Category Archives: Colonialism

Very Big lies: White Superiority and the Doctrine of Discovery

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Hate, Indigenous People After Contact

 

 

When European settlers came to Canada, they brought with them a lot of lies. They packed lies you might say. One of the big ones was the doctrine of discovery.

 

As Tanya Talaga said on the CBC documentary Spirt to Soar,

“When the settlers came to our lands they brought with them many stories of falsehoods. The most harmful being the doctrine of discovery-–terra nullius. With lands belonging to no one, this justified the theft and discover of our homelands. But the land belonged to someone. We were here. We are still here.”

This reminded me of a recent television series I watched called The English. In that series  the villains included a group of Mennonites who had come to settle Kansa in 1800s. The English woman in the series asked the Mennonites why they were there? “Do you not realized people live here”, she asked. The Mennonites were shocked. How could their good intentions be questioned?  The replied, “God sent us.”  That was all they said. They never considered that they might be trespassing on land of others. Such an idea never entered their minds.

I actually think there was another doctrine–at least as harmful as the Doctrine of Discovery and closely related to it. That was the doctrine of white supremacy.  It held that whites were superior to all other races. All other races are inferior. This reminded me, obliquely, of my inferior tour. It was inferior not just in the sense of being puny, but also in the sense of any lingering sense of superiority I might have. I have been trying to oust this pernicious doctrine from my soul. It is not easy. The doctrine of white supremacy is entirely irrational, but that does not make it any less real. Anyone who benefits from doctrine must renounce it. Justice, fairness, and reason all demand it.

Both doctrines were lies—very big lies.

According to Jody Porter, CBC reporter in the film, Spirit to Soar, “there is a sense in this town [Thunder Bay] that you don’t have to account for these things.” That is what privilege is all about. That is what makes Thunder Bay the Hate capital of Canada. Those who have white supremacy deep in their souls often do not recognize that it is there. They are blind to it. They accept the benefits of privilege and look down on its victims, if they notice them at all. That is the spirit that does not soar. That is the spirit that leads to hate.

 

 

Predators and Prey in the Hate Capital of Canada

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Hate, Indigenous People After Contact

Beautiful Ground along Superior North Shore

I blogged earlier about the Hate Capital of Canada. As I returned on my jaunt to Thunder Bay I want to return to that subject as well.

There is a story in Thunder Bay that if you die in the water you deserve that kind of death. 7 indigenous teens had gone missing in Thunder Bay from 2000 to 2011. The indigenous community was deeply disturbed by what happened. Canadian society not so much. 5 of the  teens were later found dead in rivers in and around Thunder Bay. Did any of them deserve that fate?  I could not fathom such a thought. As Tanya Talaga who wrote a book about this series of events called 7 Fallen Feathers, and producer of the show Spirit to Soar, said this, ‘our youth must come alone to Thunder Bay just to go to school in a city where First Nations people have faced racism. Racism that kills.” That is often a traumatic experience for young children. They come to a city where as many have said racism was rampant and are there alone without their families because they want to go to school. The lovely city of Thunder Bay has been called the hate crime capital of Canada! Imagine if your grade nine indigenous student daughter [or son] flew in from up north all by herself. Would you be terrified?

Yet hundreds of indigenous youth make that trip each year. It made me think about the crocodiles that travel each year to the Mara Mara River in Africa to meet, greet, and eat wildebeests and zebras. The poor beasts must face a horrifying number of deadly predators, yet they plunge into the river in a desperate effort to get across the river and join the herd on a search for spring grasses. Is that how it is with these  young indigenous children who want to get an education so badly they are willing to go to the Hate Capital of Canada to get it. And inevitably they go alone leaving protective families far behind.

First Nations communities repeatedly called for investigations into the deaths of these 7 fallen feathers.   The Chief of the local First Nation asked Talaga why she was not writing a story about Jordan Wabasse the 7th of the missing students.

Talaga did write a book about those events and then discussed some of the issues again in the 2018 CBC Massey Lectures.

The deaths are part of the colonial history of Canada which our political leaders have denied. And this is not ancient history. This is recent history. It is ongoing.

According to Talaga each death was investigated and pronounced accidental or undetermined. She says the investigations were inadequate. No one was ever charged for any of those crimes.

