Treaty 6 Research Paper

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Treaty 6 is a contract made in 1876 between Indigenous bands, including the Cree, Ojibwa and Assiniboine and the Canadian monarchy. The agreement overviewed the ownership and uses of land in Central Alberta and Saskatchewan. The indigenous people ceded their land to the use of the monarchy, in exchange for settlements including annual payments, farming tools, land reserves, and health supplies. It can be said that the written text of Treaty 6 conveys only part of its complex meaning. This notion is explored through the ideas and stories from Sharon H. Venne, Calvin Bruneau of the Papaschase Cree, and from the treaty text itself.

On the surface, the Treaty appears to be a mutualistic agreement between two equal parties, with the best interest …show more content…

Although he had lived in the Edmonton area his entire life, he did not find out until the late 1990’s that he, along with many other Indigenous people, were living on a land that actually belonged to them. His initial lack of awareness of his rights indicates that entitlements of Indigenous people have been suppressed for a long period of time. After he further explored the treaty itself, he has found many issues with it, including him and his people not getting the benefits they are legally entitled to according to the treaty, including farming supplies and medical care. Although he has discussed these breaches in the contract with government officials, he mentioned that he has been unsuccessful in getting them to fulfill their legal obligation. Chief Bruneau also discovered that the Treaty 6 land that currently his people currently reside on is not truly the land that the Indigenous people picked for themselves, regardless of the fact that Treaty 6 specifies that the Indigenous people themselves could choose the land that they wanted to be their reserve. He later learned that this is because after the First Nations people had picked their land for the Treaty, Edmonton settlers didn't want to be near them so the reserve lands were moved without permission from the Indigenous

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