Some books are more enlightening than others, and I’ve read quite a few in these covid months. In recognition of the racial conflict we’re experiencing in North America, I would recommend one in particular: Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life by James Daschuk.
It’s
an eye-opener. Not only does it provide a detailed history of first
contact between Europeans and Indigenous peoples, it gets to the origins
of our current conflicts. While it’s not Daschuk’s
intention to place blame, the facts are laid bare. Our first prime
minister actually said that emergency rations would be refused to
families "until the Indians were on the verge of starvation, to reduce
expense.” Along with malnutrition, disease and spoiled food would kill
thousands of Indigenous people, just as settlers began to occupy the
Canadian Prairies.
When
Indigenous leaders signed the treaties in the late 1800s, they knew any
leverage they once had was gone. After Canada became a nation, the
First Nations would begin their decline. And it had everything to do
with the buffalo.
The
buffalo were a source of food, tools and life. The best parallel to our
modern age is our dependency on oil and gas. Imagine how quickly
anarchy would erupt if every oil well went dry tomorrow.
For
Indigenous peoples, the loss of the buffalo meant societal collapse,
accompanied by disease and starvation. Fortunately, they had the
treaties, or so they thought. Instead of offering the assistance needed to get
through this transition, the government would oversee their near demise.
No
longer required for the lucrative fur trade of the early 1800s, the
Indigenous population was now a burden rather than a source of profit.
They were, to put it mildly, in the way. In the way of the railroad, in
the way of land, in the way of European values.
They needed to be put to the side. And so the reserve system began, where disease and hunger run rampant. In his book, Daschuk
includes a picture of a large First Nations family who look relatively
healthy and proud. In a few years, all of them had died due to
malnutrition and disease.
I
often wondered why treaties were so valued by Indigenous groups, when
they left them with so little. But now I understand that they were then
what they are today: the only legal guarantee of a better life. And up
until quite recently, the government has been willfully ignorant of our
side of the bargain.
Those of us who ended up with the favourable
interpretations of the treaties complain when these ancient agreements
are brought up. Why do we still adhere to these artifacts, we ask? The
same reason we still adhere to ancient laws like the Constitution, I
suppose. Old documents like these still form the basis of our lawful
society.
Interpretations
of our laws change, which is only natural, but it doesn’t mean we can
throw them out. The treaties are much the same.
As
we approach Canada Day, over 150 years since Confederation and almost
the same for the first numbered treaties, I sometimes wonder if the
atrocities described would have been avoided if we were transported back
to that time. We tend to look back at the past with pious eyes, as
though we are a more enlightened bunch.
As
much as I want to say I would have been less indifferent than the early
settlers or government of the day, I can’t say so in all honesty. Am I
any less indifferent today?
We
view things through a societal lens, which typically takes crises to
break; whether that be train blockades or street protests spurned by
violations of treaty rights or police brutality – an
unfortunate reality in both the U.S. and Canada.
Then we grumble and complain that our world is being threatened.
Rest assured, it was nothing like the experience of those 150 years ago.
