Aboriginals in Manitoba: Roots, resilience, renaissance

Part 1: Roots of Manitowapow

WINNIPEG — Cree elder Betty Ross smudges her glasses, her head, her chest and body, and then offers a reporter the smudge bowl so she can bathe myself in the sweet-smelling blue smoke.

The reporter has come to learn the story of how Cree people came to Manitoba, but first they must smudge.

Tobacco, sage, cedar and sweetgrass and other medicines lay on a star blanket along with Ross’s eagle feather, ready for action.

“It’s true that we were the first people in Manitoba, Manitowapow,” says Ross. “We were always here. We originated in Manitobah.”

Science confirms what Ross and other indigenous people have been saying for countless generations. Manitoba Museum information confirms Cree people have lived in Manitoba for at least 7,000 years.

Manitoba boasts a diverse group of aboriginal people who call it home — not only the Cree and Ojibwa, but Oji-Cree, Dakota, Dene and Métis people:

•Oji-Cree: The Oji-Cree people of Manitoba are a distinct blend of Ojibwa and Cree people. They speak a mix of both languages, and their culture is also a marriage of the two. They live in northeastern Manitoba, also known as the Island Lakes area.

• Dakota: The Dakota people of southern Manitoba are part of the Sioux Nation, along with the Nakota and Lakota people. They have historically been seen as “outsiders” by the Canadian government because most of their homeland is south of the U.S. border. The Dakota of southern Manitoba never signed a treaty with the Canadian government. (Read more about them further down.)

• Dene: The Dene people (T’suline Dene and Sayasi Dene) were thriving in northern Manitoba for thousands of years, living a hunting lifestyle that depended on caribou. After a forced relocation by the government in the 1950s, the Dene suffered severe breakdown and dysfunction of their families and community, recounted in the 1997 book Night Spirits, The Story of the Relocation of the Sayisi Deni, co-authored by former chief Ila Bussidor. The Dene relocated to part of their traditional land in Tadoule Lake in 1973.

•Métis: Every Manitoban knows — or should know — the Red River Métis nation was born here. The fur trade brought prosperity to Manitoba in the 18th century, but also intermarriage between the original people and newcomers who helped build it. The Métis of the Red River Settlement were a hardy mix of European, French-Canadian voyageurs and mostly Cree and Ojibwa women. Their settlements existed mainly along the Red and Assiniboine rivers. By the 19th century, they were a strong force, but not enough to overcome the takeover of their lands that set off the Louis Riel-led Red River Rebellion of 1869.

And knowing what name to use when referring to a “native person” in Canada just got a whole lot harder. And not only because about 600,000 “indigenous” people may have their status changed by a recent court ruling, which is being challenged.

PART 2: Resilience and Turning Points

A modern migration of aboriginal people started in the 1950s.

Small numbers started moving to cities and towns, leaving their reserves behind. The city meant exciting opportunities: jobs, education and a better life.

Changes in the Indian Act helped spark the migration. The 1876 piece of legislation determined anything and everything a treaty Indian could and couldn’t do.

In 1951, the pass system was officially taken out of the Indian Act, and First Nations people were allowed to leave the reserve on their own. Prior to that, they needed a pass signed by an Indian agent in order to leave for any length of time.

The only way to be off the rez permanently was to “enfranchise” — sign away your treaty rights and become a Canadian.

Many women were also “enfranchised” when they married non-aboriginal men. That changed in 1985 when Bill C-31 reinstated treaty status to some of those women and their children.

The use of the word “enfranchisement” instead of “disenfranchisement” — which is what it was — is indicative of the mentality of the federal government. It believed giving up Indian status made that person “gain” Canadian status.

As aboriginal people became more urbanized, their rights also gained momentum. Status Indians were granted the right to vote in Canadian elections in 1960.

The residential school era began in the 1880s. The last of these schools closed in 1996. An estimated 150,000 aboriginal children were placed in residential schools over the course of 100 years. Most were First Nations kids but Métis and Inuit were included. The federally funded schools stripped kids of their language and culture, and allowed them to be abused, in an attempt to “get rid of the Indian problem” and assimilate them into society.

First Nations groups filed a class-action lawsuit and in 2007 the Government of Canada announced a settlement. Several churches apologized for their role and, in 2008, Canada officially apologized for the damage done.

While some aboriginal people were leaving the reserve, others were making their way onto the reserve — in the form of Child and Family Services.

The Sixties Scoop began in the 1960s and lasted until the ’80s, seeing an estimated 20,000 aboriginal children across Canada taken out of their homes and placed in foster care or adopted as far away as the U.S. and Europe to primarily non-aboriginal families.

The residual effects of the residential schools included family breakdown and dysfunction. That played a major role in the Sixties Scoop. As well, social workers were suddenly dropped into a culture where they had little training and even less understanding.

It’s debatable when a turning point for aboriginal people came.

Perhaps it wasn’t one specific turning point but a series that led to where we are today. Maybe the important thing is they happened and people remember them.

PART 3: Time for a cultural renaissance

For the younger generation, maybe the turning point is now.

