Photo by J.P. Antonacci, Brant News
A federal Indian agent, played by Rev. Barry Pridham, pushes natives off their land during The Blanket Exercise at Sydenham Street United Church on Saturday.
J.P. Antonacci
BRANT NEWS
Ten thin blankets lying on the floor of the Sydenham Street United Church hall were the teaching aids that helped Brant residents better understand the historical plight of Canada’s native peoples.
About 15 participants walked about the blankets to begin The Blanket Exercise.
The demonstration was devised by a group called Nations United to teach natives their forgotten history and educate non-natives about injustices perpetrated against First Nations groups by European settlers and the federal government.
As the exercise wore on, the blankets were folded into smaller and smaller sections, representing the forcible confinement of natives on reserves and in residential schools.
Disease, malnourishment and loss of hunting grounds sent participant after participant out of the exercise, until what had once been a crowded floor full of territory and inhabitants turned into a sparsely populated and patchy landscape.
The compelling hands-on exercise is not designed to assign blame for past wrongs, but to raise awareness, said narrator Joan Martin.
“Your early relationships with the conquerors were characterized by co-operation and interdependence,” she told participants.
But, as the fur trade dried up and military alliances became obsolete, relations soured. Native lands were seized and treaties turned into “surrender documents.”
“Many of you lost your culture and language – some of you lost all reason to live,” Martin said.
“These are things we never heard at school,” said Anne Claus of Nations Uniting, a group that includes members of New Credit and Grand River United churches, as well as the Chapel of the Delawares.
Since 1996, the Blanket Exercise has shown thousands of people how government polices impacted Canada’s indigenous people.
Participant Joan McSpadden said she was “absolutely shocked” to learn about the policies that led to natives today having significantly lower life expectancy and employment and higher rates of poverty and incarceration than non-native Canadians.
“What I find most shocking is we haven’t learned anything from our past,” McSpadden said. “If anything, we’re worse today.”
Yvonne Wright said the exercise, which also explored how the Indian Act of 1876 turned once-sovereign people into wards of the state, illustrated “the lack of respect we give to our First Nations brothers and sisters.”
The shrinking blankets represented lost territory, but, Wright noted, “it’s not only the land that was taken away – it’s the culture.”
— Characterizing the fur trade as a successful example of natives getting along with whites is only true in a very limited sense. Indeed it was usually contact with fur traders that brought hard liquor and disease into the lives of so many natives in Appalachia ( including Iroquois territory and on down into Cherokee lands), so that many tribes were wiped out by a combination of whiskey, disease, and massacres, before the 13 colonies revolted. Native fur carriers were cheaper then mules and horses for a reason. The fur traders provided them with whiskey provided by their Scots-Irish families further down the valleys, who produced it in small pot stills from their own crops. Once these young native men tasted whiskey and it’s effect in the bodies often they were soon addicted to it. They were degenerated by whiskey and disease, their villages were often left defenseless against massacre by settlers or other Natives.
— This is documented often by the killers themselves in American history.
— So many fell at the side of the trail without any more documentation then a grunt from those who picked up their pack of furs.
— The ensuing territorial grabs by the “Orangemen from Ulster” is what gave the 13 colonies the ability to stand up against the Crown.
— It was William Penn’s secretary who invited them in and so most all of them passed through Philladelphia, to pass up rivers and across passes in Appalachia.
— No Qaukers wanted them in Philadelphia, where they were considered “white trash”.
— They did not get along with the Pennsylvania Dutch upriver, who did not approve of their wild ways, but were thankful to have them as a buffer for their farms between them and the natives. No one had wanted them in Scotland. They had been mistreated by the English and the Irish in Ireland. They were exasperated. So they were ready for murder.
— I doubt anyone will read this but I just had to put it down anyway.
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The Indians talk about European settlers and the federal government taking land from the Indians.
Well, here is something to think about.
Before most Euorpeans arrived in North America, Iroquois Indians spread out and settled along the shores of the St. Lawrence River. By the early 1600s, they were gone and had been displaced by Algonquin Indians.
