Treaty No.7 (1877)

In 1877 David Laird, the new lieutenant governor of the North-West Territories, invited a number of Indigenous nations to negotiate Treaty No.7 with the Canadian government. These groups included those living in what is now southern Alberta, south of the Red Deer River. This was the last of the treaties to be negotiated by the Canadian authorities in the 1870s in a program to obtain the surrender of all Indigenous claims to the western Canadian prairies. Shortly after signing Treaty No.7, many Indigenous people began to doubt the wisdom of their actions. The deaths of three prominent chiefs, the destruction of extensive grazing lands by prairie fires, and the disappearance of the buffalo were considered to be ill omens.