Instead of supplying rations to famine-stricken populations "in a
national famine," as Morris had promised, rations were used as a means
of coercing Indians into submitting to treaty. Malcolm D. Cameron, a
Liberal MP, accused the Indian department of being driven by "a policy
of submission shaped by a policy of starvation." In 1879, a number of
bands traded their independence for food. In the Battleford Agency,
Mosquito, Moosomin, Thunderchild, and Little Pine all accepted treaty in
exchange for rations. Once on reserve, First Nations people were at the
mercy of officials with little patience for protest.
--James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2013), 114.
--James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2013), 114.
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