It is customary in dealing with Indians to do so, and in this case it was absolutely necessary, for, obviously, it would have been impossible to invite those people from a distance, and then leave them to starve at our doors, or, in search of food, to plunder the neighborhood into which they had been introduced. At that season of the year the Indians were not engaged in fishing or hunting, and consequently large numbers of men, women and children attended at the place of meeting, for all of whom food was provided. The price of provisions, even at the lowest price for which they could be obtained, was high, pork being fifty dollars a barrel, and flour twenty shillings sterling per hundred, and such cattle as I was able to purchase £16 per head, so that the expense of keeping the Indians during the negotiation of treaty and payment of the gratuity, which lasted eleven days, forms no small share of the total expenditure. In addition to this expense, it was thought necessary by the Lieutenant-Governor that Major Irvine commanding the troops at Fort Garry should be requested to furnish a guard at the Stone Fort during the negotiations, and that there should be at hand, also, a force of constabulary, for the purpose of preventing the introduction of liquor amongst the Indian encampments. Other expenses of a somewhat similar nature were incurred, which would be totally unnecessary upon any future occasion of payment being made to the Indians of Manitoba. I may here refer to the apparently prolonged duration of the first negotiation, and explain, in reference thereto, the causes, or some of them, that entailed the loss of time and attendant expense. For some time a doubt has existed whether the Chief, nominally at the head of the Indians of the Indian settlement, possessed the good will and confidence of that band; and I thought it advisable to require that the several bands of Indians should select such Chiefs as they thought proper, and present these men as their authorized Chiefs, before anything was said as to the terms of a treaty. The Indians having acquiesced in this proposal, forthwith proceeded to such election; but the proceeding apparently involved discussion and consideration amongst themselves, and two days elapsed before the men chosen were presented for recognition, and the business of the meeting commenced.
When the peculiar circumstances surrounding the position of the Indians of the Province were pointed out, the future of the country predicted, and the views and intentions of the Government explained by the Lieutenant-Governor and myself, the Indians professed a desire for time to think over what had been said before making any reply; and when their answer came it proved to contain demands of such an exorbitant nature, that much time was spent in reducing their terms to a basis upon which an arrangement could be made.
Every band had its spokesman in addition to its Chief, and each seemed to vie with another in the dimensions of their requirements. I may mention, as an illustration, that in the matter of reserves, the quantity of land demanded for each band amounted to about three townships per Indian, and included the greater part of the settled portions of the Province. It was not until the 3rd of August, or nine days after the first meeting, that the basis of arrangement was arrived at, upon which is founded the treaty of that date. Then, and by means of mutual concessions, the following terms were agreed upon. For the cession of the country described in the treaty referred to, and comprising the Province of Manitoba, and certain country in the north-east thereof, every Indian was to receive a sum of three dollars a year in perpetuity, and a reserve was to he set apart for each band, of sufficient size to allow one hundred and sixty acres to each family of five persons, or in like proportion as the family might be greater or less than five. As each Indian settled down upon his share of the reserve, and commenced the cultivation of his land, he was to receive a plough and harrow. Each Chief was to receive a cow and a male and female of the smaller kinds of animals bred upon a farm. There was to be a bull for the general use of each reserve. In addition to this, each Chief was to receive a dress, a flag and a medal, as marks of distinction; and each Chief, with the exception of Bozawequare, the Chief of the Portage band, was to receive a buggy, or light spring waggon. Two councillors and two braves of each band were to receive a dress, somewhat inferior to that provided for the Chiefs, and the braves and councillors of the Portage band excepted, were to receive a buggy. Every Indian was to receive a gratuity of three dollars, which, though given as a payment for good behaviour, was to be understood to cover all dimensions for the past.
On this basis the treaty was signed by myself and the several Chiefs, on behalf of themselves and their respective bands, on the 3rd of August, 1871, and on the following day the payment commenced.
The three dollars gratuity, above referred to, will not occur in the ordinary annual payments to the Indians of Manitoba, and, though doubling the amount paid this year, may now properly be regarded as belonging to a previous year, but only now liquidated.
A large number of Indians, entitled to share in the treaty, were absent on the 3rd August, and in the belief that I should, almost immediately, be able to obtain a more accurate knowledge than I possessed of the numbers of
the several bands, I paid to each person present only three dollars--the gratuity--postponing for a short time the first annual payment. Having completed this disbursement, I prepared to start for Manitoba Post, to open negotiations with the Indians on the immediate north and north-west borders of the Province of Manitoba, promising however to visit the several bands of the first treaty, in their own districts, and to there pay them. By this means the necessity for their leaving their own homes, and for the Government's feeding them while they were being paid, and during their journey home, was avoided.
After completing the treaty at Manitoba Post, of which mention is herein after made, I visited Portage la Prairie, the Indian settlement at St. Peter's, Rivière Marais, and the Town of Winnipeg, according to my promise, and at each place, with the exception of Rivière Marais, found the Indians satisfied with the treaty and awaiting their payment. At Rivière Marais, which was the rendezvous appointed by the bands living in the neighborhood of Pembina, I found that the Indians had either misunderstood the advice given them by parties in the settlement, well disposed towards the treaty, or, as I have some reason to believe had become unsettled by the representations made by persons in the vicinity of Pembina, whose interests lay elsewhere than in the Province of Manitoba; for, on my announcing my readiness to pay them, they demurred at receiving their money until some further concessions had been made by me.
With a view to inducing the Indians to adopt the habits and labors of civilization, it had been agreed, at the signing of the treaty as before mentioned, to give certain animals as a nucleus for stocking the several reserves, together with certain farming implements; and it was now represented to me by the spokesman of the bands, that as the Queen had, with that kindness of heart which distinguished her dealings with her red children, expressed a desire to see the Indians discard their former precarious mode of living and adopt the agricultural pursuits of the white man, they were desirous of acceding to the wish of their great Mother, and were now prepared to receive the gifts she had been good enough to speak of, through her Commissioner, in full. But, as it could make no difference whatever to their great Mother whether these things were given in kind or in money value, her red children of the Pembina bands were resolved to receive them in the latter form. I had put a valuation upon all the articles mentioned in the supplement to the treaty, and could go no further in the matter unless I was prepared to pay them for all these articles at the rates they would now proceed to mention. I declined to comply with the request, and they declined to receive their first annual payment, whereupon I broke up my camp and returned to Winnipeg. As I foresaw at the time this determination on their part was shortly repented, and a number of their leading men were subsequently paid at Winnipeg, while at the request of the Indians, the money for the remainder, together with a pay sheet, was forwarded to the officer in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's Post at Pembina, with
instructions to pay the Indians as per list as each might present himself. At Portage la Prairie, although the number paid at the Stone Fort was largely increased, there still remained many who, from absence or other causes, were not paid, and by the request of the Chief the money was left for these with the officers in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company's Post, in the same manner as was done for the Pembina bands.