Treaty rights cannot be separated from accompanying treaty obligations. These obligations include honouring the conditions upon which Indigenous peoples and settlers agreed to share the land.
Peace and Friendship treaties
This is reflected in the spirit of the Peace and Friendship treaties signed between British and the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet peoples. The British settlers wanted to forge military alliances with the Indigenous groups, in part due to their conflicts with French settlers in the region. The First Nations could benefit from better trade conditions, and the treaties assured that their religious practices would be undisturbed. These treaties did not involve reserves or payments. Instead, they assured peace and friendship between the signatories.
However, once European settlement increased, the colonial authority’s treaty policies shifted to less equitable actions like land surrender and resource extraction. Peaceful relations between the European groups meant fewer military threats, reducing their need for First Nation allies.
When European settlers declared Canada a country through the British North America Act (now the Constitution Act), the government legally assigned the status of Indigenous peoples as ‘wards of the state’. First Nations became subject to the Indian Act (1876) and the federal government was allotted responsibility for ‘Indians, and Lands reserved for Indians’.
In May 2019 on TVO’s current affairs program The Agenda, Steve Paikin spoke with Indigenous scholars and leaders about the Indian Act. They explained what the flawed, racist piece of colonial legislation was intended to do and what power it hold over Indigenous people in Canada. They also discuss why the Act remains important, at least at the present time, in the fight for Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty.
Panelists include: Dr. Suzanne Stewart, Douglas Sanderson, Russel Diabo, and Bob Joseph.
In 1876 when the Indian Act was written, settlers believed in the superiority of British ideals, society, and religion. “Legislators held that Aboriginal people were less developed than people of European descent, and had to be taught the ways of civilized society and be watched over by a benign guardian” (McMillan & Yellowhorn, 2005, p.319).
Based on the belief that it was Britain’s duty to bring Christianity and agriculture to the First Nations people, Indian agents working for the federal government encouraged First Nations people to abandon their ways of life and to adopt a more European life style.
In provinces west of the Maritimes, indigenous peoples faced a time of great change and upheaval, along with widespread epidemic and famine. Their leaders looked to the settler government to help them adjust to these changes in ways compatible with their societies.
Numbered treaties
To this end several groups negotiated and signed 11 ‘numbered treaties’ between 1871-1921. The treaties encompassed all of the Prairies, northern Ontario and the Peace River and Mackenzie River valleys. They enabled settlers to expand across the Prairies, build the transcontinental railway, and affirm sovereignty over much of what is now Canada. However, the Indigenous parties fared much worse. McMillan and Yellowhorn write:
“Aboriginal peoples received very little for surrendering nearly half of Canada’s land surface to the federal government. Furthermore, there appear to be great differences between what Native People were told they were signing and the actual written words of the treaties” (McMillan & Yellowhorn, 2005, p.320).
The government failed to fulfill its obligations to the Indigenous signatories. The Crown paid little attention to the needs of Indigenous peoples. Some settlers – including treaty negotiators – recognized the injustice, but the government was not willing to negotiate on a range of issues, and gave these critics little room to maneuver.
Indigenous legal scholars like John Borrows describe the different ways that the treaties were understood by signatories. For government officials, treaties seem to be largely a matter of creating the appearance of consistency for legal purposes, after which colonial policies of settlement and resource extraction could take place.
For Indigenous nations, treaties are a commitment to mutual understanding and co-existence. Borrows argues that treaties can be interpreted through this broad perspective and considered living documents that evolve and change in response to the shifting conditions of modern Canada.