By Kevin Plummer
“Those Reserve Indians are in a deplorable state of destitution, they receive from the Indian Department just enough food to keep soul and body together, they are all but naked, many of them barefooted,” Lawrence Clarke wrote in 1880 of near-starvation Cree around Fort Carlton. “Should sickness break out among them in their present weakly state,” the long-time Hudson’s Bay Company employee concluded, “the fatality would be dreadful” (Daschuk, 114).
Sickness did break out, with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases decimating a reserve population made vulnerable to disease by years of famine and inadequate government rations. The loss of life was immense, James Daschuk recounts in Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, and amounted to a “state-sponsored attack on indigenous communities” whose effects “haunt us as a nation still” (186).
University of Regina Press, 318 pages
Casebound with dust jacket, $39.95.
Daschuk’s examination of the ecological, economic, and political factors shaping the history of the Canadian plains—and its Aboriginal inhabitants—from the early 1700s to the eve of the twentieth century is divided into two sections. The first, covering up to Canada’s acquisition of Rupert’s Land in 1870, outlines how the spread of smallpox and other diseases through fur trade networks was devastating for some but presented economic and territorial opportunities for others. The Anishinabe expanded their fur trade participation onto the plains, Daschuk illustrates, when the once-dominant Assiniboine were decimated by disease.
The lethality of infectious outbreaks for individual Aboriginal communities was shaped by the type and degree of its contact with traders and missionaries, its population density, and mobility among others. The spread of disease was largely an organic process, rather than the result of the willful malevolence of human actors.
In the book’s second half, Daschuk explores the Canadian state’s growing presence on the plains. First Nations leaders were willing to formalize their relationship to the crown through treaty, which they envisioned as a bridge to a bison-less future that required a difficult transition to farming. The Dominion, however, seemed only open to negotiations when settler development was imminent.
Widespread famine struck the plains with the disappearance of bison caused in part by the herds’ susceptibility to new pathogens—like bovine tuberculosis—carried by the domesticated cattle settlers introduced to the region. Although Cree leaders had succeeded in convincing the crown’s representative to include clauses covering medical aid and famine relief in Treaty 6, when they sought assistance the Dominion, with little infrastructure in the west initially, was ill-equipped to fulfill its treaty obligations.
At the depth of the famine, emaciated First Nations arrived at forts and settlements begging for food. Frequently, the official response was not to provide emergency food, but to construct stockades around ration houses. There were, however, relatively few incidents of law-breaking or poaching of cattle in response to the crisis. Many of those seeking relief were willing to work for rations, but the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) didn’t have enough work to go around.
Daschuk points to the election of the Conservatives in the fall of 1878 as a turning point when the “[m]anagement of the famine took on a more sinister character” (184). An ever-tightening budget at the DIA meant staff cuts, including medical staff who’d proven effective in vaccinating against smallpox, and orders that the file be managed “as economically as possible” (122). When the Opposition still complained about the budget, Macdonald promised that emergency rations would be refused “until the Indians were on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense” (134). Available food rotted in government storehouses as malnutrition, sickness, and death ravaged the reserve population.
With the government also neglecting the agricultural assistance promised by treaty, there was no alternative source of food on reserves. Furthermore, even if reserve residents managed to achieve a measure of success in farming, government regulations limited their ability to sell their crops or produce beyond the reserve—systematically marginalizing indigenous peoples from the West’s emerging economy. Adding insult to injury, many low-level, but powerful DIA officials and farm instructors abused their positions, exchanging food for sex, or colluding with government contractors for personal gain.
Prolonged malnutrition, the desperate scavenging of tuberculosis-infected animals, and the consumption of subpar or even tainted government rations, eventually made First Nations on reserves vulnerable to emerging epidemics. Staggering rates of tuberculosis mortality—rising from 40 deaths per 1,000 in 1881 to 127 per 1,000 in 1886—were significantly higher than in nearby settler communities. Misreading the evidence and denying a link with malnourishment, medical researchers confidently declared that Aboriginal peoples were simply more susceptible to disease.
