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Beyond Biology
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--Description taken from "Beyond Biology:Disease and its Impact on the Canadian Plains Native people,1880-1930"--
The impact of disease and the demographic collapse of Native communities has often been seen as a "natural", albeit horrendous, consequence of the New World encounter between Native people and Europeans. Non-immune Native groups quickly succumbed to little-understood epidemics in this "biological invasion" that set off a terrible cycle of cultural and ultimately spiritual collapse. The theory discounts the military, economic, and political invasions that accompanied the biological invasion.
This study examines the history of health and disease of the Canadian Plains Native people in the immediate post-treaty period from 1880-1930. The loss of their bison economy dealt a severe economic blow, while government limited food rations and material aid to forestall pauperization. Death rates from influenza, measles, whooping cough, tuberculosis, infant and maternal mortality soared. Native people called for economic solutions to their clearly-recognized diseases of poverty. They approached the Euro-Canadian medical care cautiously and selectively since it was made to shoulder the assimilationist goals of the government. Native people persisted in their indigenous ceremonies, despite government repression, because those ceremonies offered the regeneration and renewal necessary to conceptualize their changed social, economic and health status. This study is based on the archival collections of the federal government's department of Indian Affairs, church bodies and manuscripts. A concerted effort has been made to incorporate the voices of the Native people, whether those voices were collected in memoirs or buried in the government records.
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Beyond Boundaries
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-Short Version-
This thesis attempts to correct European created boundaries and nationalities from Indigenous people.
-- Description taken from "Beyond Boundaries" --
Historians in the field of Native-white relations often write of "Canadian” and "American" Indians on the assumption that European boundaries and European nationalities have been inherently meaningful to aboriginal peoples. Yet Native peoples often had significant ties with populations on the other side of the Canada-United States border. Peoples like the "Canadian" Blackfoot, for example, had more in common with "American" Blackfoot than with the culturally and geographically distant "Canadian" Cree. This fact calls into question the conceptualizations historians have made about aboriginal peoples. In this study, an attempt has been made to reposition the historical lens away from the modern nation state and towards aboriginal peoples. It examines the Cree, Ojibwa, Blackfoot and Dakota peoples of the Northern Great Plains and the impact that the boundary between Canada and the United States has had on their lives. The thesis begins by exploring plains peoples' concepts concerning territoriality and boundaries during the third quarter of the nineteenth century, a time when Europeans appeared with increasing frequency in this region. In contrast to what contemporary Europeans believed, Native peoples had a strong sense of territoriality, and crossing aboriginal boundaries was a delicate matter involving the establishment of kinship ties with other land-holding groups as a result. Native concepts concerning territoriality and boundaries set precedents for the way Native peoples approached the Europeans' boundary. When Dakota from the United States fled to Canada in the 1860s and 187 0s, they emphasized their historic ties to the British and attempted to construct alliances with aboriginal groups to aid them in their attempts to cross this barrier. The following chapters address how knowledge of events in the United States influenced Native-white relations in Canada. Treaties between the United States government and Native peoples were signed many years before similar treaty negotiations occurred in Canada. Knowledge acquired about these earlier negotiations played an important role in shaping the understanding Native peoples in Canada held about Canadian treaties of the 1870s. The impressions Native peoples in Canada formed about Americans also prompted them to pursue more peaceful relations with whites in Canada. Having viewed the arrival of Americans in the south, aboriginal peoples in the north hoped to stave off American Manifest Destiny by constructing alliances with Canadians. European settlers were in the process of creating two new societies, and aboriginal peoples watched them do so with great interest. Indians recognized differences between the newcomers and took the time to learn about both, but this process did not render aboriginal identities inoperative. Understanding that aboriginal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. IV peoples viewed their worlds from a vantage point quite distinct from that of Europeans helps render analytic devices such as the "Canadian" and "American" Indian obsolete.
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Big River Reserve
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This document contains two books inside of it; both books are about Big River.
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Birds Eye View of out Foreign Missions
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In this journal, the author talks about the “Indians in the North West.” The author goes over definitions about residential schools; in these definitions about the schools the author talks about how many there are and if they were successful or not., Note that only relevant pages are used,
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Canada Presbyterian, 1891
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With two letters written by Rev. T. O. Nichol, who was a missionary at Mistawasis, the First letter talks about being introduced to the community and Chief Mistawasis; he also mentions how Mrs. Mackay and family will be joining Rev. T. O. Nichol in a few weeks. In the second letter, Rev. T. O. Nichol says how he as an interpreter and gives a brief discussion on who the new interpreter is, and Rev. T. O. Nichol talks about what events happened in the past week. The events that occurred the week before this entry was about meetings with the council, and the Indian agent where it was said that the Indian agent has the power to withhold food rations from families of their children are not being sent to school.