This also reminded me of the fate of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls in Canada.  It goes on an on. Predators find the vulnerable victims. Often, like the zebras and wildebeest in Africa come to the crocodiles, the women prey come to the predators. When will this ever end? It will come to an end only when Canadian society takes this problem seriously. Only when Canadians look at themselves critically and say, ‘enough is enough.’ This must stop.

 

 

It’s all about the Land

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous--Reconciliation

 

 

North Shore of Lake Superior

My drive along the north shore of Lake Superior was stunning. It was a cloudy day. Not good for scenic vistas, but great for the fantastic colours of  autumn foliage. I was in heaven. At least so it felt. I made many stops to photograph what I saw. And it was never enough. The land was beautiful. As John Denver said, “It’s almost heaven.”

 

In the film Colonization Road, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, a writer and academic says we are not having the right conversations in Canada because even when we talk about reconciliation we don’t talk about land. According to indigenous people and the European settlers and their political representatives, the treaties were about land. Land was the foundation of it all. How would the land be shared? That was the nub and too many people have forgotten this. As she said,

“We are talking about reconciliation, but we are not talking about land. We are talking about murdered and missing indigenous women and girls but we are not talking about the land. Where the root cause of every issue that indigenous people are facing right now in Canada right now comes from dispossession and erasure and it comes from the system of settler colonialism that keeps us in an occupied state.”

 

As Hayden King said in the film,

” Y’know the land is the basis of the Canadian economy. Indigenous peoples have been kicked off the land, dispossessed of it, to make way for the Canadian economy…The objective is to get rid of the Indian. And traditionally the method has been very overt. ‘We’re going to eradicate your culture, we’re going to eradicate your language, we’re going to get you off the land. We’re going to separate you from your family and your communities. We have today a different form of trying to kill the Indian. Canada has been very sneaky with the institutional and legal tools it’s used to kind of push the native people out of the way.”

 

 

 

Teika Newton made a very another important point. She said,

“The creation of Canada is something that has been very violent. It’s been violent consistently towards indigenous women and it’s been very violent consistently towards the land. They didn’t see the poetry in our language. They didn’t see our children and our old people as being valuable. They saw resources. They saw money.”

 

As the Eagles said in that magnificent song, aptly titled ‘The Last Resort,”

 

Some rich men came and raped the land
Nobody caught ’em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes
And Jesus people bought ’em
They called it paradise
The place to be.
They watched the hazy sun
Sinking in the sea.

 

Many indigenous people, like Chief Al Hunter, believe the Canadian extractive economy has mined the natural resources with few long-term benefits, particularly to indigenous people. It is a boom and  bust economy. As he said, reversing an old cliché, “It’s short-term gain for long term pain.”

 

Churches

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Catholic Church, Colonialism, expansive religion, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Religion and Philosophy, racism, White Supremacy

 

 

 

I really like to photograph churches. I loved the little St. Jerome Church nestled in colourful trees beside the Pays Platt River in northwest Ontario on the land of the Plays Platt First Nation. I also loved the little river nearby and I stopped to photograph the church and the river.

The beauty of the church and the scene though belies some uncomfortable truths. Religion among First Nations peoples has been fraught, at least ever since they had contact with Europeans who believed that Indigenous religions were heathenish and unworthy of serious consideration. The newcomers were quick to try to convert them to the “superior” religions of the western nations. It was all part of the colonial attitudes. In many cases conversions were very “successful” in that the First Nations people in many cases because staunch members of the new faith. Many of the indigenous people were always willing to try something new when it came to spirituality. For some members of First Nations peoples however they never lost their indigenous religion.  In my view there was much in the Indigenous religion that was very worthy of respect, notwithstanding the lack of respect from many Christians.

Jay Miller in that wonderful book edited by Betty Ballantine and Ian Ballantine, The Native Americans an Illustrated History, described the relationship between the Jesuits and indigenous people of the northeast of North America this way:

“At the same time that the growth of the fur trade was making its inroads into native lifeways, the Christian religion, with the Jesuits at the forefront, was making its self-righteous, moral attack on the Indians. Indeed, of all the events transpired to affect the natives of Canada, none was more climactic than the Jesuit mission. Although natives responded genuinely and openly to this religious Jesuit message, they did so from an innate respect for each person’s religious beliefs. Yet they were utterly baffled by the initial insensitivity with which it was conveyed.”

