Edgar Dewdney
Edgar Dewdney, was a Canadian surveyor, road builder, Indian commissioner and politician born in Devonshire, England. He emigrated to British Columbia in 1859 in order to act as surveyor for the Dewdney Trail that runs through the province. In 1870, Dewdney decided to take up a role in Canadian government. In this year, he was elected to the Legislative Council of British Columbia as a representative from the Kootenay region. In 1872, he was elected as a Member of the Parliament of Canada for the Yale region representing the Conservative party. He was reelected to this position in 1874 and again in 1878. Dewdney served as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories from 1879 to 1888, and the fifth Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia from 1892 to 1897. Additionally, he served as the Indian commissioner in the North-West Territories from 1879 until 1888. In 1897, Dewdney retired from politics and began working as a financial agent until his death in 1916.
Throughout his political career, Dewdney played a role in the settlement of western Canada and defining the relationship between the government of Canada and the Indigenous peoples of the North-West in the nineteenth century. Dewdney experienced several political and humanitarian issues throughout his political appointments. As Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories, Dewdney had to manage with a starvation crisis faced by the Indigenous peoples after years of deliberate extermination of buffalo herds, promoted by the Government of Canada to force the Indigenous inhabitants off the land prior to its settlement. Additionally, as Indian Commissioner, Dewdney subsequently tackled issues pertaining to the North-West Rebellion of 1885, and selected Regina to be the capital of the North-West Territories.
Early life and career
Edgar Dewdney was born in Bideford, England to parents Charles Dewdney and Fanny Hollingshead. He grew up in a wealthy family, providing him with many social opportunities. Dewdney had two marriages, neither producing any children. The first marriage was to Jane Shaw Moir in 1864, and the second in 1909 to Blanche Elizabeth Plantagenet Kemeys-Tynte. Dewdney originally wanted to pursue a career in civil engineering, studying the subject at Cardiff University. After his civil engineering training in 1859, he decided to start a life in the Pacific northwest in hopes of making a fortune with his newly acquired qualifications. Dewdney was also motivated to move to the North-West Territories after the discovery and further mining of gold in the Fraser Valley. He was active in the development of pack trails in the colony of British Columbia including the Dewdney Trail which became the main trail into the interior of the colony.Dewdney was active in political life in British Columbia throughout the 1860s. Dewdney had a limited understanding of the functions of Canadian politics when his interests first piqued. After a few years in Provincial politics, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald requested Dewdney to become the Indian Commissioner in the North-West, as he knew of the “Indians” in the area quite well. Dewdney had an advantage due to his general knowledge of Indigenous peoples and that he did not originate from Ottawa. Later in his life, Dewdney held dual titles of Indian Commissioner and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories. He was also the Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia and after three years retired and became a surveyor. Due to his prestigious career in politics, Dewdney was considered suitable to conduct the study and surveying of the Cascades. He discovered three routes, Allison, Coquihalla, and Railroad Passes in his 1902 exhibition. However, he disclosed that he never liked any of these routes due to their engineering difficulties. As a result, Dewdney suggested the Canadian Pacific Railway should be built from Midway to Princeton, then north to Merritt and Spences Bridge, and have Fraser Canyon as the way through the Cascades. Dewdney is recognized as a legendary trail builder of colonial days in British Columbia, as this played a large role in the westward expansion of Canada. Despite this recognition, he faced issues regarding Canadian expansionism and the effect on Indigenous peoples.
