Backgrounder

Chief Cowessess ("Ka-wezauce," also known as "Little Boy" or "Little Child") signed Treaty 4 at Fort Qu'Appelle on September 15, 1874. Signatories to the treaty ceded to the Crown an area of 194,000 square kilometres in what is now southern Saskatchewan. In exchange, they were promised perpetual cash annuities, schools, agricultural assistance and reserves upon which to settle when they ceased their traditional nomadic way of life. The treaty set aside one square mile for each family of five, or 128 acres per person and stipulated that only the government could dispose of reserve land after it had obtained the consent of those Indians entitled to the land.

The Cowessess people were nomadic buffalo hunters at the time of the treaty and did not immediately select a site for a reserve. The Band was paid its annuity at two locations: Chief Cowessess and his followers, who still had not been given a reserve, received payment at their camp in the Cypress Hills. In 1883, the Band was persuaded to leave the Cypress Hills and join another group at Crooked Lake. In 1889, Cowessess Indian Reserve 73 was confirmed by order in council. It comprised 78 square miles or almost 50,000 acres.

By 1886, settlers located near the Crooked Lake reserves began lobbying to have the southern portions of the reserves, including that of Cowessess, surrendered for sale. The federal government repeatedly refused such requests, on the basis that such sales would remove haylands close to the reserves needed by the Indians to feed their large herds of cattle.

In 1900, a new Indian Agent revived efforts to purchase the lands. Magnus Begg pointed out that the Bands within his jurisdiction - including the Cowessess - were having difficulty paying debts incurred to buy farm equipment and had had to sell parts of their cattle herds. He suggested a surrender of a portion of their reserve land would help eliminate accumulated debts of Band members. Combined with renewed petitions for sale of the land from settlers, the proposal was agreed to by the government, but was only put to Bands other than Cowessess in 1902. The proposal was rejected and although not entirely dropped, was only sporadically discussed for the next few years.

At the end of 1906, efforts to persuade the Crooked Lake Bands to sell some of their lands were renewed with the surrender of lands by the Pasqua Band, an example which the government hoped Cowessess and the others would follow. On January 21,1907, the first surrender meeting with the Cowessess Band was held, although no record of band members in attendance was taken and no vote took place. A second surrender meeting occurred on January 29. The vote was 15 to 14 in favour of surrender.

Cowessess First Nation maintains that the vote was not properly taken and that, in fact, 30 band members were present rather than 29, meaning that a majority vote in favour of surrender was not achieved.