Treaty 1 was the first of eleven numbered treaties signed between the federal government and Canada's First Nations between 1871 and 1921. The first seven of these treaties were signed between 1871 and 1877 and covered nearly all of the Canadian Prairies.

Treaties 1 and 2 (1871) were negotiated with the Swampy Cree and Chippewa Indians and covered the territory in and near the newly-created province of Manitoba. Treaty 3 (1873) was negotiated with the Saulteaux (Plains Ojibwa) Indians and covered the area between Lake Superior and Lake of the Woods. Treaty 4 (1874) was negotiated with the Cree and Saulteaux Indians and covered the Qu'Appelle-Assiniboine Valley and the area to the west. Treaty 5 (1875) was negotiated with the Saulteaux and Swampy Cree Indians and extended from The Pas north of Lake Winnipeg to the Nelson River. Treaty 6 (1876) was negotiated with the Plains Cree and Wood Cree of present-day central Saskatchewan and Alberta, and included all the fertile belt to the Rocky Mountains. In 1877, the Blackfoot Confederacy (comprised of the Blackfoot, Blood, Piegan, Sarcee, and Stoney First Nations) signed Treaty 7, which covered the remaining area from Lake Superior to the Rocky Mountains, including present-day southern Alberta.

Most scholars agree that the federal government's initiation of the numbered treaties was based more on economic pragmatism than on a concept of "Aboriginal rights." Given the precedent of the violent and expensive Indian Wars in the United States (American expenditures to fight the Indian Wars exceeded Canada's entire federal budget in the 1870s and 1880s), the Canadian government sought a peaceful means of displacing First Nations in preparation for wide-scale Euro-Canadian settlement. This peaceful approach has reinforced the perception Canadians have of themselves as a more law-biding country. It conveniently ignores the fact that the result, at least as far as First Nations are concerned, has been the same on both sides of the border.