GO rD hIll 500 Years of Indigenous resistance
The relationship between the immediate requirements of the
internal imperialist expansion and the treaties is remarkable.
The first of these treaties was sought, according to a 19th century
historian’s first-hand report, ‘in consequence of the discovery of
minerals on the shores of Lake Huron and Superior’... The prairie
treaties were obtained immediately in advance of agricultural
settlement, and the treaty which includes parts of the Northwest
Territories was negotiated immediately upon the discovery of oil
in the Mackenzie Valley.^38
While the colonizers knew what they wanted in proposing the trea-
ties, Native peoples were unprepared for the duplicity and dishonour of the
treaty-seekers. When a commission journeyed to the Northwest Territories
to investigate unfulfilled provisions of Treaties 8 and 11, they found that
At a number of meetings, Indians who claimed to have been
present at the time when the Treaties were signed stated that they
definitely did not recall hearing about the land entitlement in the
Treaties. They explained that poor interpreters were used and
their chiefs and head men had signed even though they did not
know what the Treaties contained.^39
The treaties were important aspects of the plan for the expansion of Canada
westward and economic development based on resource extraction and ag-
riculture. Indeed, the Confederation of Canada in the British North Amer-
ica Act of 1867 was aimed primarily at consolidating the then-existing
eastern provinces and facilitating in this westward expansion; the primary
instruments of this were the trans-Canada railway, telegraph lines, and
roads. This expansion was seen not only as economically necessary but also
politically urgent as the U.S. was expanding westward at the same time.
The invasion of the prairie regions was not without conflict. The
most significant resistance in this period was that of the Metis peo-
ples—descendants of primarily French and Scottish settlers and Cree—
in what would become Manitoba. The Red River Rebellion, also known
as the First Riel rebellion after Louis Riel, a Metis leader, erupted fol-
lowing an influx of Euro-Canadian settlers and the purchase of the ter-
ritory from the controlling Hudsons Bay Company, by the government- Donald R. Colborne, Norman Ziotkin, “Internal Canadian Imperialism and
the Native People”, Imperialism, Nationalism, and Canada, Marxist Institute
of Toronto, Between the Lines and New Hogtown Press, 1987, pg. 164. - Ibid, pg. 167. Quote from Report of the Commission appointed to investigate
the unfulfilled provisions of Treaties 8 and 11 as they apply to the Indians of
the Mackenzie District, 1959, pgs. 3–4.