Surveyor during the gold rushes of the 1860s
Dewdney was originally employed as a surveyor, and supervised the survey of New Westminster. In 1865, Dewdney was appointed by Governor Frederick Seymour to oversee the construction of a trail to the East Kootenay region of the British Columbia Interior so that coastal merchants might benefit from the burgeoning trade associated with gold mining in that area. This was also done to secure a line of communication within the region to prevent an American takeover of that part of the province. Although used for only a few years, parts of the Dewdney Trail, as it was known, remain to this day and are used for recreational hiking. Provincial Highway 3 largely follows the route of the Dewdney Trail.Entry into politics
From 1868 to 1869, Dewdney became active in Colonial politics, representing the electoral district of Kootenay in the Legislative Council of British Columbia. After the colony joined Canadian Confederation in 1871, he served as a Conservative Member of Parliament for the riding of Yale following his election in 1872. He was appointed a member of Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald's cabinet in 1879, where he served as Indian commissioner for the North-West Territories until 1888.In 1881, Macdonald arranged Dewdney's appointment as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, then an executive position. Dewdney resigned his seat in the Commons, but remained Indian Commissioner during his term as Lieutenant-Governor, which lasted until 1888. Macdonald, along with being Prime Minister, held the cabinet post Minister of the Interior. Dewdney took orders directly from Macdonald. Responsible government had not been granted to the North-West Territories, so Dewdney was the Territories' head of government. Perhaps his most notable decision in office was changing the territorial capital from Battleford to Wascana Cree for "Pile of Bones" in 1883: a featureless location without water apart from a short spring run-off Wascana Creek, trees or topography. This is where Dewdney had secured a substantial real estate for himself adjacent to the near-future planned Canadian Pacific Railway line. Other townsites were also considered probable territorial capitals, including Fort Qu'Appelle and Qu'Appelle, the latter to the extent of having been designated the cathedral city of the new Diocese of Qu'Appelle by the Church of England in Canada. The matter was a national scandal at the time. Still, the initial major street of Pile of Bones, later renamed Regina by Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, was called Dewdney Avenue.
After his term as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories, Dewdney was again elected to Parliament and served as the member for Assiniboia East from 1888 to 1891. During this period he also served as Minister of the Interior and Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
In 1892, he was appointed to the non-executive viceregal post of Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia. He served in this post until 1897.
He retired from politics in 1900, after unsuccessfully running for Parliament in New Westminster, British Columbia.
In 1909, following the death his wife Jane, Dewdney remarried. His newlywed wife was Blanche Kemeys-Tynte, the daughter of Colonel Charles John Kemeys-Tynte of Halswell, Somerset, England.
Crisis: The starvation of the Indians
Upon taking office in May, 1879, Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories Edgar Dewdney came face to face with the plight of the natives in the wake of the disappearing buffalo. The mass extermination of buffalo, encouraged by the Government as an important step to depopulating the land and permitted its settlement, had had its intended effect on the Indigenous peoples who relied completely on every aspect of the buffalo for food, clothing and resources for housing. Indigenous peoples had already starved to death at Qu'Appele, Fort Walsh, Fort Macleod, Battleford, Carlton, Fort Pitt, Fort Saskatchewan, Edmonton, Touchwood Hills, Fort Ellice, Moose Mountain, Fort Calgary, and elsewhere. Dewdney's solution was to locate the native tribes on reserves. Their agents would teach them how to farm.He reported conditions at the Blackfoot Crossing in July 1879 as follows:
By that autumn, seventeen instructors were established at different reserves along with supplies of tools and seed. They began to teach the natives how to farm.
Dewdney was later denounced for not responding to four official requests for food aid during the winter of 1882-83 for "over 2000 Indians here almost naked and on the verge of starvation". When finally pressed to send food supplies after the official requests, Dewdney stated it was government policy to use famine to force Indians onto reserves.
The Report of the Royal Commission to Inquire into Changes Affecting the Administration of Justice in the North-West Territories was conducted by Dewdney in 1880 regarding the administration of Indian Affairs. This communication was written to the Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs in Ottawa and provided insight into conditions in the North-West. This report was controversial because it only provided a colonial viewpoint into the lives of Indigenous peoples. The Indigenous voice was omitted from the report, making the report biased to colonial views. Dewdney outlined in the report that the “scarcity of buffalo in Fort Walsh had not been exaggerated, and numbers of Indians of the Cree, Assiniboine and Blackfeet were awaiting the arrival of Col. MacLeod and myself.” The decline of the buffalo populations created a famine which “reduced the Indians to a state of dependence on government relief supplies and even forced the Indians to seek government on their reserves.” In order to resolve the starvation crisis, Dewdney proposed relocating all Indigenous peoples in the region onto reserves. Because of the scarcity in buffalo populations, the government had no other choice but to provide Indigenous peoples on reserves with food rations, distributed by the North-West Mounted Police.
