"I have come seven hundred miles to see you. Why should I take all
this trouble? For two reasons, first, the duty was put upon me as
one of the Queen's Councillors, to see you with my brother
Commissioners, Hon. W. J. Christie and Hon. Jas. McKay. The other
reason is a personal one, because since I was a young man my heart
was warm to the Indians, and I have taken a great interest in them;
for more than twenty-five years I have studied their condition in
the present and in the future. I have been many years in public
life, but the first words I spoke in public were for the Indians,
and in that vision of the day I saw the Queen's white men
understanding their duty; I saw them understanding that they had no
right to wrap themselves up in a cold mantle of selfishness, that
they had no right to turn away and say, 'Am I my brother's keeper?'
On the contrary, I saw them saying, the Indians are our brothers,
we must try to help them to make a living for themselves and their
children. I tell you, you must think of those who will come after
you. As I came here I saw tracks leading to the lakes and
water-courses, once well beaten, now grown over with grass; I saw
bones bleaching by the wayside; I saw the places where the buffalo
had been, and I thought what will become of the Indian. I said to
myself, we must teach the children to prepare for the future; if we
do not, but a few suns will pass and they will melt away like snow
before the sun in spring-time. You know my words are true; you see
for yourselves and know that your numbers are lessening every year.
Now the whole burden of my message from the Queen is that we wish
to help you in the days that are to come, we do not want to take
away the means of living that you have now, we do not want to tie
you down; we want you to have homes of your own where your children
can be taught to raise for themselves food from the mother earth.
You may not all be ready for that, but some, I have no doubt, are,
and in a short time others will follow. I am here to talk plainly,
I have nothing to hide; I am here to tell you what we are ready to
do. Your tribe is not all here at the present time, some of the
principal Chiefs are absent, this cannot be avoided, the country is
wide and when the buffalo come near you must follow them; this does
not matter, for what I have to give is for the absent as well as
for the present. Next year if the treaty is made, a Commissioner
will be sent to you, and you will be notified of the times and
places of meeting, so that you will not have long journeys; after
that, two or three servants of the Queen will be appointed to live
in the country to look after the Indians, and see that the terms of
the treaty are carried out.