INTRODUCTION 25 



allies is but one of many evidences of his tact and sagacity.* 

 A nature in which fairness and firmness met was, of all dis- 

 positions, the most suited to handle such important negotia- 

 tions with the Indians as parting with their blood-right. 

 Fortunately these qualities were pre-eminent in Mr. Laird, 

 who had administered the government of the organized Ter- 

 ritories, at a primitive stage in their history, in the wisest 

 manner, and, at the close of his official career, returned to 

 his home in Prince Edward Island leaving not an enemy 

 behind him. 



The other Treaty Commissioners were the Hon. James 

 Ross, Minister of Public Works in the Territorial Gov- 

 ernment, and Mr. J. A. McKenna, then private secretary 

 to the Superintendent-General of Indian Affai:^s, and 

 who had been for some years a valued officer of the Indian 

 Department. With them was associated, in an advisory 

 capacity, the Rev. Father Lacombe, O.M.I., Vicar-General 

 of St. Albert, Alta., whose history had been identified for 

 fifty years with the Canadian North-West, and whose career 

 had touched the currents of primitive life at all points. t 



*The Hon. David Laird is a native of Prince Edward Island. His 

 fatlier emigrated from Scotland to tliat Province early in the last 

 century, and ultimately became a member of its Executive Council. 

 After leaving college bis son David began life as a journalist, but 

 later on took to politics, and being called, like bis father, to the 

 Executive Council, was selected as one of the delegates to Ottawa to 

 arrange for the entrance of the Island into the Canadian Confedera- 

 tion. He was subsequently elected to the Dominion House of Com- 

 mons, and became Minister of the Interior in the Mackenzie 

 Administration. After three years' occupancy of this department 

 he was made Lieut.-Governor of the North- West Territories, an oflSce 

 which he filled without bias and to the satisfaction of both the foes 

 and friends of his own party. He returned to the Island at the close 

 of his official term, but was called thence by the Laurier Administra- 

 tion to take charge of Indian affairs in the West, with residence in 

 Winnipeg, which is now his permanent home. 



tFather Lacombe is by birth a French Canadian, his native parish 

 being St. Sulpice, in the Island of Montreal, where he was born in 

 the year 1827. On the mother's side he is said to draw his descent 

 from the daughter of a habitant on the St. Lawrence River called 

 Duhamel, who was stolen in girlhood by the Ojibway Indians, and 

 subsequently taken to wife by their chief, to whom she bore two 

 sons. By mere accident, her uncle, who was one of a North- West 



