Bounty and Benevolence

A Documentary History of Saskatchewan Treaties

By Arthur J. Ray, Jim Miller, and Frank Tough
Categories: Canadian History
Series: McGill-Queen's Indigenous and Northern Studies
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Paperback : 9780773520608, 312 pages, January 2002
Ebook (PDF) : 9780773568266, 312 pages, September 2000

Description

Arthur Ray, Jim Miller, and Frank Tough draw on a wide range of documentary sources to provide a rich and complex interpretation of the process that led to these historic agreements. The authors explain how Saskatchewan treaties were shaped by long-standing First Nations' Hudson's Bay Company diplomatic and economic understandings, treaty practices developed in eastern Canada before the 1870s, and the changing economic and political realities of western Canada during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ray, Miller, and Tough also show why these same forces were responsible for creating some of the misunderstandings and disputes that subsequently arose between the First Nations and government officials regarding the interpretation and implementation of the accords. Bounty and Benevolence offers new insights into this crucial dimension of Canadian history, making it of interest to the general reader as well as specialists in the field of First Nations history.

Reviews

"Its extensive examination of the knowledge which Indian people in Saskatchewan had acquired of early treaty negotiations ... and the utilization of it by Indian leaders in negotiations is unique ... an eye opener." Roger Carter, Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan

"A much-needed account of the Native side of the treaty process ... This book will take its place amid a growing body of academic literature that provides a fuller understanding of Native/white relations in Canada." The Star Phoenix ----- "Its extensive examination of the knowledge which Indian people in Saskatchewan had acquired of early treaty negotiations ... and the utilization of it by Indian leaders in negotiations is unique ... an eye opener." Roger Carter, Native Law Centre, University of Saskatchewan