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The Future is Now
Truth & Reconciliation: How did we get here, and where do we go?
David More Later Life Learning: January 10, 2020
Kingston and the region are part of the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Peoples
The Future is Now
To acknowledge this traditional territory is to recognize its long human history, predating by millennia the establishment of the earliest European settler colonies. The history of Indigenous Peoples extends back through what we used to call “Prehistory” into what can be called, “Deep Time.”
The Future is Now
To acknowledge this traditional territory is also to acknowledge its significance for the Indigenous peoples who lived, and continue to live, upon it – people whose cultures and spiritualities came from the land and continue to develop in relationship to the territory and its other inhabitants today.
The Future is NowKingston’s Indigenous communities continue to reflect regional Anishinaabek (Ojibway) and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) roots. There is also a significant Métis community and First Peoples are present from several other Nations.
Our city has significant direct, ongoing positive connections through Queen’s University and the Kingston Hospitals to Indigenous communities both within the region and hundreds of miles north along Hudson’s and James Bay.
(Hebrews 11:16) “Desiderantes meliorem patriam,” ‘They desire a better country’ (1994)
Canadians have been Called to Action through the TRC Report. How did we get here?
(Psalm 72:8) “He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” (1921)
The Future is Now• What you can expect to take away:
Enhanced understanding of Indigenous pre‐European Contact cultures and early history of interactions with non‐Indigenous cultures in Canada and the Americas
Enhanced understanding of early negotiated Treaties between First Nations and Settler Nations
Enhanced understanding of what we need to do, to move forward and create a better nation as our Coat of Arms mottos call upon us to do.
About History• "History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We want to live in the present, and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn is the history that we make today.”
‐‐ Henry Ford, 1916, in the Chicago Tribune
“We’re a species that has trouble planning for our retirement, never mind what’s going to happen thousands of years down the road.”
“For someone whose life expectancy is usually [considerably] less than 100 years, it’s nearly impossible to imagine something so vast as geological or deep time.”
‐‐ J.D. Talasek, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
The Difficulty (and Importance) of History
Sources of History
Primary vs Secondary Source Documents
Primary Sources: First‐hand accounts Dead Sea ScrollsJesuit RelationsPersonal Journals/Letters, eg. ChamplainCourts, other official or legal documentsNewspapersCouncil/meeting minutes, business records
Scientific research, Archeology …
Secondary Sources: written thoughts and opinions about Primary Source Documents
HISTORY: NOT SO SIMPLE (since the ‘60s …)
WHOSE POINT OF VIEW? Elites only, or??Richter, Facing East from Indian CountrySteele, BetrayalsKing, The Inconvenient Indian
MANUFACTURED TRADITIONS (Alternative Facts)Gleach, “Controlled Speculation and ConstructedMyths: the Saga of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith”
HISTORICAL FICTION
SILENCES OF HISTORY (Social History of non‐elites):Women, Indigenous peoples, Peasants, Working Class, Slaves,Subaltern/Colonial peoples, Non‐literate peoples of all kinds
Sources of History
Oral Tradition vs Written Documentation:
– Indigenous use of wampum as symbolic language
‐‐ earliest written documentation of the Hebrew Bible that we have (eg Dead Sea Scrolls 300 BCE) was created perhaps 50 generations
after Abraham is said to have walked the earth, ca. 1800 BCE. Before that? Oral tradition from generation to generation
‐‐ Classical Greek Literature: Homeric epic poems Iliad and Odysseyare considered today to have been based on much older, oral storytelling traditions
Oral History and Archeology
History of Canada 12
A dig on Triquet Island on B.C.'s Central Coast is confirming oral history. Archeologists excavated a settlement dated to 14,000 years ago, during the last ice age. University of Victoria scholar Alisha Gauvreau, Ph.D., and the Hakai institute worked together to excavate artifacts from the island, including carved wooden tools, remnants of ancient hearth fires and other items.