The “aboriginal baby boom,” babies born in the 1990s, are being educated and will hopefully be poised to fill our province’s labour gaps once the aging population retires in great numbers.

In 2006, 15.5 per cent of Manitoba’s total population was aboriginal, according to Statistics Canada. That’s 175,395 aboriginal people.

But times are far from perfect.

We still have higher-than-normal rates of high school dropouts, incarceration and poverty. Many reserves resemble the developing world. Social problems developed over generations will not change overnight, but we are bouncing back faster than expected.

The Native Women’s Association of Canada estimates Manitoba has the third highest number of cases, 79, of missing and murdered aboriginal women and girls in the country, behind British Columbia and Alberta.

With increased protests and public awareness by groups such as Sisters in Spirit, Canadians are starting to take notice. Many aboriginal groups have been calling for an inquiry for several years.

Protesting is nothing new to aboriginal people. What is new is increased solidarity thanks to social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

The Idle No More campaign began in December by five women unhappy with Bill C-45 and its effect on aboriginal people.

The grassroots movement that started with a Facebook page and a Twitter hashtag has gained momentum, with thousands turning out for flash-mob round dances.

Those events slowly grew into additional rallies, protests and flash mobs at shopping malls as the movement gained steam on social media. On Dec. 10, the first National Day of Action took place, and the protests grew to encompass additional pieces of legislation introduced or passed by the government that affect First Nations but which First Nations leaders say they were not consulted about.

Idle No More is official in that it has a website and a Facebook page. But not every rally or protest that labels itself as an Idle No More event is connected to the original founders.

The women who started Idle No More do not condone aggressive tactics in protests, and any blockades are certainly not affiliated. However, the movement grew quickly beyond its founders to encompass a general feeling among aboriginals, many of them young people, that it was time to start actively pushing for the change they wanted to see.

PART 4: The protests, treaties, Idle No More

The treaties are the “dry stuff” that scares some people away from history.

Canada was built on treaties, agreements between two groups of people. There’s nothing scary about that.

With First Nations people throughout Canada, the newly formed government knew it had to cook up a deal in order to relocate them and settle the land. They decided on treaties — which were popular at the time.

Seven treaties were signed in Manitoba from 1871 to 1906. First Nations people moved on to designated reserve land and the new Canadian migration began.

The Idle No More movement would like the federal government to repeal all legislation that violates treaties, including those that affect environmental regulations, such as the budget-implementation bills C-38 and C-45. It seeks to educate and revitalize aboriginal peoples, empower them and regain sovereignty and independence.

In almost every way, everything that has happened in the last few months they all come back to one thing: The treaties Canada and First Nations signed more than 100 years ago have still not been fully implemented.

A treaty is a formally concluded and ratified agreement between states; the document embodying such an agreement; an agreement between individuals or parties, especially for the purchase of property.

In Canada, treaties between the Crown and First Nations were signed so First Nations and European settlers could live side by side in peace, share the land and both prosper. Europeans needed the treaties to have land for new settlers to live on and cultivate. First Nations saw treaties as documents to protect their language and culture during a time when disease was hurting their people and the fur trade was dying as a source of income.

There are dozens of treaties that affect First Nations in almost every province and territory. Treaties were signed both pre- and post-Confederation. Manitoba First Nations are part of seven treaties, signed between 1871 and 1910.

These are not long-winded documents. Treaty 1, which covers seven First Nations in southern Manitoba, is only four pages long. It outlines the land the First Nations were ceding to Canada, and the land “Her Majesty the Queen” would set aside for the sole use of the bands in question. In Treaty 1, as with most of the Manitoba treaties, it was 160 acres (64 hectares) of land per family of five, or the same proportion for larger or smaller families. Treaty 1 also pledged Canada would maintain a school on each reserve, that liquor was forbidden on the reserves and that each family of five would receive an annual payment of $15, to be paid in cash or goods such as traps, blankets, cloth or twine. At the signing of the treaty, each reserve was also to get a buggy, a bull, a cow, a boar and a sow, as well as a male and female of each kind of animal raised by farmers. Plows and harrows were also to be provided.

In 2013, there are still outstanding claims for land and other goods not given.

Manitoba Treaty Commissioner James Wilson said there were power struggles and problems right from the start. Much of the land wasn’t actually set aside for the First Nations as promised, and even the promised goods, such as farm animals and seeds, were withheld.

“These are promises that weren't kept. It’s really frustrating because even the government knows they have to do it but they are slow to do anything about it,” Wilson said.

The Indian Act was first passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1876. It was being developed at the same time as many of the treaties, but unlike the treaties, which were negotiated with the First Nations, the Indian Act was imposed by the government without consultation. It sets out everything about how First Nations must live, was responsible for setting up residential schools and even allowed municipalities to expropriate parts of reserves whenever they needed land for a highway or a railroad or some similar project.

The Indian Act, therefore, superseded the treaties in many ways, and was a major barrier to implementing the spirit and intent of the treaties. Instead of First Nations people living on their land and prospering, the Indian Act most often prevented that prosperity.

» Winnipeg Free Press

Republished from the Brandon Sun print edition February 9, 2013