This convenient narrative—soon accepted as orthodox in the medical and political establishment—made the incredible loss of life on the plains a question of biological predisposition rather than one of state policy. It’s proven to be a remarkably resilient idea, too, and one which lies at the root of our casual acceptance of deplorable health outcomes—higher rates of diabetes, AIDS, and suicide—among the reserve population today.
Perhaps the most damning evidence Daschuk presents are the few exceptions to this cycle of famine and disease. The Dakota who depended less upon the bison and had transitioned to farming at an earlier stage, and northern Cree communities in Saskatchewan who were able to maintain their traditional economies outside the harsh constraints of the reserve system did not suffer the same rates of tuberculosis seen on reserves. The determining factor in these divergent health outcomes, Daschuk argues, was the degree of Aboriginal peoples’ reliance on government assistance. He concludes that “those with the least contact with the Indian department were the healthiest” (166).
Clearing the Plains is heavy, sobering reading, laced with chilling snapshots of desperation, callousness, and catastrophe. In support of his provocative argument—that the Canadian government stage-managed famine in order to coerce and control the Aboriginal population—Daschuk’s tone is remarkably restrained, never veering into the polemical. He lets his evidence speak for itself, zooming out from explorations of single cultural communities or single infectious outbreaks in the existing historical literature to identify broader patterns. Into his synthesis, he patiently weaves in accounts from diaries, letters, and the records of the HBC and DIA.
As Daschuk moves epidemiological and environmental forces to the forefront—and detailed discussion of key events into the background—of his prairies history, some advance knowledge of the history of the fur trade and the numbered treaties is beneficial to the reader. Swiftly shifting the discussion between locales and First Nations affected—given the expanse of time and territory the book spans—can also be disorienting for the reader at times. But, Clearing The Plains rewards careful reading.
The book merits a wide readership, though it seems so far to have flown under the radar. Daschuk has been earning some attention from the CBC’s The Current, the Globe and Mail , and best-of year-end lists, but nothing compared to the magnitude of the media furor earlier this year that greeted Ian Mosby’s revelations of malnourished First Nations people cruelly used in state-sponsored medical experiments. Such broad discussion of Clearing the Plains in the public arena has the potential to unsettle Canadians’ perception of the country’s historical relationship with First Nations, and to raise troubling questions about the persistent health disparity between Indigenous peoples and the broader population.
A graduate of the University of New Brunswick (B.A.) and Trent University (M.A.), Kevin Plummer is co-author of Historicist, an award-winning weekly column exploring Toronto history.
I’m very interested in reading the book
The Human Spirit must be broken to make us opt into a leveled society; Stigmatize +satirize + parodize, eyeballing humans through inbreeder’s eyes,
when religious cultures around the world seek to pressure parents for 100’sof years to train children to adopt fealty to the last of our species to stand
on two legs, the vile stink on our species who generated out of the deserts and treeless heights of its own making, and has been targeting Humans
+ all other species, innately bent on scorching Earth + everything that lives here, cultures around the world raise children to be eyeballers of other by
rendering us of a reduced level of Humanity than when we were born, the Human Spirit must be broken to make Humans opt into hierarchy,
bullies need hierarchical cultures to thrive, religions teach new recruits little nick names for other people’s kids…
Humans are born with parallel vision, straight out from our head, passed the moon without losing peripheral perception, the Holey Land Dweller stood
up on its back legs long after humans, hadn’t developed peripheral as it generated through 4-leggedness in holes in the ground, its called the inbreeder
effect because Human children can be rendered living in an offensive environment, if we are exposed to the cowardice of discrimination, our level of honor
to the planet and all species’ is reduced, some of us merely to a level that derives humor + recognition at the expense of others; a child of Our species,
realizing its parents are broken of their Human Essence, its a global effect of 100’s of years of the inbreeder interference with our species + planet…
Kudos for this very well-stated question. … And SHAME for such a repugnant, revolting, utterly pathetic, bunch of lies for an answer! Note the applause came after the question, and not from the dishonest reply. It seems to me that these youth ‘get it’. And I am happy to share this as it renews my faith in our upcoming generation who “won’t be fooled again”.
