[Métis / Prairie Land Claims] 1877 Public Notice Broadside Announcing Land Grants to the Children of Half-Breed Heads of Families

Ottawa, ON: Department of the Interior, Dominion Lands Office, 1877. Broadside. Very Good. A rare Public Notice and an unlikely survivor, given that many of these broadsides would likely have been posted onto public buildings and exposed to the elements. The title reads " Public Notice / In the matter of the Grant of 1,400,000 Acres of Land to the Children of Half-Breed Heads of Families, pursuant to Section 31 of the Act 33 Vic., Cap. 3, and the Orders in Council, dated severally the 25th April, 1871 and the 7th September, 1876 the following claims have been approved for the Parish of St. Anne :" The Notice then lists all 221 of the eligible claimants in the Parish, giving their name, date of birth and the legal description of their individual allotment. The Broadside is printed in black ink onto heavy paper measuring 24 x 17-3/8 inches wide and is expertly laid down onto Japanese tissue. Broadside with toning, stains and minor finger soil, old fold line creases and some tiny losses near edges and fold lines. An historical Prairie Province land and resident record for the Saint Anne Parish, located south east of Winnipeg in Manitoba. "The two types of scrip created for this process were land scrip and money scrip. When the system was first implemented, the value of the scrip provided to the Métis was either 160 acres of land or $160 cash to be used for the purchase of land. Later, the value was increased to 240 acres or $240.... The scrip commissions were advertised in newspapers and on posters. It is believed that the purpose of one of these advertisements was to alert speculators. There was also no protection against fraud — many had their names forged without their knowledge. As a general practice, land speculators bought scrip from Métis at very low prices and then sold it to the main chartered banks in Canada. Out of the 14,849 issued, land speculators ended up obtaining 12,560 money scrips. They also managed to leave the Métis with only one per cent of the 138,320 acres of land scrip issued in northwest Saskatchewan." indigenouspeoplesatlasofcanada dot ca.