Living Treaties

Marie Battiste, Marie Battiste

• Publisher: Cape Breton University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781772060553
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Sociología

First Nations, Métis and Inuit lands and resources are still tied to treaties and other documents, though their relevance seems forever in dispute. Treaties were negotiated in good faith with the objective of shared benefits to all parties and members. It is important to know about them, to read them, to hear them and to comprehend their constitutional significance in order to recognize them as part of contemporary life.Revealing another side of the treaties and their histories, Living Treaties focuses on contemporary perspectives of Mi'kmaq and their non-Mi'kmaw allies, who have worked with, experienced and lived with the treaties at various times over the last fifty years. These authors have had experiences contesting the Crown's version of the treaty story, or have been rebuilding the Mi'kmaq and their nation with the strength of their work from their understandings of Mi'kmaw history. They share how they came to know about treaties, about the key family members and events that shaped their thinking, their activism and their life's work.Having lived under the colonial regime of a not-so-ancient time, these passionate activists and allies uncover the treaties and their contemporary meanings to both Mi'kmaw and settler societies. Here also are the voices of a new generation of indigenous lawyers and academics who, credentials solidly in hand, pursue social and cognitive justice for their families and their people. Their mission: to enliven the treaties out of the caverns of the public archives, to bring them back to life and to justice; and to use them to reaffirm, restore and rebuild Mi'kmaw identity, consciousness, knowledges and heritages, as well as their connections and rightful resources to the land and ecologies.

Appendix 1

Mi’kmaw Declaration of Aboriginal Rights

From the Nova Scotia Micmac Aboriginal Rights Position Paper, (1976. Union of Nova Scotia Indians, Sydney.)

As from the Heavens flow water which creates oceans, seas, lakes, rivers and streams, it will be so that:

From Aboriginal Title Compensation, flow Aboriginal Rights, guaranteed by treaties, royal proclamation, and statute, in the areas of Social—Economic—Cultural—Educational and Political concerns, as felt and advanced by the Micmac of Nova Scotia and beyond.

The Micmac concept that the free use and occupancy of the land, air, water and its resources to maintain a Social—Economic—Cultural—Education and Political areas of Micmac life has anthropologically, historically and legally been accepted.

Acceptance that a way of life was destroyed by the denial of our treaties that guaranteed our free use and occupancy of land, air, water and its resources, which has also been proven anthropologically, historically, and legally.

Acceptance that compensation for that loss has not been fully compensated for thereby contributing to present Social—Economic—Cultural—Education and Political disadvantages facing present day Micmacs of Nova Scotia.

Full cultural, social, economic and political justice to Micmac Indians can only be served through the recognition of Aboriginal rights preserved by the treaties;

The Chiefs and Councils of the Indian Bands in Nova Scotia HEREBY RESOLVED that the Government of Canada must compensate for Micmac aboriginal title by guaranteeing, through states, Aboriginal right in the cultural, social, economic, and political fields. These Aboriginal rights must compensate for the loss of a way of life and must contribute positively to a lasting solution of cultural, social, economic and political concerns as felt and as advanced by the Micmacs of Nova Scotia.

The failure of Government to recognize and guarantee Aboriginal right will show a complete disregard for the fulfillment of its lawful and moral obligation, and will show itself as contemptuous toward the Micmacs of Nova Scotia.

The collection of archaeological, anthropological, historical and legal data contain herein will establish, by white means, what Micmacs have “felt” for centuries, social, economic and political injustices which must be compensated.

ALEX DENNY, President

Union of Nova Scotia Indians

Mi’kmaw Sagmaq (Chiefs) of federal Indian Act bands in Nova Scotia

—

From time in memory, our ancestors have lived in this land. This is our land. This is our home. Our history and our allegiance are to this land and to no other. Today we still live in this land that belonged to our ancestors that still belongs to us and that we will pass on to our children yet unborn. Our existence to this land predates the coming of European explorers and immigrant settlers. Our existence in this land predates the establishment of colonial settlements and governments from Europeans. Our existence in this land predates the Confederation of Canada.

Before the English and French came, we were here. We are a pre-Confederation nation of peoples.

