Saskatchewan: A New History

Saskatchewan:  A New History is featured frequently in the Database Timeline

Waiser discusses Saskatchewan’s history and supplements his narrative with primary and secondary sources. In addition to tracing the settlement and avenues of industry which sought to co-opt land and resources, the reader is introduced to Saskatchewan’s early forms of institutional racism and discrimination, influenced by a heavy handed immigration policy at the turn of the 19th century. The efforts of colonization facilitated by companies brought forth the towns of Yorkton and Saskatoon. Waiser documents Douhkobour persecution at the turn of the century, the official discrimination of Black immigrants and refugees, as well as 'unofficial' social and physical deterrence deployed by white settlers, and the forcible land surrenders instituted by the Department of the Interior. Land surrenders after Treaty negotiations began in 1901 surrender of Pheasant Rump and Ocean Man reserve lands. Waiser also provides a summary of other First Nations land surrenders initiated by the federal government as they sought to decrease Indigenous territories, and isolate First Nations people onto reserves where the government could police and surveil them.