OP THE EED INDIAN RACE. 453 



The co-operation of representatives of tlie United States and of the 

 Canadian or British Government, in the Boundary Commission, 

 excited the intensest jealovisy among all the native Indian tribes on 

 both sides of the line. It is little more than ten years since the State 

 of Minnesota was desolated by a cruel war, carried on by the Sioux 

 at the instigation, as was then affirmed, of Southern agents, with a 

 view to a dive3.-sion in favour of the South during the great Civil 

 War. A large number of the Sioux have since crossed the boundary 

 and settled within the British lines; and the Hon. Mr. Morris writes 

 from Fort Garry: "Some of the Sioux assist the White settlers as 

 labourers in the summer. They have asked for land, and were led 

 to believe that they would be assigned a reserve, and, if so, they 

 would plant crops, and could then be removed from the settlement." 

 But Mr. Morris specially draws the attention of the authorities to 

 the excited state apparent among all the Western tribes, and adds : 

 " I believe it to be in pai't created by the Boundary Commission. 

 They do not understand it, and think the two nations are uniting 

 against them." 



But with the wild Sioux who, a few years since, perpetrated the 

 bloody massacres which desolated West Minnesota, already furnish- 

 ing farm labourers for the Biitish settlers of Manitoba, it is easy to 

 recognize the first indications of a marvellous revolution. The great 

 prairie lands afford facilities for the rudest tribes entering upon 

 agricultural operations in a way that was impossible among those of 

 the thickly-wooded provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Already com- 

 missioners have negotiated arrangements with all the wild tribes of 

 Manitoba ; and treaties have been entered into, with a view, not only 

 to the cession of their rights to the land requii^ed for settlement, but 

 to themselves abandoning the chase, and settling down to a peaceful 

 agricultural life. But this cannot be effected without much judgment 

 and patient forbearance on the part of Government officials. Mr. 

 Molyneux St. John, an Indian agent, thus writes in 1873: "The 

 full demands of the Indians cannot be complied with ; but there is, 

 nevertheless, a certain paradox in asking a wild Indian, who has 

 hitherto gained his liveliliood by hunting and trapjaing, to settle down 

 on a reservation and cultivate the land, without at the same time 

 offering him some means of makiag his living. As they say them- 

 selves: 'We cannot tear down the trees and build huts with our 

 teeth, we cannot break. the prairie with pur hands, nor reap the har- 

 vest, if we had grown it, with our knives.' " 



