From Treaties to Reserves: The Federal Government and Native Peoples in Territorial Alberta, 1870–1905 by D.J. Hall (review)

All areas of Canada deserve well-researched historical studies similar to David Hall's new book on Indigenous and non-Indigenous relations in territorial Alberta. Since the publication of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Report in 2015, the Canadian public has begun to realize the horrific effects of nineteenth-century Canadian Indian educational policy on First Nations.

The shock of this discovery contributed to several initiatives this past summer to remove the names of historical figures responsible for Canada's late nineteenth-century Indian policy from monuments and public buildings. In particular, Sir John A. Macdonald has come under severe attack across the country. The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario passed a resolution in August 2017 terming Canada's first prime minister the "architect of genocide against Indigenous Peoples" and calling for the removal of his name from Ontario schools designated after him. It is hard to believe that the father of this country, who won election and re-election for prime minister six times, would have the word "genocide," a term understood by most to be the gravest crime against humanity, attached to him.

What was the nature of the relationship between the federal government and First Nations in Western Canada in the late nineteenth century? The great strength of Professor Hall's study is the context he provides for the Dominion's relationship with the First Nations in Alberta from 1870 to 1905. The emphasis on the federal government's position adds to earlier studies of Treaties 6 (1876) and 7 (1877), such as Richard Price's edited work, The Spirit of the Alberta Indian Treaties (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 1979; University of Alberta Press, 1999); Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council with Walter Hildebrandt, Sarah Carter, and Dorothy First Rider's The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7 (McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996); and Hugh A. Dempsey's The Great Blackfoot Treaties (Victoria, bc: Heritage House, 2015). The author's review of the federal government's policies in the immediate post-treaty period to the year Alberta became a province is particularly valuable.

Now a professor emeritus of history at the University of Alberta, David Hall is well prepared for his study, as he has written the well-respected two-volume biography of Canada's minister of the interior, Clifford Sifton (1896–1905). Hall has also contributed many academic articles on Western Canada, as well as numerous tightly focused sketches of major Western Canadian political figures in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. A skilled Canadian political historian, he has a realistic view of how late nineteenth-century Canadian politicians operated, always restrained by "prevailing social values," which "largely framed what governments could or would do" (5).

The essential point returns again and again in the study: each side interpreted the treaty negotiations differently, which led to conflict and an acute sense of betrayal when neither group accomplished what the other had asked for. Evidence from Elders, Hall states in a key passage, indicates that the Indians had "envisaged a kind of kin relationship with newcomers," a relationship "in which they would be respected and supported as necessary, and would share the resources of the region" (3). In contrast, Her Majesty's Canadian government looked upon the treaties as land transfer agreements. Even before the treaties, Canada presumed it already possessed ultimate title to the land, a vital point Hall repeats several times in his text (21, 39, 54, 84, 323). After the treaties, the government sought to prepare the Indians for full citizenship and assimilation into the non-Indigenous society. Schooling of the young was the vehicle chosen to accomplish this goal.

In 2015, the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission most effectively emphasized the importance of an understanding of the...