Before most Euorpeans arrived in North America, the Iroquois Indians were waging wars and fighting among themselves for territory until finally they reached agreement according to the Great Law of Peace.
During the mid-1600s, the Five (later Six) Nations Iroquois fought with and defeated the Mahican, the Susquehanna, the Erie, the Miami, the Illinois and other Indian bands to conquer a large area south of the Great Lakes as far west as what is now Chicago, Illinois.
The Five (later Six) Nations Iroquois also entered what is now southwestern Ontario in the mid-1600s to kill, conquer and disperse the indigenous Neutral (Attawandaron), Petun (Tionontati, Tobacco Indians) and Huron (Wendat, Wyandot or Wyandotte) Indians who were Iroquoian people.
The Five (later Six) Nations Iroquois basicaly wiped out the Erie, the Neutral and the Petun Indians and the Iroquois would capture young Indians from other tribes and bring them back to Iroquois camps to be brought up as Iroquois.
In the mid 1690s, the Objiwa Mississauga Indians moved south, fought with the Five (later Six) Nations Iroquis, pushed them back into New York U.S.A. and took over southern Ontario.
The Ojibwa also expanded west, fought with and displaced the Lakota Sioux. The Ojibwa then expanded further west, fought with and displaced and took territory from other Indian bands all the way over to Alberta.
Not unlike many people around the world, when the Indians wanted land, they fought battles and wars and killed people to get land.
When Europeans like the French, the Dutch and the British arrived in Nort America, they began making agreements and treaties with Indians to share land and to trade with Indians.
Later, the British stsrted making agreements and treaties with Indians to obtain land. Indian chiefs agreed. They ceded land to the British Crown and, according to the treaties, the Indians gave up “all right and title” to the land they ceded to the Crown outside of Indian reserves.
No doubt the European colonists and colonial governments didn’t always do everything right but now our governments are providing apologies, settling Indian claims and providing compensation at great expense for past wrongs.
I hope the Indians and others are thinking about that.
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Please forgive the spelling mistakes in my comment above. I wish there was an edit function to make corrections.
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According their traditions and culture, individual Indians don’t own land. The land is held communally but Indians had a concept of what was their territory and what was someone else’s territory. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have fought over territory or tried to protect their territory.
And think about this when it comes to the 1763 Royal Proclamation. King George III (the Crown) of Britain issued the Royal Proclamation in 1763. In that proclamation, the Crown defined Indian Territory in North America and reserved “Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion” over that Indian Territory.
Basically, the Crown and the British took over Indian Territory and said it was “for the use of the said Indians”.
In 1764, Indian bands from all over northeastern North America signed the Treaty of Fort Niagara in which those Indians bands accepted the 1763 Royal Proclamation and agreed with the conditions in the Royal Proclamation.
Here is something else people should know about the 1763 Royal Proclamation. It says it included “all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid”.
It did not cover the British colonies on the eastern coast of North America, the maritime provinces in what is now Canada, the British Province of Quebec or Rupert’s Land (the land granted the Hudson’s Bay Company).
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By the way, Sir William Johnson sent out Indian runners with copies of the 1763 Royal Proclamation to all Indian bands in northeastern North America to encourage their Chiefs and headmen to meet at Fort Niagara in 1764.
Doesn’t that suggest that Indian chiefs and/or headmen could either read the Royal Proclamation or had Indians in their bands that could read English to understand the 1763 Royal Proclamation?
Furthermore, by the time treaties were made, the Indians had been trading with the British for over 100 years and many Indians had gone to mission schools so it would seem many should have been able to read and speak English.
And, when the treaties were made, the Indians had interpreters present, so shouldn’t the Indian chiefs and headmen have been able to understand the treaties?
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Here are some history for Indians and others to think about.
During the 1700s, the 1800s and the early 1900s the British Crown made agreements and treaties with Indian bands in what is now Canada to obtain land from the Indians.
