Upper Canada Treaties: Cash Payments

The first treaties were negotiated in southern Ontario between 1780 and 1850. Immigrants from Great Britain who came over after the Conquest wanted to settle in the area. And waves of Loyalists, American colonists who remained loyal to the British Crown, fled the United States after the American War of Independence and also sought refuge in the area. They needed land.

The so-called Upper Canada Treaties consist of a series of surrender agreements that opened up lands for settlement. The Crown purchased Indian lands in exchange for lump-sum or annual cash payments, or annuities. According to the Report of the Special Commissioners to Investigate Indian Affairs in Canada, published in 1858, much of the land was ceded for a pittance. Lands were surrendered [TRANSLATION] “. . . for a nominal sum . . . sometimes for goods, sometimes for an annuity that represented only a fraction of the actual value of the lands” (Savard and Proulx 1982, 65). The Crown not only got away with paying little, but the land surrenders also marked the beginning of broken promises. For example, during the talks leading to the signing of a treaty between the Crown’s representative and Ojibway chiefs in 1818, Chief Buckquaquet specifically asked that his people not be deprived of the “right of Fishing, the use of the waters and hunting where we can find game.” Unfortunately, even though these words were reported in the official record of the negotiations, they were not written into the treaty. Many years later, a court of justice would rule that traditional Ojibway practices were not protected, but rather were subject to the laws of Ontario. This was a bitter disappointment. (Tilden 1978, 7)