“There are no shortcuts”: The Long Road to Treaty 7 Education

Abstract

Treaty 7 was signed at Blackfoot Crossing in 1877. According to one Indigenous signatory, Chief Crowfoot of the Niisitapi, treaty commissioners in attendance stated the treaty stood in perpetuity: “As the long as the sun is shining, the rivers flow, and the mountains are seen,” the Tsuut’ina, Stoney Nakoda, and Blackfoot Confederacy: Kainai, Piikani, and Siksika agreed to share the landscape of what is now southern Alberta. This agreement is one of many treaties negotiated between First Nations and the British Crown. Many scholars have looked at Canadian treaties and education history as an overt attempt to erase Indigenous culture, but few have delved deeper into the systematic policies of epistemicide that took place within these negotiations and afterward. This thesis situates this historical process within the communities of Treaty 7 territory and argues that the schooling provided by the Canadian government after 1877 represents a consistent attempt to subvert Indigenous knowledge and pedagogies.