Nova Scotia Archives
Mi'kmaw Teaching and Learning Resources
Letter from Dawson to Howe regarding Howe's letter of 5 Dec 1842 [see RG 1 vol. 432 pp. 145]. He will distribute coats and blankets as per directions. Complains that Mi'kmaq were promised liberty to cut firewood about Fisher's Grant, Boat Harbour, and now the owners have broken their promise. Firewood is scarce. A reserve is needed. Recommends land at headwaters of Barney's River, including the whole of Brown Lake and lots 12, 16, 17, 18 and other property on the map prepared by Crerar, the Deputy Surveyor. Also necessary to purchase 50-100 acres at Fisher's Grant, the favoured summer campsite of the Mi'kmaq.
note: transcription publicly contributed - please contact us with comments, errors or omisions
I shall take care to distribute as you direct, -- they will not be sufficient to supply all the destitute among them, but I have got two young ladies to volunteer their services to solicit some old clothes from the inhabitants, and have no doubt but by these means united I will get them tolerably well supplied for the present.
Since my last communication I have found out that a new source of misery has beset the poor Indians this cold winter. Fire wood is getting very scarse and consequently valable along the shores, and I was told the poor creatures had been driven from place to place with their camps, having been refused liberty to cut wood by the inhabitants about Fisher's Grant, Boat Harbour, [etc] -- On due enquiry into these reports I found them verified by respectable people, and therefore I have ventured to procure them the necessary supply for this winter by promising to pay 4 or 5 dollars, -- this is but one of the consequences of no land being reserved near the shores for them.
I have waited on Mr. Crerar the
![Letter from Dawson to Howe regarding Howe's letter of 5 Dec 1842 [see RG 1 vol. 432 pp. 145]. He will distribute coats and blankets as per directions. Complains that Mi'kmaq were promised liberty to cut firewood about Fisher's Grant, Boat Harbour, and now the owners have broken their promise. Firewood is scarce. A reserve is needed. Recommends land at headwaters of Barney's River, including the whole of Brown Lake and lots 12, 16, 17, 18 and other property on the map prepared by Crerar, the Deputy Surveyor. Also necessary to purchase 50-100 acres at Fisher's Grant, the favoured summer campsite of the Mi'kmaq.](/images/mikmaq/201606149.jpg "Letter from Dawson to Howe regarding Howe's letter of 5 Dec 1842 [see RG 1 vol. 432 pp. 145]. He will distribute coats and blankets as per directions. Complains that Mi'kmaq were promised liberty to cut firewood about Fisher's Grant, Boat Harbour, and now the owners have broken their promise. Firewood is scarce. A reserve is needed. Recommends land at headwaters of Barney's River, including the whole of Brown Lake and lots 12, 16, 17, 18 and other property on the map prepared by Crerar, the Deputy Surveyor. Also necessary to purchase 50-100 acres at Fisher's Grant, the favoured summer campsite of the Mi'kmaq.")
Date: 1842
Retrieval no.: Commissioner of Public Records — Mi'kmaq and Government Relations series Nova Scotia Archives RG 1 volume 432 pp. 145-148
Questions to Consider
- When do you think the document was written?
- Who do you think wrote the document?
- Why do you think the document was written
- Who do you think received the document?
- Who do you think this document was written for?
- What information do you think this document provides? What do you think it tells us about the past?
- How do you think the document reflects the attitudes and values of the time period in which it was written?
- What impact do you think the document had at the time it was written?
- Do you think those were different impacts for different people?