Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/66

60 From The Saturday Review.

various nationalities comprised within the confines of the British empire are so numerous, and the conditions of their lives so little known, that there is a danger lest the responsibilities attaching to the possession of great power should be overlooked and ignored. Few persons perhaps have ever realized the fact that a population of nearly ninety-two thousand, comprising many distinct tribes and languages, but included under the general name of North American Indians, are subjects of the queen, and, as such, claim the sympathy and interest of Englishmen. Even in Canada, where their presence is more felt, but little is known of their real condition, excepting by the department of the government in whose especial charge they are. It is, however satisfactory to perceive that there is considerable activity in this branch of the Dominion government, that important improvements have been made in the method of dealing with the wilder tribes, and that steps are to be taken to advance the civilization of those who have adopted a more settled life and have devoted themselves to agricultural industry.

The Indian population may be divided broadly under three heads, each numbering about thirty thousand. First, there are those who reside in Ontario, Quebec, and the maritime provinces, the remnants of the tribes who were brought in contact with the original settlers, and whose names have been rendered familiar to us by Cooper's novels. Nearly half of these tribes possess reserve lands or settlements in Ontario, and are making considerable progress in agriculture. About ten thousand are scattered throughout the province of Quebec, leaving the remainder to the maritime provinces. The second division comprises the Indians of Manitoba, the North-west, and Rupert's Land. These consist mostly of wandering tribes divided into wood Indians and prairie Indians—the former subsisting principally by fishing, and the latter by hunting, the buffalo forming their staple food. But little civilization has yet reached them. Missionaries, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, have been at work with varied success for many years, and the Hudson Bay Company has exercised over them a parental sway, which has now been replaced by that of the Canadian government. The third division, of about equal numerical strength, is comprised within the province of British Columbia, where the Indian population considerably outnumbers the white settlers. These Indians may also be subdivided into the tribes settled on the coast, who subsist by fishing, and those who are possessed of considerable property in cattle, and who occupy the valleys among the western slopes of the Rocky and Cascade Mountains. Unfortunately they are discontented with their present lot; the terms granted to them by the provisional government of British Columbia have been less favorable than that which Ontario and Quebec have conceded to the tribes within their borders, and, as they feel their numerical strength, they are the more urgent in pressing their not unjust claims.

The system of dealing with the Indian tribes which has gradually grown up, and which has worked so far well that no Indian wars have, since the British settlement, devastated Canada, may be said to consist in buying up the native claims, founded on their rights of hunting through the territories required by the settlers, by yearly grants of money or of goods to each chief and family, and by the allotment of tracts of country termed Indian reserves. This property is under the charge of an agent or superintendent, who watches over the welfare of the tribe, protects it from the encroachments of white settlers, and prevents the alienation of the property. Some large Indian reserves may be seen close to the most important cities of Canada, and those who have travelled on the St. Lawrence or the Ottawa will remember the wild and almost waste strips contrasting with the highly cultivated land on either side, and which belong to the remnants of the once famous tribes of the Iroquois and the Algonquins. The last of the Hurons occupy the village of Lorette, near Quebec, whilst the Six Nations partially cultivate a large district in the heart of the most fertile portion of Ontario, in the vicinity of the town of Brantford. All profess deep loyalty to the English crown, and appear generally contented with their condition. Some time must, however, elapse before the habits of the hunter will give place to those of the agriculturist, and even among the most civilized of the tribes many men will be found who for several months of the year leave their homes and seek the excitement of their former life among the more distant forests. The religious tenets of the settled Indians usually correspond with those of their white neighbors; the Indians of