The Indian chiefs and headmen ceded land to the Crown but chose the land they wanted to hold back (i.e. reserve) for the Indian bands. The lands Indians reserved are called Indian reserves because the Indians held back or reserved some land for the exclusive use of the Indians.
According to the treaties, the Crown paid lump sums of money and/or goods to the Indian bands to obtain the land from the Indians and, in some treaties, promised small annuities to the Indian bands and to individual Indians.
In the treaties, the Indians gave up “all right and title” to the land they ceded to the Crown outside of the reserves. In many treaties, for example, it says the Indians did “cede, release, surrender and yield up forever all their right, title and privileges whatsoever” to the land they ceded to the Crown. All treaties have a similar statement.
According to the treaties, the Crown promised the Indians they could hunt and fish in the areas the Indians had ceded to the Crown until the Crown leased or sold the land for development and, in those treaties, the Indians promised not to interfere with development on land the chiefs and headmen had ceded to the Crown.
Here is what is says in one of the treaties “and further to allow the said Chiefs and their Tribes the full and free privilege to hunt over the Territory now ceded by them, and to fish in the waters thereof, as they have heretofore been in the habit of doing; saving and excepting such portions of the said Territory as may from time to time be sold or leased to individuals or companies of individuals, and occupied by them with the consent of the Provincial Government”. It then says “Nor will they at any time hinder or prevent persons from exploring or searching for minerals, or other valuable productions, in any part of the Territory hereby ceded to Her Majesty”. Most treaties have similar statements.
And many treaties say the Indians would “conduct and behave themselves as good and loyal subjects of His Majesty the King” and say the Indians “will, in all respects, obey and abide by the law”. That would be the Crown’s law including the Indian Act.
In some, but not all treaties, the Crown promised to pay Indian chiefs a small sum per year. In some, but not all treaties, the Crown promised Indians ammunition for hunting. In some, but not all treaties, the Crown promised a school and/or a teacher on each reserve. In one, perhaps two treaties, the Crown promised the Indian agent would keep a medicine bag to treat the Indians.
The Crown did not promise in any treaty to provide tax exemptions for Indians or to pay for and pay to maintain infrastructure like roads, bridges, houses, treatment plants, community centres, Indian healing centres, old age homes, bingo halls, hockey rinks, band offices and band equipment, etc. or to pay for services like policing or fire protection or to pay for social programs on Indian reserves.
Continued below
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Contiued from above
Nevertheless, the Canadian federal government (the big Crown) now provides tax exemptions for Indians and sends, from various government departments like Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, Health and Welfare Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing, etc., a total of about $11 billion per year of taxpayers’ money to Indian reserves to pay for and pay to maintain infrastructure like roads, bridges, houses, treatment plants, community centres, Indian healing centres, old age homes, bingo halls, hockey rinks, band offices and band equipment, etc. and to pay for services like policing and fire protection and to pay for social programs for Indians on reserves the Crown did not promise in treaties to pay for on Indian reserves.
In addition, even though section 91 part 24 of the Canadian Constitution says the Canadian federal government (the big Crown) is responsible for “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians”, the provincial governments (the little Crowns) are sending millions of dollars from taxpayers each year to fund projects on Indian reserves.
And the Crown is sending money to Indian bands in British Columbia that haven’t yet made treaties with the Crown to get anything from the Crown.
Furthermore, companies like oil companies, mining companies, lumber companies, green energy companies, etc. that are developing land outside of Indian reserves are now paying millions of dollars directly to Indian reserves even though those same companies pay taxes to the Crown and it is already sending some of that tax money from those companies to Indian reserves. It is as if those companies are paying twice.
In fact, every man, women and child and company in Canada that pays taxes in one way or other is sharing and sending money to Indian reserves across Canada to pay far more than required according to treaties for infrastructure, services and programs that weren’t even promised in treaties.
And, as I said before, our governments are providing apologies, settling Indian claims and providing compensation at great expense for past wrongs.
How come the Indians don’t ever seem to acknowledge that or thank us for that?
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Wow, where do I start? GH seems embedded in his own facts and refuses to even consider any other perspective than his own. But here goes….