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Canadas Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885
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Canadas’s Subjugation of the Plains Cree, written by John L. Tobias follows the history of Canadas policy in dealing with the Plains Cree. The article is based on the misdeed and misuse of Canada’s failed approach with administering the treaties to the Plains Cree. This document discusses the misplaced and rearranged Indigenous communities from the Plains Cree and follows and explains what happened to Chief Piapot, Little Pine, and Big Bear. This text shows the conversations and the process that lead to the treaties being made and signed and as well as the significant events that took place like the Riel rebellion (North-West Rebellion/Resistance). John Tobias also mentions in the article the mistreatment towards Indigenous communities and their people.
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Canadian Policy
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Darlene Lanceley teamed up with Mistawasis First Nation and the University of Saskatchewan to disuses funding and politics in post-secondary education dealing with First Nation communities. Lanceley disuses the history of funding for university education, the policy changes and the control for post-secondary education.
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Carlton Agency, 1879
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Correspondence Regarding the erection of schools on the reserves of Chief Ahtakwakoop and Chief Mistawasis.
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Carlton Agency, 1887
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In this document, they give record of the Mistawasis community getting rewarded $210 for caching goods that belonged to the Hudson Bay Compony.
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Carlton Agency, 1891- 1894
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In these letters, the Mistawasis community requested that a Protestant school house be built on the community.
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Carlton Agency, 1891- 1895
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In these letters between H. Keith, Indian Agent and A. E. Forget, assistant Commissioner, the two men discuss the new headman at Mistawasis community.
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Carlton Agency, 1892
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In these letters, the writers discuses annuity for William Dillion as his wife had died.
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Carlton Agency, 1894
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In these letters, Pierre Chastellaine is granted discharge from Mistawasis community.
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Carlton Agency, 1895
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In this letter, the death of Chief Mistawasis is recorded as well as what he may off died from. The writer also mentions the move to find a new successor.
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Carlton Agency, 1907
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This document from 1907 discusses the formation of a colony being built from former members of industrial schools.
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Christianity, Missionaries and Plains Cree Politics, 1850s–1870s
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--Description taken from "Christianity, Missionaries and Plains Cree Politics, 1850s–1870s"--
Beginning in the 1990s, much of the historiography of missionary-Indigenous interaction in 19th-century Canada and the British Empire has explored how Indigenous leaders made very active and conscious use of the missionaries and Christianity in the framing and shaping of their politics, particularly in their political interactions with the colonial state.1 This interpretive shift represented a revision of older histories that had tended to ignore Indigenous agency in the history of encounters with missionaries, and instead either uncritically celebrated, or categorically condemned, missionaries for their ability to shape and assimilate Indigenous societies into Christian-European cultural frameworks.2 While there is no consensus in this revisionist approach about how Indigenous communities used Christianity on their own terms, most scholars would now agree with what Elizabeth Elbourne, in her study of the Six Nations, argues: that Indigenous communities and leaders were able to “manage” missionaries and Christianity in ways that mitigated the pressures of colonialism and assimilationist policies, and were even sometimes beneficial to leaders and communities.3
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Copy of Treaty Six
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The Copy of Treaty Six goes over treaty agreement such as land, law, and Indian agents. The copy of the document then goes on to talk about different First Nation communities and the signature of the chiefs and councillors who signed the document.
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Correspondence between Chief Joseph Dreaver and Rt. Hon. J.G. Diefenbaker, January 9 1962
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Correspondence by Chief Joseph Dreaver to the Prime Minister of Canada, Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker dated January 9, 1962. Correspondence sent from Mistawasis Indian Reserve Box 153, Leask, Saskatchewan, to the House of Commons in Ottawa, Ontario. Chief Dreaver requests a salary increase for Chiefs and Councillors throughout Saskatchewan, stating that salaries for Chief and Council had remained the same since 1874-76 -- the signing of Treaties 4 and 6. Chief Dreaver laments a visitation cancellation by the Minister of Indian Affairs, expresses concern that Saskatchewan is being ignored by the federal government while other Western provinces receive continued federal attention. The letter closes with profuse gratitude on behalf Indigenous peoples in Saskatchewan for Diefenbaker's work.