Indians in the British Period (1763-1830) in Canada

The British Period

In colonial times each English colony had dealt independently with the Indians, but with the example of the successful Indian policy of the French before them, the British military authorities were constrained to appoint Sir William Johnson to deal with the Iroquois and other northern tribes. This policy was continued after the cession of Canada in 1763. The Indians were to be regarded as independent nations under the protection of the Crown, which, while recognizing their absolute political independence and their actual ownership of their lands, claimed for itself an option on the purchase of these lands. Although no foreign state might buy, the occasion sometimes arose whereby subjects of the Crown encroached upon the domains of the Indians, as in the case of the Brantford reservation of the Iroquois in the middle of the nineteenth century. Moreover, after the cession of Canada to the British, farmers pushed across the Ohio into the “Old North West” and established themselves on the hunting territories of the Seneca, Huron, and central Algonkian peoples. Treaty presents decreased in value, and the British officers who now occupied the posts accorded less dignity to the chiefs in political conferences than had been the custom of the French. Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa, believing that the French would again return to power in America, tried to get the tribes to abolish war among themselves and to turn their united energies against the English. Because, however, of an intrigue at Detroit, Pontiac failed to capture that strategic post, and his eventual failure was due to the fact that the various tribes would not stand together against the English.

The situation of the tribes in the “Old North West” was radically altered by the American War of Independence, after which this territory was ceded to the United States. The British, however, perhaps less because of pressure from their own fur-trading interests than of fear of trouble from the Indians, to whom the trade was still essential, retained their posts until 1796. Tecumseh, a chief of the Shawnese, began about this time to organize the tribes in a further attempt to oust the American farmers from the area between the Ohio river and the Great lakes. During the War of 1812 he was defeated by the American forces at the battle of Tippecanoe. This was the last attempt of the Indians of the “Old North West” to regain their status as hunters and traders. From that time onward, with the influx of white settlers, they were segregated on reservations, and as a consequence of so-called civilizing processes they suffered considerable degradation and tended to shrink in numbers. Some, such as the Iroquois whose territories lay both in Canada and the United States, retained the right to cross the international boundary at will.

While wars, migrations, and settlement, were radically altering the status of the Indians in the eastern woodland, the fur-trade continued to expand in the territories west of Hudson bay, and had, by the last decades of the eighteenth century, brought most of the Athapaskan peoples within the sphere of European influence. The rivalry between the North West Company and the Hudson’s Bay Company, which had developed after the British conquest in 1763, in some respects favoured and in others injured the position of the western Indians with respect to the advantages to be secured by trade. The situation was altered by the amalgamation of the companies in 1821, and the general position of the Indians with respect. to the company was one of debt peonage after that date, since they could no longer trade on the jealousy of the rival companies. Smallpox had spread to the Indians of the Canadian West in 1738, and David Thompson, a promin­ent fur-trader, noticed its ravages among the Cree in 1781. Disease, drunkenness, and social disruption played the same devastating part which was to be observed among the eastern Indians at an earlier period. Moreover, settlement began with the establishment of Lord Selkirk’s colony on the Red river, and the old story of Pontiac and Tecumseh was re-enacted in the [Métis] risings under Louis Riel, which are known in Canadian history as the North West Rebellions.

The acquisition of horses and firearms by the Plains Indians rapidly transformed their economic and political life, making them powerful and swift­moving warriors and hunters. In the latter sphere they attained to such proficiency that they seriously diminished their food-supply, which consisted largely of buffalo meat. Some of the British Columbian tribes also became expert horsemen, and have, up to the present time, been successful ranch­ers, whereas others, such as the Salish and Carrier bands of the interior, have failed to adapt themselves to an agricultural existence, and in consequence have declined rapidly. Of all the Canadian aborigines, the [Inuit] have resisted best the degradation inherent in the spread of European civilization, partly on account of their isolated position and partly on account of their great resourcefulness, although they too, have suffered depletion by the spread of disease.

Source : A. G. BAILEY, “Indians”, in W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada , Vol. III, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 396p., pp. 257-264.

See Also

Indians
Indians in the Canadian Period
Indians in the French Period

Further Reading

• The American Indian frontier by W. C. MacLeod
• F. Parkman’s Conspiracy of Pontiac
• Rev. George BRYCE, “The Indians of Western Canada”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 220-227.
• E, M. CHADWICK, “History of the Iroquois to 1898″, in J. Castell HOPKINS, Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 217-219.
• G. Bernard GILPIN, “The Micmacs of Nova Scotia”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, J. Castell HOPKINS, ed., Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 241-245.
• J. Castell HOPKINS , “The Indians of Canada “, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 206-214.
• J. Castell HOPKINS , “Canadian Treaties with Indians”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 272-278.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “The Iroquois and the Land Issue”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 240-241.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “Indian Attitude to Europeans in their First Encounters”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 236-239.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “Indians of British Columbia”, Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., p. 245.
• J. Castell HOPKINS, “Indians of the Yukon and British Columbia”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 245-249.
• E. Pauline JOHNSON, “The Organization of the Iroquois”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, J. Castell HOPKINS, ed., Toronto, Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 215-217.
• Rev. John MACLEAN, “The Indians of the Canadian North-West”, in Canada. An Encyclopaedia of the Country, Vol. 1, Toronto, The Linscott Publishing Company, 1898, 540p., pp. 228-235.