Archeologists were led to this previously unknown site by Indigenous oral histories
10‐20,000 years BCE
History of Canada 13
"When First Nations talk about time immemorial, it just goes to show how far the occupation of this land goes back in deep time," said Gauvreau.
http://www.allthatsnews.com/articles/world/archaeological‐find‐confirms‐oral‐history‐indigenous‐people‐0
Oral History and Archeology:The Franklin Expedition
History of Canada 14
The second ship was found where Inuit oral history held that large sticks (masts) had been seen one winter, generations before, sticking through the ice
Indigenous North America 10‐20,000 years ago
History of Canada 15
12 language groupsStill over 60 languages/dialects remaining
In the beginning …• approx. 11,000 years ago, Clovis Culture people (discovered in 1938 in New Mexico) were present more or less across North America
3D scanning technology suggests widespread and fairly swift technology dissemination across the continent and continuity across generations
In the beginning …
• Bronze age in Middle East began about 5,000 years ago –why not here? Copper was well known, gold, silver working was common and sophisticated for ornamentation
• Tin ore necessary for low temperature bronze smelting has not been found in North America
• Copper tools offered no particular advantage over stone• Iron could not be melted/smelted with early technology
Clovis point from Maine found 1980. About 10,000 years old, very similar to points from Nova Scotia and elsewhere
The Future is Now, But What Was it Like Then?
Some things we know for certain:
Passenger Pigeon Range: At European Contact (1492) modern research suggests there were
roughly 40 billion Passenger Pigeons in North America
400 years post‐contact? 0 (zero)
The Future is Now, But What Was it Like Then?
Some things we know: Old Growth Forest
White Pine Range
Lake Ontario Salmon: Extirpated around 1895
Less than 100 years after Upper Canada’s settler population was about 75,000
Indigenous Fishing
1492: Generally Used as First Contact Date
“New World” Indigenous Population Estimate at time of Columbus: about 60 million (2019)
Europe: 70‐88 million
China: 100 million
The Future is Now
History of Canada 27
L’Anse aux Meadows Beothuk contact with Vikings ca. 1,000 C.E.
By 1829 Beothuk Indigenous peoples of Newfoundland were extinct, due to European diseases, disruption of caribou migrations, a wish for isolation, and deliberate genocide
Actual First Contact with“modern” Europeans
Spirit of the Beothuk Sculpture
Cultures Before Contact• Hunting (fishing)/gathering – eg Ojibway, Inuit, Blackfoot; nomadic to follow natural availability –included weir‐fishing, planting wild rice, trapping. West Coast Indigenous peoples were not nomadic due to richness of Pacific coastal environment
• Horticultural ‐ eg. Iroquois; 15 varieties of maize (corn), six types of squash, tobacco, sunflower seeds, 60 kinds of beans. Villages grew to over 1,500, longhouses 200 feet long, housing 25 families.– Moved village every 15‐20 years as soil depleted.
Indigenous Cultures
• Earth was a place of spirits and dreams, both good and evil ‐‐ a place that they needed; a place that was part of their own nature, and that they were a part of.
• The earth represented home, shelter, food, transportation, weapons, clothing, treats:Longhouses, wigwams, furs, harvests, hunting, fishing, moccasins, snowshoes, canoes, weapons, tools, maple/birch syrup and sugar …
“Which of these two is the wisest and the happiest – he who labours without ceasing and only obtains, and that with great trouble, enough to live on, or he who rests in comfort and finds all that he needs in the pleasure of hunting and fishing?”
Unknown Mi’kmaq Chief, 1676, to Chrestien le Clercq, in New Relation of Gaspesia 1691.
Cultures
“... All nature around him was clothed in mystery ‐‐‐ ... innumerable spirits were ever near... His medicine bag contained all those native things of the forest around which, in his opinion, the greatest mystery gathered; as the more of mystery the more the Great Spirit seemed to be attached to them.”
Kah‐ge‐ga‐gah‐bowh, (George Copway) Chief of the Ojibway Nation. The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation. First published 1850.
CULTURES
“... you ought to know, that He, the Great Spirit and Master of Life, has provided food for us, in these spacious lakes, and on these woody mountains.”
(1761) Minivavana, Ojibway Chief
Quoted in: Alexander Henry (the elder): Travels and Adventures in Canada and the Indian Territories between the years 1760 and 1776.
Indigenous peoples considered themselves part of nature and not separate from it or superior to it
CULTURES
First ContactThe “Columbian Exchange” was transformational in both directions
To Europe from the AmericasSilver, gold, tobacco, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squashes, corn, cassava, chocolate, syphilis, tomatoes, chilies, peanuts, vanilla, pineapples and huge increases (and price reductions) in sugar, coffee production.
To the Americas from EuropeEuropeans, Africans, smallpox, measles, chickenpox, influenza, typhus, diptheria, tuberculosis, cholera, plague, scarlet fever, whooping cough, malaria, alcohol, new technology, barley.
Nunn and Qian, “The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food and Ideas, Journal of Economic Perspectives ” (Spring 2010)
Also Marcy Norton, Sacred Gifts, Profane Pleasures, (Cornell 2008)
The Future is Now• Christianity holds from Biblical sources that God gave man “dominion over the earth” and humans are thus both separate from nature and superior to it.
• This extended to a (convenient) belief that Indigenous peoples did not exercise this dominion because they were “heathen savages” and mistakenly (or deliberately) believed not to cultivate land, and they were therefore not ‐‐ and could not be – the real owners of the land.
The Doctrine of Discovery
• Papal “Bulls” of the 15th century gave Christianexplorers the right to claim lands they “discovered.”
• Any land that was inhabited by pagans was available to be “discovered,” claimed, and exploited.
• If the “pagan” inhabitants could be converted, their lives might be spared. If not, they could simply be enslaved or killed, as less‐than‐human creatures
To the EnglishThe Indigenous Peoples hid in a Hideous Wilderness
“... a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men...”‐‐ William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation. 1620‐1647 Pilgrim Leader
“The wilderness is a harbour where it is impossible to find [our dreadful enemy]…I am but a feller of trees. A cultivator of land, the most honourable title an American can have.”‐‐ Letters from an American Farmer, Letter XII. J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, 1782
“God, when he gave the world ... to all mankind, commanded Man also to labour ... [and to] subdue the earth, i.e. improve it … He that, in obedience to this .... subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby [made it] his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him.”‐‐ John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 1690
The Hideous Wilderness
“God, when he gave the world ... to all mankind, commanded Man also to labour ... [and to] subdue the earth, i.e. improve it ...”
“He that, in obedience to this .... subdued, tilled and sowed any part of it, thereby [made it] his property, which another had no title to, nor could without injury take from him.”
John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, 1690
To the English
Language: “bewildered”; “babe in the woods”; “not yet out of the woods”
Susannah Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush (1832) saw (with pleasure) “the forests have been converted to fruitful fields”
But even among the English, some found forest life with “the savages” infinitely more attractive than their English lives.
The Future is Now
The Seductive Powers of the Wilderness
• Eunice Williams taken in raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, 1703 ‐‐ The Unredeemed Captive. John Demos, Vintage Books, New York 1995
• Mary Jemison, taken 1758
• Prisoner redemption after Pontiac’s War.
• “When white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, in a short time they become disgusted with our manner of life and ... there is no reclaiming them.”
Benjamin Franklin, 1753
To the English
To all the European authorities, this was a
Very. Dangerous. Notion.
After all,
“One might lose one’s cultural bearings and lapse into the savagery Europeans proudly
claimed they had left behind ...”
The French Perception of the ‘wilderness’
A place of adventure so attractive the coureurs des bois (runners of the woods) were made illegal
"[...] our entire French youth is planning to go trading ...”
Jesuit Priest Le Mercier, 1653
The Future is Now
The French Perception of the ‘wilderness’
Intendant Duchesneau wrote Minister of Marine Colbert, estimating at 500 to 600 the number of men who were away from the colony at the time, not taking into account those "who leave every day“ and that the absence of men capable of working was ruining the colony.
The Future is Now
The French Perception of the ‘wilderness’
“ça ruine la colonie, parce que cesont les plus capables de travaillerqui abandonnent leurs femmes et enfants, la culture des terres et le soin ...”
November 10, 1679
The Future is Now
Penalties for unlicensed coureurs‐de‐bois
Louis XIV decreed in 1681:
The number of annual trading leaves limited to 25.
It was forbidden to give a leave to the same individual for two consecutive years.
Flogging for the first offence (trading without a license)
A second offender would be branded with the fleur de lys
The sentence for a third offence was life in the galleys.
However, apparently in spite of all the efforts of past authorities, Indigenous culture was and remains an essential, usually unrecognized but vital part of
everyday Canadian life:
Canada, Quebec, Toronto, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nunavut, Napanee, Cataraqui,
Gananoque, Miramichi …Canoes, Kayaks, Snowshoes, Parkas, Mukluks …
The Future is Now
Leadership of Haudenosaunee, Anishinabe Peoples:By persuasion, not top‐down hierarchical, esp. in war
War:“...neither profit nor the desire to extend boundaries, but rather vengeance, caused fairly frequent hostilities between native groups.”
Military Experts in mobility, surprise, ambush.
Torture a test of endurance:“... To die in this manner is, among the savages, to die as a great captain and as a man of great courage.”
‐‐ Le Clercq. New Relation of Gaspesia
Politics: very sophisticated negotiators
The Iroquois League – Haudenosaunee Hiawatha Belt
Algonkian/Iroquois cultural zones
# of nations in the northeastern woodlands
People of the Northeastern Woodlands
The Haudenosaunee – The Longhouse People
• 6 Nation Iroquois League/Confederation
– Created before contact ca. 1200‐1400 C.E. (5 nations)– The Great (democratic) Law of Peace: Gayanashagowa– Deganawida/Hiawatha tradition legend– Women selected male representatives for clan, nation, league councils and had the power to remove/replace them.
– Rape was virtually unknown– Originally Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, Onondaga, Seneca, – Tuscarora refugees from south allowed to join (1720)– 49 reps from Clan, Nation Councils met annually at Onondaga– Major Decisions made by consensus
Edge of the Forest Ceremony
The legend of the founding of the Iroquois League took place during a gathering around a fire “at the edge of the woods,” between “the thorny underbrush” and “the cleared land.”
“ ... The ways are bad and ... The Bushes ware out your Cloths.”Shawnee welcoming speech, Susquehanna River, 1707“ ...
“Many sorts of evils might have befallen you by the way which might have been hurtful ... For the woods are full of Evil Spirits ...”
Tanaghrisson, Iroquois Chief, Logstown council, 1748
Into the American Woods, James H. Merrell, W.W. Norton, 1999
Indigenous North America
So, at the beginning of our story about how we got to where we are in Canada,
Rumours are sweeping quickly through the forests, of ugly, bearded white men who have very few women, who come in huge canoes with amazing metal weapons and shiny metal kettles and countless other wondrous things. But perhaps they are not so bright, after all, for they are scrawny, do not know what to eat here, and give the best trade goods when they are offered used clothes (castor gras)!
Tragically, accompanying these marvelous and desirable things and inseparable from them come four old world apocalyptic horsemen
Horrible, catastrophic, plagues, land greed, alcohol, conquest.
Like a drop of gasoline spreading on water, the way of life of Indigenous Peoples in North America instantly begins to change, forever.
The Future is NowBut the real edge of the forest where fate ruled was
invisible, concealingThe Great Dying
• In 2019 researchers concluded that by 1600 C.E. (ie. Just one century after contact):
Roughly 90% of the Indigenous population of the Americas had died from European diseases
The Future is NowThe Great Dying
• This research group concluded the impact on carbon sink vegetation changes (farms abandoned and returning to forest) likely contributed to the so‐called “mini‐Ice Age”
• Alexander Koch et al, “Earth Science Impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492,” Quaternary Science Reviews, 207 (2019) 13‐36
The Future is Now
North America 1492 : 3.8 million Indians, 0 Europeans 1800 : 1 million Indians, 4.4 million Europeans/AfricansBased on Denevan in Canadian Environmental History, p. 95 and www.populstat.info/
Mi’kmaq 1492 : 26‐35,000 Virginia Miller, Ethnohistory 23 (1976) 1611: 4,000 (total New France) Pierre Biard, Jesuit Relations, Vol. II
New World 1492 – 60.5 million Indians 1650 – 5.7 million IndiansDenevan in Canadian Environmental History, p. 95
Treaty Histories:The Longhouse ‐‐ Hiawatha Belt
Peace and Unity Treaty negotiated among 5 of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) nations ca: 1200‐1400 CE. Followed by treaties with European nations and the addition of Tuscaroras (1722) to make a Six Nation Confederacy.
Seneca Cayuga
Onondaga
MohawkOneida
Other Early Treaties affecting Canada
• The Mi’kmaq and Maliseet (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and New England) also have a history of treaty making with other Aboriginal nations that pre‐dates European arrival in North America.
Treaty Histories affecting and (to some extent) distinguishing modern Canada
–1493 Doctrine of Discovery (not a Treaty)• Papal Bull Inter Caetera – never repealed• Australia Terra Nullius ‐‐ struck down 1992
–USA 1823 Marshall decision reaffirms Doctrine of Discovery ‐‐ opens US west to “Christian” settlers
–1613 Two‐Row Wampum Treaty • (Dutch/Haudenosaunee)
It is said that, each nation shall stay in their own vessels, and travel the river side by side. Further, it is said, that neither nation will try to steer the vessel of the other, or interfere or impede the travel of the other.
The Two Row Wampum is a treaty of respect for the dignity and integrity of the other culture and stresses the importance of non‐interference of one nation in the business of the other, unless invited.
The early principles established in the Two Row Wampum Treaty formed the basis of all Haudenosaunee treaties with other Nations, including the Dutch, the French, the British, and then the Americans [and Canadians].
http://www.degiyagoh.net/guswenta_two_row.htm
Treaty Histories
Treaty Histories
• 1664 Albany Treaty (British/Haudenosaunee) Expanded Two‐Row Wampum Treaty into the Great Covenant Chain (first rope, then iron chain, then silver chain)
– The Chain was often “tarnished” by one side or other’s failure to abide by terms but many times “polished” again and renewed at Councils
The Great Covenant Chain
• 1753 Mohawks announced on behalf of the Confederacy that they considered that the Treaty Chain had been broken by the British
• The Great Congress of 1754 at Albany was held by the British to restore it– The British needed Indigenous alliances to help defeat the French in the looming Seven Years’ War
The Great Covenant Chain
KIng Hendrick Sir William Johnson
Molly and Joseph Brant
The Great Covenant Chain
The Silver Covenant Chain of Peace and Friendship Belt
Presented by the First Nations of Canada by National Chief Shawn A-in-chut Atleo to the Crown representatives The Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper and His Excellency the
Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada
January 24, 2012 Crown - First Nations Gathering
The Great Covenant Chain
According to Haudenosaunee oral history, “this relationship will be everlasting for future generations as the rising faces of our new born on Mother Earth will benefit. It shall stand as long as the sun shines upon the earth, as long as the waters flow, and as long as the grass grows green. Our relationship shall be binding, as long as the Mother Earth is in motion.” The relationship and commitment was repeated by Crown representatives in future dealings with all First Nations of Canada.
Treaty Histories
• From what is known to date, the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet first entered into a treaty with the British Crown with the Treaty of 1725, signed at Boston.
• The treaty signed at Boston in 1725 and all subsequent treaties were “Treaties of Peace and Friendship.” The treaties did not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognized Mi’kmaq and Maliseet land title and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship.
Treaty of 1725• “… Saving unto the Penobscot, Narridgewalk And other Tribes [including Mi’kmaq] within His Majesties Province aforesaid and their Natural descendants respectively All their Lands liberties & properties not by them Conveyed or sold to, or possess’d by any of the English …”
• From 1725/6 many more treaties (perhaps 30) with Mi’kmaq before Confederation
Treaty Histories
• Subjects of the Crown?
“You [Governor Dongan] say we are Subjects to the King of England and Duke of York, but we say, we are Brethren.” Onondaga Sachem, 1684, quoted in Cadwallader Colden, A History of
the Five Indian Nations of Canada, 1747
“His Majesty, by commanding a Treaty and League to be made with the Indians, esteemed them the friends and allies of his people in America, and not as subjects to the Crown of Great Britain.”
Lt. Gov. Broughton of South Carolina, 1736, quoted in Francis Jennings, The Ambiguous Iroquois Empire.
Kahnawake Treaty 16 Sept 1760
Treaty of Alliance, not of land surrender.
Seven (Canadian) Indian Nations permitted free and unrestricted access to trade between Montreal and Albany
Lt‐Gov. Gage restricted access until ordered by General Amherst to respect the terms of the Treaty.
“ … Englishman!‐‐Your king has never sent us any presents, nor entered into any treaty with us. Wherefore he and we are still at war; and, until he does these things, we must consider that we have no other father, nor friend, among the white men, then the king of France …”
Minavavana’s speech to Alexander Henry, 1761
MINWEWEH (“the one with the silver tongue,” Menehwehna, Minavavana, Ninãkon), Ojibwa chief, also known as Le Grand Sauteuxbecause of his six‐foot height; b. c. 1710; d. 1770.
The Future is Now
• 1763 Royal Proclamation (George III)
• Proclaimed during Pontiac’s War
• Legally, it is still in force and considered to have repudiated the Doctrine of Discovery (and terra nullius). It is now enshrined in Canada’s Constitution – considered to be the Indigenous “Magna Carta”
The Future is Now
Royal Proclamationcontributedsignificantly tocolonial unrestleading to theAmerican Revolution
Treaty Histories1763 Royal Proclamation (George III)
All land is considered Indian land until ceded by treaty to the Crown (not to settlers or speculators)
“We do hereby strictly forbid, on Pain of Our Displeasure, all Our loving Subjects from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever, or taking Possession of any of the Lands above reserved, without Our especial Leave and Licence for that Purpose first obtained.”
Treaty Histories• The document is referred to in s.25 of the
CONSTITUTION ACT, 1982.
• “This provision confirms that there is nothing in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms to diminish the rights and freedoms that are recognized as those of aboriginal peoples by the Royal Proclamation.”
Treaty Histories• American Revolution (1775‐83) permanently ruptures Haudenosaunee Confederacy
• Oneidas, Tuscaroras side with Americans
• Mohawks, Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas stay with British – Particularly Mohawks, led by Molly and Joseph Brant– Haudenosaunee homeland south of Lake Ontario is torched by General Sullivan’s campaign 1779
Treaty HistoriesMid‐war, because of his war leadership, Joseph Brant persuaded Military Governor of Quebec General Frederick Haldimand to write a letter promising on behalf of the British Government to restore the Mohawks to their status before the war.
Brant thus won the postwar Grand River land grant for his people (Now the Six Nations Reserve)
Crawford Treaty 9 October 1783also known as the “Gunshot Treaty”
• Differing Interpretations:–Major Crawford: “All the lands from Toniata(Gananoque) to a river in the Bay of Quinte within 8 leagues of the bottom of the bay”
–Mississauga Sachems’ Recollection: all land within hearing of a gunshot
Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation [Crawford Purchase]
The First Nation claims that compensation was never paid for lands that the government took improperly in 1783. It also alleges that the government breached its fiduciary duty and that the First Nation suffered damages from misrepresentation and equitable fraud in the government’s failure to compensate the First Nation for its interest in the land.A planning conference was held in July 1998. In September 1998, the First Nation requested that the claim be put in abeyance while its Toronto Purchase claim is under consideration. The Toronto Purchase claim remains in negotiation.
Explore Early Kingston
The Walking Purchase, 1737
Tyendinaga Grant 1793
Crawford Purchase1783 (Gunshot Treaty)
This is a guide to lands covered by the major "Indian Treaties" in Ontario, according to one Ontario government interpretation of the documents. The true legal meaning and boundaries of these agreements is subject to debate; this map should be understood as a reference guide only and does not represent an opinion on particular agreements. For texts of the Treaty documents themselves, see Canada, Indian Treaties and Surrenders
http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/ENGLISH/aborige/appmap2.htm#C
Grand River Reserve(Haldimand Grant) 1784
Gradual Civilization Act 1857
• Designed to “encourage civilization, remove all legal distinctions from other Canadians, integrate them fully into Canadian society,” the Act in fact created legal distinctions of who was an Indian and who was not, and stated that Indians could not be given all the rights and priviledges of European Canadians until:
Reserves were mostly left alone (self‐governing) until 1869
Gradual Civilization Act 1857
• The person could read and write, was free of debt and of good moral character – then given land and after a further year of probation could vote.
• Many, if not most “white” Canadians could not meet this standard at the time.
• “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
– George Orwell, Animal Farm
Treaty Histories1857 Gradual Civilization Act (United Province of Canada) not a negotiated treaty – formalized and empowered colonial government assimilation efforts
• Enfranchisement of any Indians who renounced Indian status (with conditions)
• Entitled to 50 acres of reserve land and an annuity• Unconcerned with reserve governance
• Reserves were mostly left alone (self‐governing) from 1815 until 1869
The Future is Now• 1867 Confederation: Constitution Act Section
91/24
• Formally assigns jurisdiction over “Indians and lands reserved for Indians” to Federal Government
• Not only reserve lands, but no mention of Métis or off‐rez – 2016 Supreme Court decision includes them: “all Indians”
• No negotiations with Indigenous peoples of Canada (or even significant discussion)
• A resilient people: Today, 600+ different bands of Indigenous peoples are recognized in Canada – a population of 1.6 M out of 37.5 M
• The Indigenous population is one of the fastest growing demographics in the country – some suggest there will be a majority of Indigenous peoples in the province of Saskatchewan within a generation
• Many appalling abuses of the past have been officially acknowledged by the Federal government and the recent Truth and Reconciliation Report called the treatment of this minority group in Canada a “cultural genocide.”
• This of course does not include The Great Dying
• For the official position and statements of the Government of Canada on this issue, go to the web location of the Federal Department of Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs at:
https://www.rcaanc‐cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1307460755710/1536862806124
