Saskatchewan Treaties 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10: Historical Background and Provisions.

This publication holds information on the dates, signatories, treaty annuities/agreements, and provisions outlined in Treaties 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 10.

Abstract excerpt from the Introduction, Page 2:

"From 1670 the sole government of Rupert's Land was lodged in the Hudson's Bay Company as "true and absolute Lordes and Proprietors" of "one of our Plantacions or Colonyes in America called Rupert's Land" (quotes from the Charter). Scrutiny of the record indicates that, during its tenure, the Company was not concerned with political or social control of the aborigines within its dominion other than to ensure that the furs they collected ended up in the Company's stores. The Company and its officers (who were few in number) were primarily concerned with the fur trade and not land use or settlement. As long as trade was not interfered with, such matters as social organization, land use and even group movements on the part of the aborigines were of little concern to the Company.

In order to enter Confederation the Hudson Bay Company's holdings had first to be surrendered to the Queen by the Company (November 1869). However, before the Surrender Canada had agreed to compensate the Company with the sum of L 300,000 and 1/20 of all the land set out for settlement in the Fertile Belt, a huge tract of land bounded by the Rocky Mountains on the west, the North Saskatchewan River to the north, the Lake Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods systems on the east and the United States border to the south. (While Canada was interested in acquiring all of the Company's holdings, the new Dominion particularly wanted the Fertile Belt not only as the area most likely for immediate settlement but to secure the most practical right-of-way for the proposed Pacific Railway.) Canada had also agreed with the Company that the Dominion would settle the claims of Indian people affected in the transfer and this provision was written in as Article 14 of the Imperial Order-in-Council dated 23 June 1870 admitting Rupert's Land and the NWT into the Dominion of Canada." (2)