Some history for those who are not aware of the sinister genocide to which is referred: “The Dominion, however, seemed only open to negotiations when settler development was imminent.
Widespread famine struck the plains with the disappearance of bison caused in part by the herds’ susceptibility to new pathogens—like bovine tuberculosis—carried by the domesticated cattle settlers introduced to the region. Although Cree leaders had succeeded in convincing the crown’s representative to include clauses covering medical aid and famine relief in Treaty 6, when they sought assistance the Dominion, with little infrastructure in the west initially, was ill-equipped to fulfill its treaty obligations.
At the depth of the famine, emaciated First Nations arrived at forts and settlements begging for food. Frequently, the official response was not to provide emergency food, but to construct stockades around ration houses. There were, however, relatively few incidents of law-breaking or poaching of cattle in response to the crisis. Many of those seeking relief were willing to work for rations, but the Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) didn’t have enough work to go around.
Daschuk points to the election of the Conservatives in the fall of 1878 as a turning point when the “[m]anagement of the famine took on a more sinister character” (184). An ever-tightening budget at the DIA meant staff cuts, including medical staff who’d proven effective in vaccinating against smallpox, and orders that the file be managed “as economically as possible” (122). When the Opposition still complained about the budget, Macdonald promised that emergency rations would be refused “until the Indians were on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense” (134). Available food rotted in government storehouses as malnutrition, sickness, and death ravaged the reserve population.
With the government also neglecting the agricultural assistance promised by treaty, there was no alternative source of food on reserves. Furthermore, even if reserve residents managed to achieve a measure of success in farming, government regulations limited their ability to sell their crops or produce beyond the reserve—systematically marginalizing indigenous peoples from the West’s emerging economy. Adding insult to injury, many low-level, but powerful DIA officials and farm instructors abused their positions, exchanging food for sex, or colluding with government contractors for personal gain.
Prolonged malnutrition, the desperate scavenging of tuberculosis-infected animals, and the consumption of subpar or even tainted government rations, eventually made First Nations on reserves vulnerable to emerging epidemics. Staggering rates of tuberculosis mortality—rising from 40 deaths per 1,000 in 1881 to 127 per 1,000 in 1886—were significantly higher than in nearby settler communities. Misreading the evidence and denying a link with malnourishment, medical researchers confidently declared that Aboriginal peoples were simply more susceptible to disease.”
http://activehistory.ca/2013/12/an-unsettling-prairie-history-a-review-of-james-daschuks-clearing-the-plains/
Learn about what the Grand River Mohawks (who have no treaty with Canada – and who never surrendered their Grand River lands are doing to address this here: rememberwhoyouare2016.wordpress.com
Kudos also to Kevin Plummer for reporting this excellent news – something the rest of the bought-and-paid-for MSM chose to nearly totally ignore.
To: Mr. James Daschuk
Oki Niisokowa:
I hope that this comment finds you, the reader, in good health and great spirits.
My Great Great Grandfather, Chief Stumiksisapo (Bull Plume) created 2 Winter Counts that documented the events of our people the Apathosipiikani (North Peigan – Blackfoot). The first Winter Count which is refered to as the North Peigan-Blackfoot Winter Count dated from 1764 to 1924. The second Bull Plume/Old Agency Winter Count is dated from 1868 – 1909. I have the name of his grandchild Chief Crow Flag, both were Chiefs of the Piikani/Peigan
I am 52 this year, living in Vancouver, BC, and I am in my 4th year at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC. My Intended major will be Anthropology, and my intended Minor will be Political Science.
I mention my Grandfather and my education as I recently presented on January 11, 2020 my own Winter Count from (1968 – today) at UBC’s annual Student Leadership Conference. It was a day that changed my life and made me look back.
