INTRODUCTION

One of the gravest of the questions presented for solution by the
Dominion of Canada, when the enormous region of country formerly
known as the North-West Territories and Rupert's Land, was
entrusted by the Empire of Great Britain and Ireland to her rule,
was the securing the alliance of the Indian tribes, and maintaining
friendly relations with them. The predecessors of Canada--the
Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay,
popularly known as the Hudson's Bay Company--had, for long years,
been eminently successful in securing the good-will of the
Indians--but on their sway, coming to an end, the Indian mind was
disturbed. The events, that transpired in the Red River region, in
the years 1869-1870, during the period when a provisional
government was attempted to be established, had perplexed the
Indians. They, moreover, had witnessed a sudden irruption into the
country of whites from without. In the West, American traders
poured into the land, and, freighted with fire-water, purchased
their peltries and their horses, and impoverished the tribes. In
the East, white men took possession of the soil and made for
themselves homes, and as time went on steamboats were placed on the
inland waters--surveyors passed through the territories--and the
"speaking wires," as the Indian calls the telegraph, were erected.
What wonder that the Indian mind was disturbed, and what wonder was
it that a Plain chief, as he looked upon the strange wires
stretching through his land, exclaimed to his people, "We have done
wrong to allow that wire to be placed there, before the Government
obtained our leave to do so. There is a white chief at Red River,
and that wire speaks to him, and if we do anything wrong he will