 

In time the Jesuits got smarter. After all they were often intelligent and well-educated men. They did their best to learn from their mistakes. They even tried, to some extent,  to learn from the people they were trying to convert. It is unfortunate that more Christians were not able to realize that there was a lot to be learned from the indigenous people of Canada. The history of Canada might have been very different than it was.

Pays Plat 51 Reserve: Where the water is shallow

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, New Attitude to Nature

Pays Plat River Northwest Ontario

There are an amazing number of First Nations in this region of Northwest Ontario through which I traveled. One I had never heard of before was the Pays Plat First Nation. It is a small first nation near Rossport, my final destination on this trip. According to the First Nation’s website, The Pays Plat 51 reserve is in the boundary of the territory described in Robinson Superior Treaty of 1850. The community is now found alongside the Trans-Canada highway.  I stopped because it had a lovely little river with a church beside it. How could I resist photographing it?

The ancestors of the current first nation survived by hunting, fishing, and trapping. It was deeply involved in the fur trade. The name “Pays Plat”  comes from the French and means flat land. It is between 2 mountains. Modest sized mountains of course, as befits Ontario.

In the Anishinaabemowin language, the community is known as Baagwaashiing which means “Where the water is shallow.” To me the little village was a delight.

The Robinson Treaties, of 1850 also known as the Robinson-Huron and Robinson-Superior Treaties saw Canada secure almost all of northwest Ontario for settlement and resource development. New in these agreements were provisions made for reserves based on sites chosen by Indigenous leaders. These Robinson Treaties  are credited with laying the foundation for what later became known as Western Canada’s Numbered Treaties. Treaty making during this period was not just confined to the eastern and central areas of what would become Canada.

 

 

A treaty is a legally binding agreement outlining the rights and duties of its signatories and is protected by international law. Negotiated and agreed to by two or more sovereign nations, treaties are formal agreements used to reinforce and protect relations between those parties.

In North America, Indigenous societies and colonial powers often held divergent traditions and understandings on the composition and structure of these agreements. These understandings were informed by their own social, political and economic norms. Far from homogenous, pre-colonial laws, customs, and practices informed Indigenous treaty agreements, like that in Gusweñta. Many of these principles were shared among Indigenous nations, ensuring that all parties upheld their obligations. Many Indigenous nations recognize this treaty legacy and continue to advocate that the original intent of these agreements with the Crown, and then Canada, be honoured.

 

Conflict between competing empires often made its way to North America, and almost always involved Indigenous peoples. The French and British each had their supporting allies among the indigenous people. The Great Peace of Montreal serves as but one example of an agreement that brought to a close prolonged periods of conflict. Signed in 1701 between New France and forty (40) Indigenous groups of Central and Eastern North America. This treaty ushered in several years of peace. Treaties such as this lay the groundwork for peace and cooperation between colonial powers and the areas Indigenous populations, and were tested and fractured time and again when European rivals clashed overseas and brought their conflict to the Americas.

Key differences in treaty making during each of these phases is a direct result of the economic, political, and social dynamics that emerged as colonial and later state powers competed for control of the continent. As trade relations, wartime diplomacy, increasing land settlement pressures, and resource development increased, so too did the need for officials to deal with the question of Indigenous land title. As Leanne Betasamosake Simpson said, treaties were always about land.

 

And what struck me most on this jaunt through God’s country was that the land was beautiful. Unbelievably beautiful. Worth cherishing. I am not always sure that Canada appreciated how the land should be cherished. Canadians by and large wanted to exploit the land, not cherish it. I am not sure that was always the right approach. Often I think we need a new attitude to nature. I have blogged about that. I want to blog a lot more about that. I think it is a crucial concept.

 

Wampum Belt: We’’ll Work Together

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, autumn, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties, Indigenous--Indian Act

 

 

On my jaunt past Thunder Bay I started to see a few red maples.  What says autumn more than a red maple? We get very few of these wonderful autumn leaves of red maples in Manitoba. In fact, to my surprise, since I know there are some just past Kenora, I was surprised that I did not encounter these until I was past Thunder Bay. But eventually they were evident in all of their splendour.

 

The Two Row Wampum Belt of the Haudenosaunee people, also known as that Iroquois, is a great example that illustrated one way that Indigenous peoples recorded and preserved their laws and government systems. The Two Row Wampum Belt is made from either whelk shell, quahog, or hard shell clams. The belt’s rows of cylindrical purple and white beads are bound together with hemp that runs its full length. It was these belts and their intricate beadwork designs that served as the foundation for all other treaties and agreements between the Haudenosaunee and the colonial representatives.

 

2 row Wampum Belt

In addition to confirming an individual’s credentials and authority, these belts also served as one of the first methods used to document oral agreements. Today, they also act as evidence of pre-existing Indigenous diplomatic relationships. Wampum belts were used as mnemonic devices to record important events and were often brought out for official gatherings and sacred ceremonies. Indigenous laws were also recorded within the patterns on these belts. Items like masks, medicine bundles, birch bark scrolls, petroglyphs, and button blankets, although primarily spiritual in nature, could also record and preserve legal traditions.

Named Gusweñta, this two-row wampum belt serves as a symbolic and binding agreement that was made in 1645 between Haudenosaunee leaders and Dutch colonial officials. When the Dutch began making incursions into Haudenosaunee territory, Mohawk runners traveled to Onondaga to request a meeting among the Haudenosaunee leadership to determine how to deal with these new uninvited guests. This belt represents the outcome of subsequent meetings between Haudenosaunee representatives and Dutch officials. Like other wampum belts, this living treaty is made of purple and white wampum beads. The three rows of white beads each represent the shared tenants of friendship, peace, and forever. The two parallel rows of purple represent two vessels. One row embodies the Haudenosaunee, their people and their life ways. The other row stands for the Dutch, their people and their life ways.

 

Later other First nations adopted the wampum belts as well.

The image on the wampum belt was two boats on the same river. Pam Palmater in the film Colonization Road gave one of the best explanations of  the wampum belt:

“The whole Wampum belt concept of we’ll work together, we’ll share this place, but I will steer my boat and you will steer yours, and never will we try to interfere with one another. I think that’s the most critical fundamental message that has since been recognized by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It’s basically self-determination. Recognizing however whatever English word you want to use nationhood, sovereignty, self-determination. It’s we will take care of ourselves, and govern ourselves and you do your business and we’ll work along cooperatively in the areas that we have to. And what a wonderful vision for Canada. And I think that is the original vision. We don’t need any new ideas to save Canada, we just need to go back to that original wampum belt, and recognizing each other’s abilities to govern ourselves and protect one another.”

 

But sadly, that was not the vision of the Canadian government. Immediately after the first treaties were signed it enacted the Indian Act to impose its vision of how the “Indians” should conduct their affairs in this white system and foisted it upon them without their consent. The vision of the government was that European whites were superior, and Indians should assimilate with them. They should become like us. They should do things our way. Many non-indigenous people still believe this. They should do things our way, because we know best what’s good for all of us. But it is not what Indigenous people wanted and was not what they thought they had agreed to.

 Indigenous people began to see colonialism as the whites putting their foot on the throats of indigenous people. And they believe that is ongoing to this day. That of course is what the Indian Act is all about. It is about dominance.

Meandering in God’s country: Sacred Treaties

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties

 

The land and lakes around Thunder Bay are extraordinarily beautiful. I made many stops to photograph them. It really did feel like I was meandering in God’s country.

In the morning in Thunder Bay after my first night on this inferior jaunt to Superior, in the breakfast room of my hotel, I met a couple from Steinbach. It is a small world. They were also visiting to see the autumn colours. I met a nurse from North Vancouver who heard me complaining about hotel prices in Thunder Bay. She said if I could not find a place, I could bunk in with her. She was either the nicest or most naïve woman around, or perhaps she was overwhelmed with my good looks and charm. I later told Christiane she should be paying me more respect as I was obviously a very desirable man. She seemed entirely unimpressed.

 

Cuyler Cotton in the film Colonization Road had some interesting things to say about indigenous relations with settlers.  He said, “the lesson of the treaties is that we have a deal. We have a sacred agreement you and I, that we’re supposed to live here together in this place for as long as the waters run.”

It is also noteworthy that the treaties were hard bargained. The First Nations were shrewd negotiators. Some think they were in a weak position. If that is true, and I don’t think they were, they sure managed to bargain well. Both parties got a good deal. Sadly, one side, Canada, often did not live up to its bargain. It has not always been honourable. The honour of the crown has often been threadbare.

Those treaties were written in English, but also contained indigenous elements. They were only written in English because the First Nations had largely unwritten languages. But the treaties included things like a Wampum Belt. It is not a European custom to have such things in treaties.

For example, according to Palmater,  “the Treaty of Niagara wampum belt is a founding document of this country and should be treated as such.” This is what the Canadian Encyclopedia says about it:

 

“In July and August 1764, sir William Johnson and approximately 2,000 people, representing approximately 24 First Nations, met at Niagara to discuss an “alliance with the English.” The discussion led to the acceptance of the Royal Proclamation of 1763. It also included one of the first land cessions under the Royal Proclamation’s protocols, a return of prisoners, and an accepted British presence in the Great Lakes area. The resulting treaty was recorded in wampum. In the contemporary era, the 1764 Treaty of Niagara is not recognized by the Canadian government but is seen as a foundational document by First Nations for all subsequent relations and treaties.”

 

When the English conquered New France in 1760, England realized it had to ensure a peaceful settlement with First Nations of the regions. It could not afford the ruinously expensive “Indian Wars” the Americans became engaged in. In 1763 the British built numerous forts throughout their newly acquired territory. England also signalled its “Indian policies” in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and it instructed Sir William Johnson the superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies to establish peace with those first nations. He spread around the Royal Proclamation with wampum strings among First Nations from Nova Scotia to Hudson Bay and even to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Americans hated the Royal Proclamation  because it claimed that they could not acquire land east of the Mississippi except through the British Crown and this would hamper its expansionary desires. Some American elites like George Washington for example, amassed astonishing fortunes doing exactly that. Others wanted to do exactly the same thing. As a result, the Royal Proclamation was instrumental in leading to the War of Independence a few years later.

Johnson presented the Proclamation to the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in December of 1763 and called for a congress in Niagara in the summer of 1764.

As the Canadian Encyclopedia said,

“The First Nations who agreed to the Niagara Treaty fought as allies with the British in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Indigenous involvement in both of these conflicts, particularly the latter, ensured British North America’s survival.”

 

As Assistant Professor Hayden King said, “First Nations saw the treaties as Nation to Nation.” Pam Palmater pointed out that “another really important thing about the Treaty of Niagara was that the Wampum belt was done by indigenous hands, with indigenous ceremony and indigenous intentions, and there is no misinterpretation about what that belt means.”

Niigaan Sinclair, Associate Professor of Native Studies at the University of Manitoba said, “the signing of the treaties made them family not friends.”

As Heidi Bohaker said,

“In their [indigenous peoples’] world view, people were divided into one of two categories: relatives or strangers. There wasn’t any acquaintance category. So, if you were going to trade with somebody, if you were going to engage in any kind of alliance relationship they had to become relatives. And there are all kinds of ceremonies and protocols, a law, in other words for how you brought people in, and then what rights and obligations those people had.”

 

That is how the non-indigenous settlers became relatives with indigenous people. At first there was a lot of enthusiasm for this new relationship among people in North America. Later not so much.

The Hate Capital of Canada

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Exploitation, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties

I love Thunder Bay, where I spent my first night on my inferior jaunt. It is beautiful.  Some call it God’s country.  I liked that. I was meandering through God’s Country.  But it has a dark side. It is a region of the country that has been deeply affected by racism.  Perhaps it is god-forsaken country for how could God countenance racism?

As I traveled through this beautiful country I listened to a podcast about the Thunder Bay region  on CBC radio.  Tanya Talaga was the host and one of the producers of the show. The podcast referred to Thunder Bay as the “hate capital of Canada.”    No doubt this is in part a reflection of the abundance of first nations people in the region.  As a result of deep racism in the area many people—too many people—hate the local indigenous people.  Hate of course breeds hate in the other side.  So both sides end up hating each other. What a pity. What a poor way to treat this beautiful country.

The CBC podcast referred to 7 high school students who had been attacked and murdered in the area in the recent past. Tanya Talaga the producers of the podcast also wrote a book on the subject called 7 Fallen Feathers referring to those 7 students. Thunder Bay has attracted so many indigenous youth because many of them have no choice but to go there for high school. The government in the treaties promised free education to youth of the First Nations, but often that means they must travel a considerable  distance from their home to the schools in Thunder Bay, the largest city by far in the region. Many of their communities, it is thought, are too small to support a high school. In cities like Thunder Bay many of those students have been subjected to deep racism so far from home. Many of them live alone, often torn apart by desperate loneliness. Often the students must go without the support of their families who remain back home.  As a result many of them are vulnerable and predators like nothing better than vulnerable people. Some of those students, like the 7 fallen feathers, were victimized by violence that sometimes turned lethal.

The last part of my drive into Thunder Bay was stressful. It was dark and there was a lot of traffic that moved fast.  Big trucks were rushing by. To keep going and arrive in Thunder Bay I had to push it. It started to rain and this reduced visibility on the road and made things a little a slippery. This was a mistake caused by my lack of a navigator. I missed Chris. She would normally arrange for hotel reservations as we drove and would make sure we pulled in before it was too late. I don’t like driving in the dark and the rain on holidays. It just is not necessary.

As a result, I was looking for a hotel room after 10 p.m. and of course, ended up paying too much at the Days Inn for a modest hotel room. The motel clerk just told me, “That’s Thunder Bay.” She added that the only reason that room was available was that someone had just cancelled, or they would not have even had one room.  So, under pressure, I took the room. It was high time to pack it in and I didn’t want to go room hunting at night.  Thunder Bay is on the Trans-Canada highway and the major town in the region. I really wanted to pack it in and go for dinner. It was all Chris’s fault!

I had a fine meal in a local restaurant filled with indigenous people.  Right beside me were to men with 2 lovely children with sparkling eyes.  I speculated that the younger man was the father and the elder the grandfather.  I wondered who could hate these people? How as that possible? Racism is a sword that cuts both ways, hurting the people who inflict it on others as much as the recipients. Racism diminishes all. It is an ugly scourge.

Treaty-making

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Indigenous People After Contact, Indigenous Treaties

 

Some people think Canada’s boreal forest is boring. Nothing but rocks and trees some of them say.  I think only boring people find this country boring. In Particular I love the small islands on tiny outcroppings.  I think that is the essential boreal forest. This is the country I love.

I wasn’t really thinking about treaties and indigenous settler relations all the time as I drove though eastern Manitoba and North-west Ontario. But I was always at the back of my mind.

The process of treaty making began shortly after 1867 with the negotiation of what came to be called numbered treaties. The first treaty successfully negotiated was right in the area I travelled through on my jaunt. This was Treaty One Land. It is beautiful land. It is valuable land. It should be cherished. I also drove through a substantial portion of Treaty 3 land where I happen to have a cottage on land the  Buffalo Point First Nation has developed and offered to people like me with a long-term lease. Thanks to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 declared by the British King George  no one could purchase land from First Nations, but one could acquire a leasehold interest like we did.

 

Treaty negotiations were a means for Canada and the First Nations to work out trade relations between them in a peaceful manner. First Nations though did not see what they had done as “ceding” land to the settlers. They saw it as a means of agreeing to share the land and thought each party would learn from the other. Neither would dominate. They would be partners on the land.

The Royal Proclamation was issued by King George III after concluding the 7 Years War with France.  As a result, he wanted to establish rules for how the land England had acquired would be governed.

As Pam Palmater, a brilliant Canadian indigenous lawyer has  said,

“All of our rights are inherent. That means they were here before anyone else came. And we had those rights because we were nations. And we had our own laws and our own territories. These things all belonged to us before anyone else came here. All the Royal Proclamation did was recognize that. If you read the Proclamation they say why they had to recognize those rights. It was the only way their colony could be secure, or have any justice, is if they recognized and protected those rights because we weren’t giving them up.”

 

Some people think Canada should just walk away from its obligations under those treaties. But those are contracts made between sovereign nations.  How can the government which is presumably law-abiding walk away from its own legal obligations? How can we even have the rule of law in this country if we did that? Would people who live here respect the law if the government didn’t? Those obligations and those rights Canada received as part of the bargains with First Nations were to exist “as long as the sun shines and the rivers flow.” Canada still has those obligations to this day pursuant to those treaties.  Many people think Canada is always “giving” money to First Nations people but to pay money Canada has promised to pay in return for substantial benefits which Canada continues to enjoy is not a gift.  It is the fulfilment of an obligation.

Does Canada want to give the right to share the land back?  I doubt that too many  Canadian would be in favour of that.

I know i am very happy the first nations of this wonderful country agreed to share it with Europeans.

 

The Doctrine of Discovery: Who owns the land?

