Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

The history • 57Through the Treaties, Aboriginal peoples were seeking agricultural supplies andtraining as well as relief during periods of epidemic or famine in a time of socialand economic transition. 94 They saw the Treaty process as establishing a reciprocalrelationship that would be lasting. 95 The goal was to gain the skills that would allowthem to continue to control their own destinies and retain their culture and identityas Aboriginal people. As Ahtahkakoop (Star Blanket) said, “We Indians can learn theways of living that made the white man strong.” 96 The provisions varied from Treatyto Treaty, but they generally included funds for hunting and fishing supplies, agriculturalassistance, yearly payments for band members (annuities), and an amountof reserve lands based on the population of the band. 97 First Nations never asked forresidential schools as part of the Treaty process, and neither did the government suggestthat such schools would be established. The education provisions also varied indifferent Treaties, but promised to pay for schools on reserves or teachers. The federalgovernment was slow to live up to its Treaty obligations. For example, many FirstNations were settled on reserves that were much smaller than they were entitled to,while others were not provided with any reserve. 98 Some obligations remain unfulfilledto this day. The commitment to establish on-reserve schools was also ignoredin many cases. As a result, parents who wished to see their children educated wereforced to send them to residential schools. 99The assimilation policyFrom the Canadian government’s perspective, the most significant elements in theTreaties were the written provisions by which the First Nations agreed to “cede, release,surrender, and yield” their land to the Crown. 100 In the Treaty negotiations, however,federal officials left the impression that the government intended the Treaties to establisha permanent relationship with First Nations. Treaty Commissioner AlexanderMorris told the Cree in 1876, “What I trust and hope we will do is not for to-day andtomorrow only; what I will promise, and what I believe and hope you will take, is tolast as long as the sun shines and yonder river flows.” 101 In reality, the federal governmentpolicy was very different from what Morris said. The intent of the government’spolicy, which was firmly established in legislation at the time that the Treaties hadbeen negotiated, was to assimilate Aboriginal people into broader Canadian society.At the end of this process, Aboriginal people were expected to have ceased to exist asa distinct people with their own governments, cultures, and identities.The federal Indian Act, first adopted in 1876, like earlier pre-Confederation legislation,defined who was and who was not an ‘Indian’ under Canadian law. 102 The Actalso defined a process through which a person could lose status as an Indian. Women,for example, could lose status simply by marrying a man who did not have status. Men