Due to the high decline in the buffalo population, many Indigenous communities were facing starvation. Changes needed to be made in regards to the government’s actions in controlling and alleviating the threat of a starvation crisis. Dewdney traveled to parts of the north-west with Col. James Macleod, the Commissioner of the North-West Mounted Police, in response to the threat of a starvation crisis. Before traveling to Blackfoot Crossing, Macleod stated in Fort Walk that the resolution to the buffalo problem and the starvation of the Indigenous peoples was to promote an agricultural lifestyle rather than one based on the reliance on buffalo. After observing the crisis at Blackfoot Crossing, Dewdney stressed that the Indigenous peoples there should work to relieve themselves of starvation that resulted from the disappearance of buffalo. He proposed stationing instructors on reserves in order to educate the Indigenous peoples on how to sustain an agricultural society, as well as to provide those on reserves with the necessary supplies. The Royal Commission shows that members of the Blackfoot nation were grateful for Dewdney’s efforts made to ending the crisis. Both members of government in Ottawa and Dewdney believed that the Blackfoot Crossing could be a prosperous agricultural settlement. Upon arriving to Blackfoot, Dewdney hoped to talk about this possible prosperity but before his arrival, he had received news that a number of buffalo had crossed through the settlement and destroyed the crops.
In the early 1880s, government officials such as Dewdney withheld rations from Indigenous people as a tool to bring them into submission. From 1881 to 1883, it was recorded that buffalo and buffalo herds were headed towards Fort Walsh. Upon hearing this, Dewdney ordered that the food rations for Fort Walsh be reduced. The North-West Mounted Police began preparation to abandon their post at the fort, which meant Indigenous peoples could only receive their treaty payments and other assistance if or when they signed the treaty and moved north. Dewdney's refusal to allow the supply of relief to Indigenous communities created a volatile environment. In October 1882, reports from Augustus Jukes, senior surgeon for the North-West Mounted Police, regarding the limited food and lack of shelter did not have an effect on Dewdney. As a result, Fort Walsh closed in 1882 which left many Indigenous people starved, unless they signed Treaty One or Treaty Two. Dewdney said that he would recognize any male Cree as a chief if he could get the support of one hundred or more men to accept him as a leader. As a result, many Metis, Cree and Assiniboine separated from their bands in order to receive the promised rations from the government.
In 1882, it was reported that Cree and Assiniboine that settled in the Cypress Hills were supplied with minimal food rations. As a result, many Cree and Assiniboine began travelling to Indian Head. However, many died along the journey as a result of starvation. The reserve in Indian Head was called Win-cha-pa-ghen, or Skull Mountainettes, because the mountains were covered with the victims of the starvation crisis who received little aid from the government of Canada. In the spring, many made the journey back to the Cypress Hills, where Augustus Juke reported that many of the Cree and Assiniboine were in a state of starvation and did not have the basic necessities of life. This was the direct result of the Indian Commissioner’s insistence on letting them starve unless they complied with the government's request for them to sign treaties. Dewdney was quoted saying “the longer they continue to act against the wishes of the Government, the more wretched will they become.”
In 1884, tensions between Louis Riel and the government were rising. Charles Borromée, the Justice of the Supreme Court of the North-West Territories and legal advisor in the North-West Territories, sent a letter to Edgar Dewdney on September 5, 1884, regarding the conditions of Indigenous communities during the North-West Rebellion. Borromée wrote “Riel can harm the country, and that the government must come to the assistance of the Indians or misery and starvation will result.” Dewdney ultimately ignored this information, allowing the half breed to starve.
In 1886, Dewdney described the state’s initiatives to provide rations to Indigenous communities as a “policy of reward and punishment,” implying that only bands deemed as “loyal” would receive rations, livestock, and other farming equipment. To help promote an agricultural society within Indigenous communities, treaties stipulated that farming supplies would be made available as well as livestock. Dewdney believed that one of the reasons Indigenous people could not become self supporting was due to the treaties failing to provide grist mills for grain farming. Dewdney, as Indian Commissioner, noted that there were insufficient resources and supplies despite the terms of the treaties. The government of Canada promoted self sufficiency in agriculture by Indigenous peoples as a way to offset the cost of famine relief from the government. However, the supplies that would help Indigenous peoples on reserves to create an agricultural based community were lacking. The lack of supplies from the government frustrated many. The starvation crisis would symbolize the defining issue during Edgar Dewdney’s tenure as Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Territories. The Crisis regarding the starvation of the natives is still seen as a major political and humanitarian crisis.