England and Canada / A Summer Tour Between Old and New Westminster, with Historical Notes

by Sandford Fleming

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.