GH:
According their traditions and culture, individual Indians don’t own land. The land is held communally but Indians had a concept of what was their territory and what was someone else’s territory. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have fought over territory or tried to protect their territory.
Response:
Indigenous people fought over access to what was on the land not the land itself. Fishing, hunting, and gathering of food was what was fought over.
GH:
And think about this when it comes to the 1763 Royal Proclamation. King George III (the Crown) of Britain issued the Royal Proclamation in 1763. In that proclamation, the Crown defined Indian Territory in North America and reserved “Sovereignty, Protection, and Dominion” over that Indian Territory.
Basically, the Crown and the British took over Indian Territory and said it was “for the use of the said Indians”.
Response:
You did get this point correct….the Crown, the British, the Government “took over”.
GH:
In 1764, Indian bands from all over northeastern North America signed the Treaty of Fort Niagara in which those Indians bands accepted the 1763 Royal Proclamation and agreed with the conditions in the Royal Proclamation.
Response:
The 1764 Treaty of Fort Niagara was signed by Sir William Johnson for The Crown and 24 Nations from the Six Nations, Seneca, Wyandot of Detroit, Menominee, Algonquin, Nipissing, Ojibwa, Mississaugas, and others who were part of the Seven Nations of Canada and the Western Lakes Confederacy. The Treaty was concluded on August 1, 1764. The treaty transferred possession of a narrow four mile strip of land along the Niagara River’s western shore.
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 established the British definition of Indian Country. On these lands The Crown claimed sovereignty but it also decreed that Indian Country were to be considered the possession of the Aboriginal peoples who lived on these lands. Consequently, in order to transfer ownership of the land to The Crown through the surrendering of the land from the indigenous peoples, the British Crown began formalizing the Treaty of Fort Niagara with the First Nations on July 8, 1764, through this Treaty Council. In protest, the Odawa of Detroit, the Wyandot of Sandusky, and the Lenape and Shawnee of the Ohio failed to come to the Treaty Council. This treaty created a new Covenant Chain between Britain and the First Nations of the western Great Lakes. During the War of 1812, Nations involved with this treaty allied themselves with the British, as the Nations believed the treaty bound them to the British cause.
Evidence that the Chiefs tried to negotiate what would give their children and children’s children a chance to succeed in this new world order and it also began the relationship of allies in the War of 1812. The British would not have won if the Indigenous people didn’t fight as allies of the British.
GH:
Here is something else people should know about the 1763 Royal Proclamation. It says it included “all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West as aforesaid”.
Response:
The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued October 7, 1763, by King George III following Great Britain’s acquisition of French territory in North America after the end of the French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War, in which it forbade settlers from settling past a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains. The purpose of the proclamation was to organize Great Britain’s new North American empire and to stabilize relations with Native North Americans through regulation of trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier. The Royal Proclamation continues to be of legal importance to First Nations in Canada and is significant for the variation of indigenous status in the United States. It also ensured that British culture and laws were applied in Quebec, which was done to attract British settlers to Quebec.
With the proclamation, “the British were trying to convince Native people that there was nothing to fear from the colonists, while at the same time trying to increase political and economic power relative to First Nations and other European powers.”[11] However, the Royal Proclamation along with the subsequent Treaty of Niagara, provide for an argument that “discredits the claims of the Crown to exercise sovereignty over First Nations”[12] and affirms Aboriginal “powers of self-determination in, among other things, allocating lands.”[13] Further so, the Royal Proclamation outlined a policy in which to protect and extinguish Aboriginal rights and in doing so, recognized these rights existed.
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Yes, during the meeting at Fort Niagara in 1764, Sir William Johnson on behalf of the Crown made a deal, a treaty, for a strip of land 4 miles wide along the Niagara River’s western shore.
But that was only part of the agreements reached at Fort Niagara in 1764.
Sources say “The Royal Proclamation became a treaty at Niagara because it was presented by the colonialists for affirmation, and was accepted by the First Nations”.
