Cheated: The Laurier Liberals and the Theft of First Nations Reserve Land

Bill Waiser · Jennie Hansen

Oct 2023 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Adam Barr

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9 hr 34 min

Unabridged

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About this audiobook

You won't find the Ocean Man and Pheasant Rump reserves on a map of southeastern Saskatchewan. In 1901, the two Nakoda bands reluctantly surrendered the seventy square miles granted to them under treaty. It's just one of more than two dozen surrenders aggressively pursued by the Laurier Liberal government over a fifteen-year period. One in five acres was taken from First Nations. This confiscation was justified on the grounds that prairie bands had too much land and that it would be better used by white settlers. In reality, the surrendered land was largely scooped up by Liberal speculators-including three senior civil servants and a Liberal cabinet minister-and flipped for a tidy profit. None were held to account. Cheated is a gripping story of single-minded politicians, uncompromising Indian Affairs officials, grasping government appointees, and well-connected Liberal speculators, set against a backdrop of politics, power, patronage, and profit. The Laurier government's settlement of western Canada can never be looked at the same way again.

About the author

Historian Bill Waiser is the author of more than a dozen books, including A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan before 1905, winner of the Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction. He is also the recipient of the Governor General's History Award for Popular Media (the Pierre Berton Award).

Historian Jennie Hansen has been involved in numerous projects that investigate how nature was understood, appropriated, and administered under British imperialism. She lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Adam Barr, a recovering lawyer, former golf industry executive, former singing telegram messenger, and former print and television reporter, now bends the energy of all those "formers" toward his passion for acting and singing. He lives near New York City with his family.

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