Note 54 — AMERICAN AND BRITISH TREATMENT OF THE INDIANS IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

These conveyances are found in Papers Connected With the Indian Land Question, pp. 5-11. A clause common to all papers was the following: "The condition of or understanding of this sale is this, that our village sites and enclosed fields are to be kept for our own use, for the use of our children, and for those who may follow after us; and the land shall be properly surveyed hereafter. It is understood, however, that the land itself, with these small exceptions, becomes the entire property of the white people forever; it is also understood that we are at liberty to hunt over the unoccupied lands, and to carry on our fisheries as formerly."

It was claimed by Hon. Joseph W. Trutch that these transactions were merely "made for the purpose of securing friendly relations between those Indians and the settlement of Victoria, * * * and certainly not in acknowledgement of any general title of the Indians to the lands they occupy." Id., Ap, p. 11.