Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

56 • Truth & Reconciliation CommissionThe signing of Treaty 1 at Lower Fort Garry, 1871. To gain control of the land of Indigenous people, colonistsnegotiated Treaties, waged wars of extinction, eliminated traditional landholding practices, disrupted families, andimposed new political and spiritual order that came complete with new values and cultural practices. ProvincialArchives of Manitoba, N11975.To enable the colonization of the Northwest, in 1871, the federal government begannegotiating the first in a series of what came to be termed as “Numbered Treaties”with the First Nations of western and northern Canada. The only alternative to negotiatingTreaties would have been to ignore the legal obligations of the Rupert’s LandOrder and attempt to subdue the First Nations militarily, but that would have been avery costly proposition. In 1870, when the entire Canadian government budget was$19 million, the United States was spending more than that—$20 million a year—onits Indian Wars alone. Despite all these pressures, the government took a slow andpiecemeal approach to Treaty making. 93