Part 1:
After the singing of Treaties No. 4 and 6, the Plains Cree had difficulties building a farming lifestyle. The Aboriginal people wanted agriculture to be apart of the treaties and believed that they deserved what they were promised. The Aboriginal people of the western Plains were one of the first and largest groups that attempted agriculture west of the Red River Settlement.
As time progressed the Plains Cree people started to notice the decrease of the buffalo. When the buffalo started to decrease the Aboriginal people started to move around to where the food sources were most dominant. For instance, they move to where the buffalo, Saskatoon berries, the prairie turnip, and other edible food sources were. The tepee made it easy for the Aboriginal people to pick up and move when needed.
The Plains Cree people were always learning new ways to adapt and trade among people. The Plains Cree were determined to cultivate the land and make crops grow. When the Aboriginal people finally started to make progress within their agricultural stance the Government Officials brought in a policy that was called the Peasant Farming Policy, which stated that any Aboriginal person farming within the treaty 4 and 6 district had to cut their cultivated land to one acre and could only have one or two cows per family. The competition was too much for the settlers to handle and their crops were not surviving.
When the Government Officials brought the Peasant Farming Policy in most of the Aboriginals could not make ends meet with their crops. Therefore, most of the Aboriginal people decided to quite farming all together.
Part 2:
While I was reading this article I had a lot of “oh my goodness” moments. I was unaware that Aboriginal people even attempted to farm. I felt like it was all new information to me. Throughout my learning as a child I always thought to myself, “If the population of the buffalo were decreasing, why did the Aboriginal people not farm like the rest of the Settlers that came from Europe?” Little did I know that they did attempt to farm and when they finally got good at it the Settlers and government felt that they now had competition and made farming even harder for the Aboriginal people.
If I would have known that Aboriginal people did indeed attempt to farm and were actually good at it I think it would have made me have a different perspective on who Aboriginal people were/are. I agree with the article on how it says that Settlers believed that Aboriginal people were warriors, gatherers, or hunters (We Must Farm to Enable us to Live. Sarah A. Carter, Page 224). I thought this because throughout learning about Aboriginal people and the first contact that is what I was taught to believe. There was a huge part of the story that was left out and only a few points were stressed and repeated throughout my learning process.
Within the article its said that after the treaties were signed the Aboriginal people kind of just vanished into thin air (Page 220). Now with me looking back on what I have been taught, I agree with this statement. When we are being taught about history people tend to leave out the part about what the Aboriginal people did during the time that other wars and feuds were going on. For instance, we learn about residential school and what happened within them but we do not learn about what the other Aboriginal people were doing during this time, like farming.
Knowing this knowledge a person might not be so quick to judge Aboriginal people and create stereotypes about them. During this time Aboriginal people tried their absolute hardest to make an honest living. Some Aboriginal people worked harder then most Settler during this time. Most people would have a different perspective if they were taught the whole story instead the dominate narrative throughout history. Also, many people have stereotypes about Aboriginal people because they did not have an opportunity to learn things such as Aboriginal people were hard workers that tried to make an honest living but were defeated by the Settlers and the government.
As a nation knowing this knowledge we can be a nation of treaty people. Not many people consider themselves as treaty people because they do not know the whole story behind what happened within the treaty negotiations. If a person was to learn that indeed Aboriginal people are much the same as European people maybe they could come to the realization that the treaty negotiation did not just benefit Aboriginal people but also Canadians as a whole.
All in all, I feel that if parts of history were not left out such as, Aboriginal people attempting to make an honest living farming then perhaps people would be able to understand and relate to people of different ethnicity. Canada is made up of a lot of different ethnicity’s and I believe that history is important to learn so that people of different ethnic backgrounds can relate and understand people from different ethnic background then them. History should be told in a way that does not leave out any detail, minor or not.
rebeccahitchens 