Prior to the coming of the European immigrants, our ancestors exercised all the prerogatives of nationhood. We had our land and our own system of land holding. We made and enforced our own laws in our own ways. The various tribal nations dealt with one another according to accepted codes. We respected our distinctive languages. We practice our own spirituality and with it beliefs and customs. We developed our own set of cultural habits and practices according to our particular circumstances. We, in fact, had our own social, political, economic, educational, and property systems. We exercised the rights and prerogatives of a nation and the existence of a nation.

It was as a nation and treaties with the King that our ancestors dealt with the European immigrants. These treaties preserved and protected our Aboriginal rights. It is as nations we exist today. It is our desire and intent to continue to exist as a nation of Micmacs.

As nations of Indian people or Indian nation, our rights and entitlements to this land were inherited from our ancestors. Our right to the ownership of the land precede and supercede the claims upon our land by Europeans. We have prior right of ownership and entitlements to this land does not arise by virtue of any rights granted to us by foreign sovereigns of the Europeans or their succeeding government; rather, the European immigrants and their descendants live in this land by virtue of the rights we granted them. The rights granted them by treaties merely the rights to use and share the land with us.

Vast portions of this land still remain Indian land. Our continued ownership and rightful use of our land has not been terminated. Even though succeeding governments of our European immigrants attempt to dispossess us by seizing and claiming all our lands, we maintained the European peoples and their successive government have not, at any time or in any way, rightfully acquired these lands. We further maintain we are deserving of the recognition, restoration and compensation for the wrong seizure of our lands and resources thereon. We will continue to inhabit, occupy, and use these lands for our survival and subsistence according to the rights we have inherited from our ancestors.

We have paid a very grave and exorbitant price. We face the danger of being wrongfully dispossessed of much of our land; our spiritual beliefs and practices were outlawed. We were denied the use our language. Our music, dances and art were declared barbaric. We were prohibited to live and practice according to our own cultural customs. Our entire way of life, based on the land, was endangered and weaken by deliberate acts of destruction of the animals which sustained us and our movements were restricted so that our survival was made perilous and precarious.

Yet we have survived. We have not perished. We have not vanished. We are not also merely people of the past; we are of this land today; and we will be at this land in the time yet to come. Our survival in our land today is still perilous and precarious.

If we are to survive as a people in the future, to be strong and independent as we once were, we must develop and strengthen our existence with a special relationship with the European in this land today.

Therefore, let it always be known, as it has always been known and accepted by us, that we are nations of Indian people; and that we declare and proclaim a special relationship with the Canadian federation.

This is the understanding that exist in the minds and hearts of our people.

We, as a people, submit our aboriginal rights and statutory right claim as the only avenue through which the Micmacs of Nova Scotia can achieve social and economic justice. The negotiations of these claims are our future and our children’s future.

Appendix 2

Archival Research, Treaties, and the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq: Aboriginal Rights Position Paper and Acknowledgements

by Stuart Killen

Preface

The following speech by Stu Killen, former researcher to the Union of Nova Scotia Indians, was given to the chiefs and assembly during the annual meeting of the Executive and Membership of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians on September 30, 2009, at the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax. It is in reference to the Aboriginal Rights and Treaties position paper of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians paper that was presented to the Minister of Indian Affairs in Eskasoni in 1974. More than 41 years later, nothing has been done about it. Copies of the Aboriginal and Treaties claim has been deposited in the Nova Scotia Archives.

At the outset, I want to acknowledge the Mi’kmaq staff of the Union of Nova Scotia Indians, whose contributions resulted in the research that discovered the many treaties in the archives, formulated the 1976 Aboriginal Rights position paper, and provided the foundation for the litigation on Aboriginal and treaty Rights. This short essay reveals the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Narrating Mi’kmaw Treaties
• Negotiating for Life and Survival
• My Tribe, My Heirs and Their Heirs Forever
• Treaty and Mi’gmewey
• Mi’kmaw Relations
• Treaty Denied
• Memories of an ex-Indian Agent
• Alexander Denny and the Treaty Imperative
• The Personality of a Nation
• Treaty Advocacy and Treaty Imperative through Mi’kmaw Leadership
• Beyond Cultural Differences
• Racism and Treaty Denied
• Litigating Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982
• Born to Fish
• Tables, Talks and Treaties
• Becoming a Language Warrior
• Kina’matnewey Education
• Resilience and Resolution
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• About the Authors
• Index