We welcome 2021 with much anticipation for a better year ahead.
This month I wanted to include an article that Eugene Blakley has submitted. Gene Blakley is active in the Millarville Historical Society, Friends of the Bar U, and Southern Alberta Pioneers. He is keenly interested in our local history and is a dedicated student of history. His own history is very colorful and well worth reading.
Square Butte – A History Of Hope
by Gene Blakley
The history of Square Butte district is one of hope. The Dominion Lands act was enacted to encourage opportunity- suppressed people to come to what is now Canada with the promise of basically free land. Can you imagine being in Ireland, England, most of Europe where your existence is governed by the “Lord of the Land”? No person other than gentry owned land and prospects for the future of the so-called peasants was grim. Even though communication was not what it is today, eventually these people heard of the promise of free land. In other words, you could be the “Lord” of your own piece of land and be free of the shackles of the gentry. So, they endured great hardship and somehow came to our great country.
The Dominion Lands Act (long title: An Act Respecting the Public Lands of the Dominion) was an 1872 Canadian law that aimed to encourage the settlement of the Canadian Prairies and to help prevent the area being claimed by the United States. The Act was closely based on the U.S. Homestead Act of l862, setting conditions in which the western lands could be settled and their natural resources developed.
In 1871, the Govemment of Canada entered into Treaty 1 and Treaty 2 to obtain the consent of the Indigenous nations from the territories set out respectively in each Treaty. The Treaties provided for the taking up of lands “for immigration and settlement”. In order to settle the area, Canada invited mass emigration by European and American pioneers, and by settlers from eastern Canada. It echoed the American homestead system by offering ownership of 160 acres of land free (except for a small registration fee) to any man over 18 or any woman heading a household. They did not need to be British subjects, but had to live on the plot and improve it.
The Act is controversial because the Canadian Government–established by Confederation only five years earlier–was extremely short on funds and never provided compensation to the Indigenous nations for the use of the lands which the Government had decided to give away for free.
At first the progress west was slow as distances were great and settlements were few. Also, as today, the Government has to put barriers in the way as we can see below.
Also, the first version of the Act set up extensive exclusion zones. Claimants were limited to areas further than 20 miles (32 km) from any railway (much of the land closer having been granted to the railways at the time of construction). Since it was extremely difficult to farm wheat profitably if you had to transport it over 20 miles (32 km) by wagon, this was a major discouragement. Farmers could buy land within the 20 mi (32 km) zone, but at a much higher price of $2.50 per acre ($6.20/ha). In 1879 the exclusion zone was reduced to only 10 miles (16 km) from the tracks; and in 1882 it was finally eliminated.
Submitted by Mary Ann Watson
