TRCM Lunch and Learn Series - Peguis/Selkirk Treaty 1817 with Dr. Maureen Matthews

“The Peguis-Selkirk Treaty 1817” When Dr. Maureen Matthews, former Curator of Cultural Anthropology at the Manitoba Museum, was hired in 2011, her very first task was to help develop an exhibit about the 2012 200th Anniversary of the arrival of seventy Selkirk Settlers to the Red River. colony These highland refugees had a miserable time for the first three years, and it wasn’t until Thomas Douglas, the Fifth Earl of Selkirk, came in person and made a Treaty with the First Nations in the area, that things began to change for the better. At the time of the treaty there were 181 free-traders and Metis people at the Forks in an area that was also home to about 7,500 Assiniboine people, 1,260 Cree and about 800 Anishinaabe people. Lord Selkirk recognized that First Nations residents had title to the land and that to stabilize the settlement a treaty was the only way forward. The Peguis Selkirk Treaty is the first treaty in Western Canada that concerns land rights. It describes the land, a thin strip along the rivers, where the settlers could establish farms, land they shared with existing residents. This agreement was shaped by Indigenous treaty making protocols and initially enforced by Indigenous people. The relationship created between the Anishinaabe peoples and the various Lords Selkirk over the years, models one of the most important of those Indigenous protocols, that a treaty is not the end of a deal; it is the beginning of an ongoing mutually beneficial relationship. Bio Dr. Maureen Matthews is the former Curator of Cultural Anthropology at the Manitoba Museum, where she developed five exhibits about Treaties in collaboration with the Elders Council of the Treaty Relations Commission. Over the last four years she has helped to write six Anishinaabemowin /English books for the communities of the Pimachiowin Aki World Heritage Site including one specifically about Treaty No. 5 co-authored with Dr. Jean Friesen. The last book of this series, an illustrated catalogue of the recently repatriated Pauingassi Collection, will be published in March 2024. To book a Speaker for you next event go to our website www.trcm.ca and fill out our request form or contact our Speaker Bureau Coordinator.