No. 3.] G. M. DAWSON — INDIANS OF CANADA. 147 



implements, cattle, etc., once for all, to bands settling down to 

 farm ; also the payment of a salary to the chiefs and their head- 

 men ; and the presentation of medals, flags, and a bonus in 

 money on the conclusion of the treaty. No one who has not had 

 some experience in dealing with Indians can realize how great 

 the difficulty in concluding such arrangements with them is : 

 how much talking and iteration is required, and how long they 

 take to deliberate and discuss among themselves the propositions 

 as they understand them ; the most trivial point occasionally ap- 

 pearing, for some incomprehensible reason, to assume the greatest 

 importance. 



The half-breeds of the Red River have already been alluded 

 to, and nowhere on the North American Continent is the result 

 of the mingling of the European and native races so clearly seen 

 as in our North-West Territory. In what is now the province 

 of Manitoba, a separate race of Metis has grown up since the 

 date of Lord Selkirk's colonization, and these people, holding 

 themselves to some extent aloof from the whites and Indians, are 

 recognized in the terms of confederation of that province, and 

 granted large tracts of land as reserves for themselves and their 

 children. At the erection of the province, the half-breeds num- 

 bered, according to the census, 9,770 ; but this, according to 

 Prof Wilson, was afterwards found to be an underestimate. 

 While some of these people are scarcely distinguishable from 

 Europeans, others are to all intents and purposes Indians, and it 

 is curious to find in the report of the payment to Indians under 

 Treaty No. 4, that great difficulty was experienced from the 

 number of half-breeds ordinarily recognized as such, who desired 

 to be included with the Indians and draw annuities. In this 

 connection, Mr. Gr. W. Dickenson remarks : " The question as to 

 who is, and who is not Indian, is a difficult one to decide : many 

 whose forefathers were whites, follow the customs and habits of 

 the Indians, and have always been recognized as such. The 

 chiefs Cote, George Gordon, and others, and likewise a large 

 proportion of their bands, belong to this class. A second class 

 has little to distinguish it from the former, but has not alto- 

 gether followed the ways of the Indians. A third class, again, 

 has followed the ways of the whites, and has never been recog- 

 nized or accounted among themselves as anything but half-breed." 



When the buffalo retreated so far in the west that it became 

 inconvenient to carry on the hunt from the Red River, a portion 



