174 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



tribe of Indians of whom I am chief then lived, were 

 taken possession of, without permission of myself or my 

 tribe, by a body of white settlers. For the sake of peace, 

 I, as the representative of my tribe, allowed them to re- 

 main on our lands on their promising that we should be 

 well paid for them by a great chief, who was to follow 

 them. This great chief, whom we call the Silver Chief 

 (the Earl of Selkirk), arrived in the spring after the war 

 between the North-west and Hudson's Bay Companies 

 (1817). He told us he wanted land for some of his 

 countrymen, who were very poor in their own country ; 

 and I consented, on the condition that he paid well for 

 my tribe's land, he could have from the confluence of the 

 Assinniboine to near Maple Sugar Point on the Eed Eiver 

 (a distance of twenty to twenty-four miles), following the 

 course of the river, and as far back on each side of the 

 river as a horse could be seen under (easily distinguished). 

 The Silver Chief told us he had little with which to pay 

 us for our lands when he made this arrangement, in con- 

 sequence of the troubles of the North-west Company. 

 He, however, asked us what we most required for the 

 present, and we told him we would be content till the 

 following year, when he promised again to return, to take 

 only ammunition and tobacco. The Silver Chief never 

 returned, and either his son or the Hudson's Bay Company 

 have ever since paid us annually for our lands only the 

 small quantity of ammunition and tobacco which in the 

 first instance we took as a preliminary to a final bargain 

 about our lands." .... 



In March, 1859, Peguis dictated another letter on the 

 subject of the title of his tribe to a portion of the lands 

 on Eed Eiver. This singular communication, as published 

 in the " Aborigines' Friend and Colonial Intelligencer," is 

 as follows : — 



