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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #60145 Hard Treaty 6 in 1876: the talks at Fort Carlton and two understandings of the land

Read the following passage.

A. In the years before 1876, the buffalo that the Cree relied on were passing away, and measles, scarlet fever and smallpox had already caused great suffering. Many people were anxious about how they would support themselves in the future. In August 1876, Indigenous communities of central Saskatchewan gathered at Fort Carlton for treaty talks with the Canadian government. The Queen's chief representative was Alexander Morris, the lieutenant governor of Manitoba. The Cree were led by two head chiefs, Mistawasis and Ahtahkakoop, and they hired their own interpreter, Peter Erasmus.

B. The talks opened on August 18 with a pipe stem ceremony, through which, by Cree custom, the commissioners accepted the friendship of the Cree nation. Morris then set out his offer: reserves of land, help to begin farming, and no interference with the people's present way of living. On August 22, speakers including Poundmaker asked for help when they settled on the land. Morris replied that the government could not feed them every day. The chiefs answered that they wanted help when they began to farm and in case of famine. Morris later called this discussion about food the turning point of the treaty.

C. On August 23, Erasmus read out the changes the Cree wanted, including an ox and a cow for each family, more farm tools, free medicines and provisions for the poor. The commissioners agreed to more cattle and tools, and to provisions worth one thousand dollars a year for three years once bands settled. The final text also promised a reserve of one square mile for each family of five, a yearly payment of five dollars a person, a medicine chest for each band, and relief in case of pestilence or general famine. Chiefs signed near Carlton on August 23 and 28, and others signed near Fort Pitt on September 9.

D. The written treaty uses the legal words 'cede, release, surrender and yield up' for the land. Historians doubt that the chiefs understood those terms, even with a skilled interpreter, and Morris's own record gives no sign that a land surrender was discussed. The boundaries may also have been added to the document after the signing at Carlton. When the last great buffalo herds vanished in 1879, the government treated rations as a favour rather than a duty under the famine clause. Today the chiefs of the Confederacy of Treaty 6 say their ancestors agreed to share the land only to the depth of a plough and never gave it up, while the government's written text describes a surrender.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

- 1.
Illness had already hit the Cree hard before the treaty meetings began.

- 2.
Around two hundred Cree tents stood near the fort while the talks went on.

- 3.
Before any terms were put forward, a Cree ritual showed that the visitors had accepted the people's goodwill.

- 4.
Among the Cree requests were livestock for every household and medical supplies at no cost.

- 5.
It is uncertain whether the limits of the territory were written in when the first chiefs put their names to it.

- 6.
The government's side agreed to support bands with food for a limited period after they made homes on the land.

- 7.
Poundmaker made his request because he had no idea how to build a house or grow crops.

- 8.
During the talks, the Queen's representative said that daily meals for the Cree were beyond what the government could offer.

- 9.
The farming help in this agreement was greater than in the treaties signed before it.

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