On the advent of the European to North America some four centuries ago, the Indian population of what is now Canada, according to the best estimates of anthropologists, was about 200,000. It dwindled following the first shock of contact with civilization with its outriders of vice and disease, and for a time the race seemed fated to die out. Then it began slowly to recover and in recent years it has shown a fairly steady increase; it is now 125,000 in round figures.

It is believed that the Indians came in successive migrations in prehistoric times from North Asia. They are divided into a number of distinct linguistic stocks, and many tribal subdivisions with widely differing physical and psychological characteristics.

Their affairs are administered exclusively by the Dominion government. Under the French régime, the Indians were treated kindly, even benevolently, but the French government never recognized them as having any special legal rights. The British, on the other hand, from their first contact with the Indians of North America recognized an Indian title or interest in the soil, to be parted with or extinguished, only by formal bilateral agreement. This was the beginning of the system of Indian treaties and surrenders which has been the fundamental basis of Indian policy, both in Canada and the United States. At the outset this policy doubtless was dictated in the main by protective motives designed to secure the very necessary goodwill of the warlike natives. As time passed, however, and the Indians ceased gradually to be a threat to the existence of the white settlements, it became an ethical and moral obligation, which on the whole and with some reservations, has been respected and fulfilled in both countries.