History Matters: Treaty Six promises were quickly broken – StarPhoenix

September 12, 2017

“Our great brother here.”

Those words were used by Chief James Smith in addressing Canada’s governor general at a meeting at Fort Carlton in August 1881.

He wasn’t being disrespectful. His words reflected his understanding of the treaty relationship between the Crown and the Cree people.

Five years earlier at Carlton, during the Treaty Six negotiations, both the Crown’s representative, Indian Commissioner Alexander Morris, and Cree chiefs Mistawasis and Ahtahkakoop talked about the agreement as the beginning of a new, long-term relationship rooted in the concepts of family and kin.