332 



LIFE IN MONTREAL. 



[Chap. VII. 



refusing to grant the Nipissing lands, on the ground that they 

 are too good for Indians, and offering instead barren rocky 

 lands in the Laurentian district, where they will still be under 

 the priest-ruled government of this Province." 



The two morning papers — organs of the two political 

 parties — barely chronicled the outrage; but an indignation 

 meeting was held, and a Defence Committee appointed, which 

 instructed Philip to ask the help of the Aborigines' Protection 

 Society. He wrote at once to the Secretary, enclosing a long 

 letter (December 17, 1875), t0 be inserted in " The Daily News" 

 (from which quotations have been made). In his private letter 

 (applying the terms of the notorious Dred-Scott decision on 

 fugitive slaves) he says that it seems that " the Indian Iroquois 

 nation, aboriginally owners of a State, have now no rights 

 which their professed guardians are bound to respect. ... In 

 the other Provinces, the Federal Government are the guardians. 

 Here they have delegated the guardianship to the Seminary ; 

 but are bound to see that the delegates do guard, and don't 

 gobble or destroy. The same Government which gave or con- 

 firmed powers, can take them away. There is such a thing as 

 plain simple justice, all Acts and Charters notwithstanding." 

 He refers to a number of instances in which the Estates of the 

 Realm have alienated properties held by public bodies. " The 

 Canadian Government alienated the Clergy Reserves in 

 Ontario, and can alienate the Sulpician Reserves if they choose. 

 But they worit choose. . . . The Protestants in this Province 

 may be trusted just about as much as Northern men when 

 living in the Slave States." 



Shortly after Philip's death, the Secretary of the Aborigines' 

 Protection Society wrote to Lord Carnarvon (July 11, 1877), 

 relating that in June a large police force, in the dead of night, 

 attempted to arrest forty-eight members of the tribe for cutting 

 down wood on the land claimed by the Seminary, to repair 

 gates and posts which the Catholics had broken down : and 

 " a week later, the Roman Catholic Church at Oka, with its 

 valuable Indian library, was destroyed by fire." There was, 

 however, no evidence that this was the work of Indian incen- 



