nation. But this meant that each individual, regardless of kinship, was assigned to a tribe, which in turn was assigned as a whole a territory, usually not a closed one but a collection of specific points. The reservations thus created were to be held in trust and reduced or enlarged according to population trends. In 1877, Gilbert Malcolm Sproat became the sole Indian Reserve Commissioner, but he was overthrown in 1880 for conceding too much land. Peter O'Reilly succeeded him until 1898. The federal government repeatedly clashed with provincial policy, and in 1908 the commission began to disband. In 1911, the case was to go to the Supreme Court, but the province refused to cooperate. On September 24, 1912, the McKenna-McBride Commission was established. From 1913 to 1916, the commission visited the reservations. In the end, it recommended 54 reserve reductions totaling 47,000 acres; after protests, it reduced to 35 affected reservations or 36,000 acres. The remaining 733,891 acres were divided into over 1,700 parcels. Resistance under the Constitution The Salish were the first to attempt to move more extensively in the initially unfamiliar political arena, within the three-tiered system of government. In 1906, a delegation traveled to King Edward VII in Britain to lobby for their land claims. Chiefs of the Lillooet met with Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier in 1912, but he lost the next election. In 1913, the Nishga Petition followed in London, but no action could be taken from there because the lower instances based in Canada would have had to deal with it first. After realizing the failure, most of the tribes pursued a policy of connecting with each other. Thus, in 1909, the backcountry tribes formed the Interior Tribes of BC and those of the coast formed the Indian Rights Association. These organizations gave rise to the Allied Tribes of British Columbia in 1916 as a counter organization to the McKenna-McBride Commission. Ostentatiously, they again celebrated the potlatch, but arrests occurred, including of chiefs beginning in 1920. In 1923, two of their leaders, Peter Kelly and Andrew Paull, presented demands to the government, first for compensation (2.5 million CAD), then for increases in entitlement to 160 acres in reservation size, plus certain hunting and fishing rights. In addition, there were education and health benefits. The government countered with the Great Settlement of 1927, which denied all land claims. In addition, the Indians were explicitly prohibited