The 1763 Royal Procalmation defined Indian territory in North America and that included “all the Lands and Territories not included within the Limits of Our said Three new Governments, or within the Limits of the Territory granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company, as also all the Lands and Territories lying to the Westward of the Sources of the Rivers which fall into the Sea from the West and North West”.
As, I said before, that area did not include the British colonies on the eastern coast of North America, the maritime provinces in what is now Canada, the British Province of Quebec or Rupert’s Land (the land granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company).
The 1763 Royal Proclamtion did establish the relationship between Indian bands that agreed to the Royal Proclamation and the Crown.
The 1763 Royal Prclamation says Indians “who live under our Protection, should not be molested or disturbed in the Possession of such Parts of Our Dominions and Territories as, not having been ceded to or purchased by Us, are reserved to them or any of them, as their Hunting Grounds”.
It also says “if at any Time any of the Said Indians should be inclined to dispose of the said Lands, the same shall be Purchased only for Us, in our Name, at some public Meeting or Assembly of the said Indians, to be held for that Purpose by the Governor or Commander in Chief of our Colony respectively within which they shall lie: and in case they shall lie within the limits of any Proprietary Government, they shall be purchased only for the Use and in the name of such Proprietaries, conformable to such Directions and Instructions as We or they shall think proper to give for that Purpose”.
So, when the Crown made treaties for land with Indian bands in the area covered by the 1763 Royal Proclamation, the Crown and Indians would have to follow the conditions outined in the Royal Proclamation “conformable to such Directions and Instructions as We or they shall think proper to give for that Purpose” so some leaway was allowed.
And one could argue that only the Indian bands in the area defined by the Royal Proclamation and only the Indian bands that signed the 1764 Treaty of Fort Niagara to accept the Royal Proclamtion would be included in the conditons outlined in the 1763 Royal Proclamation.
Rupert’s land was excluded from the 1763 Royal Proclamation so its conditions would not apply when the Crown made treaties with Indian bands in that area.
Having said all that, what does any of that have to do with the fact that the Canadian federal government (the big Crown) is paying far more than required in treaties to pay for infrastructure, services and social programs on Indian reserves the Crown did not even promise in treaties to pay for on Indian reserves?
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Hold on. Who says Indians can’t get jobs? Many Indians get jobs outside of reserves. As a matter of fact, the condo corporation where I live hired a company from the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve to replace all of the carpeting on the stairs and in hallways. Those workers did a great job. I would recommend them to anyone.
And many Indians have jobs and work in band council offices on reserves and work maintaining roads, etc. on reserves and they get their money from our taxes so we are providing them with jobs.
When it comes to being in jails and prisons. Here’s a thought. If one doesn’t break the law or commit crime, one doesn’t go to jail.
And, who is committing violence against native women? Is it just non native colonists outside of reserves?
And don’t natives have some responsibility to eat properly, drink properly, exercise properly and look after themselves to improve their life expectancy?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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By the way, Indians introduced tobacco to non natives. I’m non native. I smoke, cough and will probably live a shorter life than non smokers.
Should I blame the natives and seek compensation? lol
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That was then, this is now. End of story.
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I don’t know why you think it is racist to provide information and quotes from treaties and other historical documents, which questions and/or refutes claims native activists make.
Tax exemptions for Indians are not mentioned and any historical agreement or treaty with Indians and there is no question that our governments (the Crown) are using tax money from people outside of reserves to pay far more than required in treaties to pay for and pay to maintain a lot of infrastructure, services and social programs the Crown did not promise according to treaties to pay for on Indian reserves.
And our governments are using tax money from people outside of Indian reserves to support many Indian bands where their agreements or treaties don’t say the Crown is required to support them and our governments are using tax money from people outside of Indian reserves to support Indian bands in British Columbia that don’t even have treaties with the Crown yet.
So why is it racist to point that out?
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By the way, when I said the Six Nations workers who installed the carpeting in the stairs and hallways in our condo complex did a really good job, I meant it and I would recommend them.
Why do you think it is racist to ssy that?
Would you rather I had said otherwise to suit your view I am racist?
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