458 HYBRIDITY AND ABSORPTION 



Governor states: "I said the treaty was not for Whites, but I 

 would recommend that those families should be permitted the option 

 of taking either status as Indians or Whites, but that they could not 

 take both." 



But the Lieutenant-Governor reports a distinct treaty entered into 

 with "Augustus Brabant, Baptiste Davis, and others. Half-breeds of 

 the Lakes Qu'Appelle and en\'irons," in which, addressing them as 

 "gentlemen," he said: "I can assure you that I am confident the 

 Government will respect the rights of the Half-breeds to the lands 

 which they have cleared and cultivated;" while, at the same time, he 

 undertakes to consider their request for the enactment of laws and 

 provisions for the regulation of buffalo-hunting, as a subject of great 

 importance alike to the Half-breeds and to other members of the 

 community. 



According to a special census taken in 1871, the total Half-breed 

 population of Manitoba was stated to number 9,770. But this very 

 partially represents the actual extent of hybridity. Mr. J. A. N. 

 Provencher, Indian Commissioner, in his report to the Minister of the 

 Interior, dated at Winnipeg, 31st Dec, 1873, says: "Many hundreds 

 of Half-breeds were put on the list of Indians since the payment of 

 1§71, and their number has increased each year. These Half-breeds 

 live with the Indians ; have the same habits, and actually form part 

 of the tribe." But the Act by which the Government of Manitoba is 

 established and constituted, grants an extent of 1,400,000 acres to 

 the childreai of Half-breeds. The measure is designed for their pro- 

 tection ; and year by year new claimants may be looked for among 

 the more civilized Half-breed Imnters of this singular people, who 

 have thus a motive to abandon their connection with the native 

 tribes, and to share in the privileges aiid industry of the settlement. 

 The inducements will increase yearly, as the growing population 

 diminishes the resources of the hunter, and compels the nomadic 

 tribes to conform to the habits of an industrious community, or to 

 wander off in search of new hunting grounds. All this is calculated" 

 to effect important changes on the condition of the population of 

 mixed blood of what was, till recently, the territory of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company. 



The Half-breed population has till now existed there under three 

 distinct conditions. There are the Half-breed children of Indian 

 mothers, living with their tribes, and in no degree distinguishable in 



