluable class of men the Half-breed settlers and pioneers of Manitoba, who, combining as they do the hardihood, the endurance and love of enterprise generated by the strain of Indian blood within their veins, with the civilization, the instruction, and the intellectual power derived from their fathers, have preached the Gospel of peace and good will, and mutual respect, with equally beneficent results to the Indian chieftain in his lodge and to the British settler in the shanty. They have been the ambassadors between the east and the west; the interpreters of civilization and its exigencies to the dwellers on the prairie as well as the exponents to the white men of the consideration justly due to the susceptibilities, the sensitive self-respect, the prejudices, the innate craving for justice, of the Indian race. In fact they have done for the colony what otherwise would have been left unaccomplished and have introduced between the white population and the red man a traditional feeling of amity and friendship which but for them it might have been impossible to establish."
For my own part, I can frankly say, that I always had the confidence, support and active co-operation of the Half-breeds of all origins, in my negotiations with the Indian tribes, and I owe them this full acknowledgment thereof. The Half-breeds in the territories are of three classes--1st, those who as at St. Laurent, near Prince Albert, the Qu'Appelle Lakes and Edmonton, have their farms and homes; 2nd, those who are entirely identified with the Indians, living with them, and speaking their language; 3rd, those who do not farm, but live after the habits of the Indians, by the pursuit of the buffalo and the chase.
As to the first class, the question is an easy one. They will, of course, be recognized as possessors of the soil, and confirmed by the Government in their holdings, and will continue to make their living by farming and trading.
The second class have been recognized as Indians, and have passed into the bands among whom they reside.
The position of the third class is more difficult. The loss of the means of livelihood by the destruction of the buffalo, presses upon them, as upon our Indian tribes; and with regard to them I reported in 1876, and I have seen no reason to change my views, as follows: