Confederation: a nation is born, a young nation among many older nations and a new nation with a
voracious appetite for real estate. The Americans were stretching West as well and quite possibly
would look North in their search for fertile farm land. The Canadian Prairies were a great
temptation. And so the race began. Under the authority of the new federal government of Canada,
treaties were signed clearing the rights between the lands of Ontario and British Columbia. All
the treaties after confederation were numbered. One, at Stone Fort, Two at Manitoba Post, three at
the northwest angle of Lake Superior, Four at Qu’Appelle in present day Saskatchewan, Five at Lake
Winnipeg, Six in the Cree territory stretching across Saskatchewan and Alberta, and Seven with the
Blackfoot in Alberta. With these seven treaties, the gap between British Columbia and the rest of
Canada was closed. All possibility of American encroachment from the South had been cut off. The
signing of the numbered treaties had been a great administrative victory for the young Canada.
Unlike the Americans who had butchered their Native people in series of bloody and costly Indian
wars, the Canadian had accomplished their settlement of the west diplomatically, peacefully,
fairly…or was it fair?