Indian Treaty-Making Policy in the United States and Canada, 1867-1877

by St. Germain, Jill

• ISBN13: 9780802035202
• ISBN10: 0802035205
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-02-01
• Publisher: Univ of Toronto Pr

Summary

During the last three decades of the nineteenth century Canada and the United States embarked on major diplomatic ventures with the Indian peoples of the Plains and Prairie West. Both nations employed the treaty, long a tool in North American Indian-white relations. In this study Jill St. Germain presents a pioneering examination of the treaty-making policies of Canada and the United States in the nineteenth century, comparing the major treaties negotiated in the Numbered Treaties concluded with the Cree, Ojibwey, and Blackfoot in Canada and in the United States with the Sioux, Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Comanche. She explores the common roots of Indian policy in the two nations and charts the divergences in the application of the reserve and 'civilization' policies that both governments embedded in treaties as a way to address the 'Indian problem' in the West. St. Germain points out that despite official rhetoric, Canadian Indian policies - often cited as a model the United States ought to have imitated - have been as dismal and fraught with misunderstandings as those enacted by the United States.

Author Biography

Jill St. Germain is an independent writer and researcher.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	ix
List of Maps	xi
List of Tables	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Introduction	xvii
Treaty-Making Precedents and Progress	1	(12)
Treaty-Making Problems	13	(14)
The Context of Treaty Making	27	(20)
The Making of the Medicine Lodge, Fort Laramie, and Numbered Treaties	47	(13)
The Role of ``Others'' in Treaty Making	60	(20)
Reserves	80	(19)
Civilization	99	(30)
Buffalo Preservation, Hunting Rights, and Subsistence	129	(10)
Ratification, Indian Status, and Treaty Making	139	(19)
``Humane, Just, and Christian,''	158	(9)
Appendix 1. Comparison of Terms in American and Canadian Treaties	167	(8)
Appendix 2. Comparison of Terms in the Numbered Treaties	175	(10)
Appendix 3. Summary of Terms in the Treaties Signed at Medicine Lodge Creek (1867) and Fort Laramie (1868)	185	(12)
Notes	197	(26)
Bibliography	223	(12)
Index	235