You see I am also HIV+, have been for 26 years. I was also HepC for a period of 7 years. Eleven years ago I was lying in St. Paul’s Hospital where I was ill from both the initial HepC infection as well as meningitis. One night I saw a Full Moon from my hospital bed, and i was feeling the pain from both infections and wanted to go be with my father, who was given the name Stumiksisapo (his Great Grandfather), as well as my ancestors. I was giving up hope I did not want to deal with the pain and loneliness of life being co-infected.. A stark contrast as just the year before I had a great paying job at an Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Society. You make one bad choice in life and your life forever changes.
I then ended up living in an verbally abusive relationship, when that ended I ended up being homeless. I stayed in homeless shelters in Vancouver’s Down Town East Side. Like many of the most beautiful people you would ever meet, I had a choice to either move home or to tough it out. I chose to stay, a decision that ended by me living in a SRO (Single Room Occupancy) across the street from the provincial court and 2 blks from Main & Hastings. I am forever grateful to Family and Friends for their support and their Love. I am also humbled by the gifts of Courage and Strength from Apistotoke, without these gifts I would never have survived and to glance at a world that I thought I knew about.
It has been quite a journey from Gore & Powell streets to the lecture halls of the University of British Columbia. for this conference I put the foillowing as my abstract…
Truth, Reconciliation, Power and Place have entered the nations psyche in the past few years. As new relationships are needed between groups who for many years have had to deal with the ugliness of Racism, Exclusion and Disrespect. As people of the land begin accept and deal with the truth of Genocide; new histories will be added to what has not been taught in classrooms. These additional histories which are written, are in song or in pictographs are more important as the ones taught in classrooms, as they are from the original peoples of the land – the First Nations.
It took me 2 months to research for my Winter Count and 3 days to paint it. During this time I educated myself on a history that I thought I knew, it was never taught to me in the Catholic School in Pincher Creek, AB. I learned things that gave me nightmares and took my energy away. I then presented to my Anthrpology 341 – Museum Curatorship and Practice co-horts.
Mr. Daschuk, as part of my leadership lecture i made reference to your book and also “A Blackfoot History: The Winter Counts Sikaitapi Itsinniiki (telling the old Stories” by Paul M. Raczha, Blackfoot Books, 2017. When I talked about 15 minutes of my 2 hour presentation about the signing of Treaty 7 (a treaty that should not be legal but somehow it is), you could hear a pin drop. The participants were very quiet and hearing a story that was never taught to them.One participant teared up and afterwards I told her not to feel bad as we Piikani Niitsitapi and other First Nations are the true meaning of Resilient, we will survive as we have for all our lives.
Mr Daschuk, if you read this, know that I was given the book by my mother a few years ago. I started reading it and then one day i gifted it to a traveler I met on the street in August. He was Armenian and we discussed Genocide and how our people survived. He was extremely grateful to receive it. When I gave it to him I said share what you learned from this book with as many people as you can. The world needs to know the true history of Canada and its governments treatment of First Nations. I then hugged him and and we parted we was on his way to airport back to Armenia.
What can you say to someone who opened the door to a past that you had no idea existed. I also had taken for granted for the stories the Elders told me. I could not believe that a country as beautiful and strong as Canada was with a beautiful lady as its queen could do this to people, and who in some way still do it one level or another. The last pictograph I added to my Winter Count is that of the Whiteman with a huge black hole in where the heart should be. It represents “from darkness of man comes genocide.”
I am a person who follows the news, some say way too much but I cannot help it. When leaders continue to push foreign rules and laws on a people whose own traditional laws should have precedence, but don’t. When these same leaders openly express racism by wearing balckface. Where leaders on a international level speak of positive issues of Gender equality in other countries and do the exact opposite by putting the lives of 2Spirits at risk with no sup[ports in rural communities, and denying women and their families the correct respect and acknowledgement on their own land, then there is something seriously wrong with the democracy that is being practiced.
Your words along with those of Russell Means, Percy BiullChild, Thomas King, Reg Crowshoe, Sybille Manneschmidt, as well as the YouTube I found years ago called “We Are All One”, I am slowly putting together a history that I am starting to understand. As you must know Niitsitapi” Translates in to “Real People”, one day once i learn the full history and my own language I will be that REAL person. But for now know that your words have helped shape my mind, heart and Spirit.
Thank you