The Robinson treaties were negotiated primarily to obtain mineral rights to lands around the Great Lakes in Canada.

In 1791, the boundaries of Upper Canada were set and the new colony received jurisdiction over the territory west of the Ottawa River between the St. Lawrence River - Great Lakes waterway and the lands which had been granted to the Hudson Bay Company. The H.B.C. lands also known as Rupert's Land, consisted of the region drained by the rivers flowing into Hudson's Bay. Therefore the Upper Canadian northern boundary was demarcated by the height of land sometimes referred to as the Arctic watershed.

This is significant for it meant that virtually the entire province fell within the Indian Territory as defined by the Royal Proclamation of 7 October 1763, which decreed that the lands therein were reserved "for the Use of the ...Indians as their Hunting Grounds". It went on to describe in general terms the manner by which the Crown's representatives could purchase portions of that Indian territory.

Between 1764 and 1836 in Upper Canada about twenty-seven sizeable land purchases were completed, and over the years certain procedures, commonly called the treaty system, developed to provide for the alienation of Indian title to land. These included the following:

Payment for the land.

At first, this involved a single, one-time payment of a specified amount, payable in trade goods. Beginning in 1818, however, this was replaced by an annuity of a specified amount, payable in trade goods, based on the number of persons who occupied the surrendered tract at the time of the agreement. Later, the trade goods were replaced with cash.

Hunting, fishing and occupancy rights.

When land was purchased for settlement or military purposes, it was seldom occupied completely either by the forces or by settlers. In the first land cession agreements, like the Crawford (1783), McKee (1790) or Lake Simcoe (1798) purchases, it was understood that the Indian residents would be allowed to continue to live, hunt and fish in the unsettled areas. Because the growth of settlement was slow, this caused few serious difficulties before 1815.

But immigration in the post War of 1812 years increased the pressure on Indian society, causing concern among the Indians with regard to hunting and fishing rights. These expressed concerns were often recorded in the treaty negotiation minutes, which also recorded that the Crown's representative agreed verbally to those rights being retained. But no mention of the hunting and fishing rights2 of Indians was actually included into the written agreements before 1850.

Reserve lands.

In some of the early treaties such as the 1790 McKee purchase or the 1805-6 Credit River agreement,3 it was provided that some specific and limited portions of the surrendered tract would be reserved exclusively for Indian use. These usually were longstanding village locations or traditional - and bountiful fisheries. In 1830 the formal adoption of a civilization programme meant that reserves became essential to government policy.

Where such pockets of Indian settlement had been omitted in previous treaty arrangements, they were established by a variety of means. By 1850 when it came time to negotiate a major land cession on the northern shores of Lakes Huron and Superior, it had become generally accepted that it would include provision for reserves.

The impetus to seek such a land surrender in the northwestern portion of Canada West was provided by the mining industry. Previous to this the single significant commercial enterprise in that region had been the fur trade. After 1821 that activity was a virtual monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company, although independent traders were active there also.

The Indians of that region, usually referred to as the Northern Ojibwa, participated in that activity as well as the traditional methods of food gathering by hunting and fishing. The Indians were not unified, however.

Certainly there were some relations among those who occupied the long shoreline of the two upper Lakes, but the population of some 3,000 persons was nonetheless divided into about two dozen fairly distinct bands. Each had its own band organization with its own chief; and each group restricted its operations to a clearly defined area. Within that area the band occupied regular village sites on the coast during suitable weather, and other inland areas during the winter.

Some of these sites either contained or were located close to mineral deposits, particularly copper. Thus, when entrepreneurs began to exploit the mineral deposits - some of which had been known since the days of Father Alouez's journey into the region in the seventeenth century - their prospecting, surveying and technical parties were actually moving into lands which the Indians considered to be theirs. This activity was regarded by the Indians as trespassing.