THE TREATY 4 SUITE (ADHESIONS - WESTWARD INTO THE INDIAN COUNTRY)

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The works in this series come out of research and travel to Wuskwi Sipihk First Nation on Swan Lake, Manitoba, Sapotaweyak First Nation on Shoal River, Manitoba, to Fort Pelly in Saskatchewan and to Fort Walsh in the Cypress Hills. At each of these places, adhesions to Treaty No. 4 were signed in the three-year period following the initial Treaty signing at Qu’Appelle and Fort Ellice in 1874.

Treaty No. 4 covers much of the territory of southern Saskatchewan west of Treaty 2 territory as well as portions of Manitoba and Alberta. The title of the exhibition is taken from the, “Order in Council Setting Up Commission For Treaty No. 4, P. C. No. 944. The Order recommended the establishment of a commission, “for the purpose of making Treaties during the current year with such of the Indian Bands as they may find it expedient to deal with” in a portion of the territories west of the western boundary of Treaty No. 2.

Reasons cited in the text as to the need for treaty, include, “the operations of the Boundary Commission which are continually moving westward into the Indian Country, and also the steps which are being taken in connection with the proposed Telegraph Line from Fort Garry westward, all of which proceedings are calculated to further unsettle the Indian mind, already in a disturbed condition”. The Order is signed by L.S. Huntingdon and was approved July 23, 1874.