2022 Inferior Trip to Superior, Colonialism, Indigenous Treaties

 

As I said earlier. I stopped at Lyons Lake right on the Ontario and Manitoba border to photograph the lake, the trees, and the autumn.  This is a photograph of a mountain maple. It is a lovely little spot.  The mountain maples of Manitoba are not as spectacular as the red and sugar maples of Ontario, but I like them. It is a more plain Jane maple, so I gussied up this photograph a bit with a double exposure of the same image in the computer. With some adjustments to each photo I like the effects you can get. Reality in art at least, in the eye of the beholder.

In the documentary film  Colonization Road I saw about this area, Professor Jeff Denis explained the Doctrine of Discovery this way in the documentary Colonization Road:

in the 15th century papal decrees of the Roman Catholic Church decreed that the first European nations to discover new lands, uninhabited by civilized people, by which they meant Christian people, or people who were not using the lands in an efficient manner as determined by Europeans, that the European nations who discovered those lands would have first dibs and sovereign ownership.

 

Really this idea was not that dissimilar from Mennonites and other settlers of the land in Canada, who believed indigenous people were not using the land so they could just take it.  Plain and simple. To them the notion of land in the natural state, without subjecting it to cultivation as in the case of grasslands, or draining wetlands, was an anathema. It was their duty to change the land and make it useful. It is part of the European attitude that nature is there for humans to dominate.  It has Biblical origins and has had powerful effects on the landscape of North America as a result. That doctrine has led to a lot of ecological harm. The indigenous people of Canada had a very different attitude to nature.  I intend to blog about it.

Eventually that doctrine of discovery was disavowed to some extent by the Catholic Church, but that did not diminish its profound influence on European colonialism. It has been cited in numerous court cases in North America. Even though it made no sense.

Here is what the doctrine provided with clear references to the fundamentals of Biblical doctrine in Psalm 72:

“He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him and his enemies shall lick the dust… Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him.”

 

In the documentary,  Professor of History Heidi Bohaker said that this doctrine was “the source of full legal title for Canada after Confederation in 1867, the Dominion of Canada. We may have forgotten in the secular age just how predominantly Christian, overwhelmingly Christian, Canada was.”And some parts of that Christianity Canada inherited was downright ugly. There really is no other way to describe it.

For 4 days on this jaunt, from Manitoba to North-west Ontario,  I drove through and photographed this land I love—Canada. It struck me that this doctrine was a pretty wobbly foundation for claiming dominion over the country over the objections of people who inhabited the land before the first Europeans arrived. Later King George III in England claimed a large portion of this land for the English crown in 1763 through a Royal Proclamation, (now called “The Royal Proclamation) but admitted indirectly that the rest of this land, basically all the land west of the Mississippi and outside of land already occupied by Europeans in 1763, belonged to indigenous people. He also said no Europeans could acquire title without acquiring it by way of agreement between the first nations involved and the English crown.  All people could then only acquire land from the Crown and were forbidden to buy land directly from indigenous people.

 

It is also a fundamental principle of English law, inherited by the country of Canada when it became an independent country in 1967, that no one could convey better title to land than he or she had. That has been a fundamental principle of Common law for centuries. So what really is the basis for Canada claiming dominion over this wonderful land? I submit the basis is shaky, except to the extent that title was obtained from the people who owned it by voluntary agreement with them. This is thorny stuff.

Yet as Professor Denis said, “That is really at the root of the Canadian legal system, the American legal system, the Australian legal system, any of those former British colonies.” I taught real estate transactions for 10 years at the Law School, and always felt the legal basis of our title at least when not based on treaties was shaky. Surely just taking it was not enough?

The fact is that Canada realized all along that this root of title in Canada on which it was relying was dubious. It was not a sound basis of developing Canada.  Canada needed a firmer legal foundation for its society. Canadian government officials saw how the Americans were struggling with this problem too and basically how they decided to base their claims on power. That is how Americans have traditionally operated. Canadians saw how that led to Indian wars in the United States. They saw how at one time that country was spending 25% of its annual revenue on these Indian wars. Canada thought it could not afford to spend so much as its wealthier neighbour to the south could spend. So, Canada sought a better way. They decided to negotiate treaties with indigenous people as a sounder and firmer foundation for title to the land. Frankly, this made a lot of sense, but there were problems with this approach as well.

The land I drove through on this trip was subject to Treaty No. 1 and Treaty No. 3 the first and third treaties negotiated by the new government of Canada.