Roots of racism sprouted early in Saskatchewan

It seems that every few months we have another racial incident in this province. A young Indigenous man is shot and killed at a farm south of the Battlefords, a respected member of the First Nations community is accosted and accused of stealing at a Canadian Tire store, and so on. I suspect more incidents will occur in the future. Race relations in Saskatchewan are getting worse and we are looking more and more like Mississippi North.

This didn’t happen in a vacuum. To understand the present we have to look to the past. The Battlefords have a long history of racial conflict going back to 1885.

It’s as if a perfect storm hit Battleford before Saskatchewan became a province. The Battleford agency was home to some of the most reactionary Indian agents and the people rebelled against their harsh rule. One Indian agent in particular, Hayter Reed, was known as Iron Heart by the Indigenous people because of his lack of empathy and parsimonious distribution of rations.

Reed believed Indigenous people had to evolve into modern society, so he adopted a policy of peasant farming, providing hand tools for working 40-acre plots of land. People who refused to farm were not granted any rations.

After the events of 1885, including the socalled siege of Battleford and the battle at Cutknife Hill, he prepared a memorandum called The Future Management of Indians. He identified 28 “rebel bands” and had them harshly dealt with.

Reed’s memorandum would be the blueprint for Indian administration for years to come and it tainted the corporate culture of the federal Indian and Northern Affairs department that exists to the present day. He implemented the pass system for the rebel bands and later it would be extended to all First Nations in Western Canada. He recommended that the tribal system be abolished by doing away with chiefs and councillors; all dances and gatherings were to be outlawed and treaty payments were suspended. He didn’t set a time limit.

Reed’s memorandum in effect utterly defeated the First Nations people. The leaders were jailed and many died shortly after their release; firearms and horses were confiscated, and treaty and political rights were suspended.

Reed went on to a successful career at Indian Affairs, ending up as the deputy superintendent general of the department. Later he would be appointed to the territorial council in Regina.

While Reed was holding forth in Battleford, Patrick Gammie Laurie was publishing the Saskatchewan Herald. P.G. Laurie was a bigoted, outspoken individual; he published the Herald from 1878 until his death in 1903.

He advocated Anglo Saxon immigration from Britain or Germany. He was opposed to Jews, Mormons and Mennonites because he felt they would refuse to assimilate. He was especially upset with the Doukhobors, who had their passage paid to the west. “They are not even fit for Manitoba which takes anything,” he wrote in the Herald.

While he was opposed to settlement of the west by eastern Europeans, he had absolutely no use for the local Indigenous population. He considered them a hindrance to white settlement and wanted them removed by whatever means possible.

He never forgave the First Nations people for the looting of Battleford. He wrote that the “savages” should receive the “strictest punishment” for their actions. He called them traitors and rebels and regarded them as a “savages set on the warpath.”

He made absolutely no attempt to understand the grievances of the First Nations people and instead saw them as obstacles to the peaceful, orderly white settlement of the west.

Reed and Laurie were two individuals whose ideas formed the foundation of Indian-white relations in Saskatchewan. They wanted the west to be an extension of mother England and saw no real role for First Nations people in their vision of the new land. Their influence has continued to seep through the population, both First Nations and white.

It’s time for these old racist ideas to die a natural death. The world is moving on and a spirit of reconciliation is spreading across the land.

True reconciliation comes when both sides understand each other and recognize our shared history and future.