How did European diseases and the disappearance of buffalo affect First Nations people in Alberta?

In the region now known as Alberta, the First Nations people were profoundly affected by the arrival of European diseases and the near-extinction of the bison, which served as their primary source of livelihood, food, clothing, and shelter.12

The combined impact of these factors decimated Indigenous populations and destabilized their traditional way of life. As the bison herds—the mainstay of the Plains economy—were systematically slaughtered by white settlers and commercial hunters, many First Nations faced widespread starvation in the early 1880s. This crisis was exacerbated by government agents who often failed to fulfill treaty obligations to provide promised annuities or distributed substandard goods.123

These hardships forced many Indigenous groups to sign treaties and relocate to reserves, a process that relegated them to government-controlled lands and facilitated the broader colonial goal of assimilation. The loss of their economic independence and the subsequent pressure to adopt sedentary agricultural practices were central to the colonial conquest of the Canadian West.413