I learned in class that the Treaty 6 and Treaty 7 agreements for the gov to give treaty Indians farming equipment + assistance to “civilize” is was actually meant to set us up for failure, because they didn’t do that, so when Natives did express interest in farming and pooled money to get equipment, they made reforms to make it harder to farm like get equipment, leave the rez, natives excluded from applying for credit, etc. And literally gave natives impossible standards that settlers were never expected to follow, so when Natives ultimately couldn’t farm bc we were set up, the gov said “well I guess they’re just naturally not predisposed to farming, and they’re not doing anything with all that land soooo we’ll take it!” and then they did it. They just took it and used this as an excuse. And that’s why Saskatchewan and Alberta have so much farmland, and whatever Natives DID get successful at farming, the settlers complained about competition and took whatever land they used away and gave it to settlers. It’s just so fucked up
In case you wanna read about this, this is from a reading called “two acres and a cow” by Sarah Carter
Read up on this, especially in case why you’re wondering why so many natives are against this whole farmcore/cottagecore thing: farming and homesteading WAS and IS used as a tool for colonization and is used against Native land claims.
There’s a collection at the Royal Alberta Museum of handmade farm tools from Treaty 6. Natives tried to make it all work to the point where they were making their own farm tools with whatever was on hand.
There’s also specific provisions in the Indian Act that prohibited Natives from selling their own produce on the open market (for the reasons above), forcing them to sell directly to the Agents for pennies on the dollar. It wasn’t just cereal grains either, it applied to meat, fish, and fur, too. In the case of furs, smuggling was common in the North because people knew they were getting ripped off.
Native people have been ripped off, lied to, and actively undermined for generations, while the same settler regime responsible for it peddled lies about us, about our inability to accept modernity and progress, about our primitive ways, and our inherent laziness.
