Brant News photo
Mohawk Workers spokesperson Jason Bowman.
Jason Teakle
BRANT NEWS
The Ontario Superior Court of Justice has granted landholdings company Walton Development and Management an interim injunction against protesters belonging to a group called the Mohawk Workers.
The judgment was handed down by Judge Harrison Arrell in a Brantford courtroom on Friday, after Walton applied for the injunction following protests that delayed work at the site of a proposed subdivision in the Tutela Heights area.
Walton officials said in a statement that a Six Nations-based representative has been involved with archeological assessments at the site, located in the County of Brant, where the company plans to build about 200 homes.
“Walton International has been working toward the development of its landholdings in Brant County and continues to follow all the county and provincial guidelines and requirements for its lands,” the statement said. “These include archaeological assessments, which have been monitored by a member of the Six Nations community and conducted by a licensed and respected Ontario-based firm.
“Unfortunately, some members of a group calling themselves the Mohawk Workers attempted to disrupt the formal process and prevent or delay Walton from concluding legitimate and provincially-mandated work. Therefore, Walton applied for a court-issued injunction against the individuals involved.”
Mohawk Workers spokesperson Jason Bowman during an interview said that the group will not halt protests at the site.
“We need to review the injunction and respond accordingly,” Bowman said. “But the protests will not stop.”
Bowman said legal ownership of the land is in question.
“Mohawks have rights as sovereign people within their territories,” Bowman said. “The lands in question have been occupied by indigenous peoples for more than 10,000 years. It pre-dates European contact. Where indigenous peoples lived, worked and built tools, they buried their dead.
“(The courts) look at it as a real estate issue or a commercial transaction.”
Bowman alleges that indigenous human remains have been discovered in the Tutela Heights area since the 1970s.
“These lands should have been protected a long time ago,” Bowman said. “The disturbances, development and desecration have already been done in the area and it is not going to continue.”
Continued from above
In addition, the Ontario government says it stands by its land titles system and the Federal government and the Ontario government have said they will not expropriate any third-party land to give to the Six Nations in settlement of any Six Nations claim.
Furthermore, the Henning brothers initially won an injunction against Six Nations protesters and interference with development on the DCE land in Caledonia: a builder in Brantford won an injunction: a builder in Cayuga won an injunction: a builder in Hagersville won an injunction: the City of Brantford won an injunction for 10 sites and now Walton has won an injunction in Brant County and different Justices were involved.
How many times and in how many ways do Six Nations people have to be told the Six Nations never did and doesn’t own all of the land along the Grand River and their claims can only be about money not land? When will they get it?
If the Crown won’t expropriate the Walton third-party land and the Six Nations won’t get it, there should be no reason for Walton not to develop its third-party land with approval from Brant County and the Ontario government.
The Six Nations activists can protest but it will be interesting to see what happens if the Mohawk Workers and/or other Six Nations activists continue to interfere with development on the Walton land in defiance of a court order.
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Here we go again.
Quebec Governor Haldimand bought a huge tract of land, including land along the Grand River, for the Crown from the Ojibwa Mississauga Indians on May 22, 1784.
Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and Six Nations chiefs were at the meeting and agreed with the sale.
After buying that land for the Crown, Governor Haldimand issued an announcement on October 25, 1784 inviting the Mohawks and others of the Six Nations Iroquois from New York to enter, occupy and use the Crown’s land along the Grand River.
Haldimand’s October 25, 1784 announcement was not a treaty and was not a deed. It was a license for Six Nations people to occupy, not own, land along the Grand River and courts have said so.
Later, in 1793, Governor Simcoe offered the Six Nations a letter patent (a deed) to land along the Grand River and, for Governor Simcoe to have offered a patent (deed) for that land, it must have been the Crown’s land in 1793. That supports the contention that the Haldimand document was simply a license of occupation.
However, Joseph Brant and the Six Nations chiefs didn’t like the conditions in the Simcoe Patent. They did not accept or take hold of the 1793 Simcoe Patent (deed) so that land along the Grand River remained the Crown’s land.
Six Nations people should not be able to claim land to which the Six Nations did not accept ownership and which remained the Crown’s land.
As time passed, Six Nations chiefs surrendered the Six Nations use of the Crown’s land back to the Crown for sale until the Six Nations eventually ended up with the current reserve around 1850.
The Crown then sold the land to third parties and told the Six Nations it would make sure money from the sale of the Crown’s land would be put into a trust find to run the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve.
The Six Nations now alleges money from land sales did not always go into the Trust fund. The Six Nations alleges the Crown invested money from the trust fund imprudently and borrowed money from the trust fund without paying it back.
The Six Nations took its claims to court in 1995. Its claims are about money. It can’t claim land that belonged to the Crown.
Continued below
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I’m sorry I posted my comments in reverse order but I think you will get it even if native activists don’t. lol
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The Six Nations of the Grand River has the Elected Band Council, the Confederacy council, the HDI and a number of groups and factions that protest and try to stall or stop development on land along the Grand River outside of the reserve.
Almost every time the Six Nations activists protest, a developer, a green energy company or the Ontario government will try to appease the Six Nations and give one or other Six Nations group some concession or money.
It is almost as if the Six Nations likes to have all of those different groups, who claim to differ with each other, so they can try to bleed concessions or money from everybody without actually having to settle their claims and before actually reaching agreements to settle claims to get even more money.
They seem to have quite a scam going.
But I guess this time Walton didn’t fall for it.
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The Crown has legislated explicate instructions for the legal alienation of Indian Lands beginning in December 9, 1761; October 7, 1763; December 7, 1763; Royal Instructions of 1768; January 3, 1775; August 23, 1786; September 16, 1791; December 24, 1794 and May 1, 1812. The legislated requirements for the lawful surrender to sell Mohawk Lands have been acknowledged by Canada as having not been followed.
Notice to Trespassers and Squatters
The Crown had Legislation requiring that it protect Mohawk Lands from Trespass and Injury. The Crown attempted to fulfill its Lawful Duty to the Mohawks by issuing Public Notices in February 1, 1812 specific to Haldimand County forbidding White People from settling on Indian Land; November 20, 1835 notifying settlers to apply for leases or face ejection and on January 22, 1844 notifying that all persons on Mohawk lands between the Townships of Brantford and Dunn are to remove themselves as well as those on the North side of the River or be prosecuted with the utmost rigor of the law.
The Squatters
“Our white brethren look upon us not as the original possessors but intruders on a Soil which was granted to us” is how natives expressed their concerns in a January 9, 1844 petition to the Government. According to Arrell et al, sadly, not much has changed.
The Crown has systematically induced the illegal sale of Mohawk lands without lawful surrenders and misappropriated land payments into the works of the Grand River Navigation Company (and other Government expenditures) against the constant protests of the Mohawks & other Grand River Natives.
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FACTS:
1812 GOVERNOR’S INSTRUCTIONS
On May 1, 1812, the Crown’s duly authorized representative, the Governor-General of Upper Canada issued instruction (the “1812 Governor’s Instruction”) further regulating the alienation of Indian lands in the then Province of Upper Canada by requiring, inter alia:
(a) that the person administering the government in Upper Canada requisition any Indian lands wanted for public service and identify those lands with a sketch;
(b) that all purchases by the Crown be made at a public council according to the ancient usages and customs of the Indians to whom the lands belonged, with proper interpreters present and without the presence of liquor;
(c) that the Governor or two persons commissioned by him, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, two or three members of his Department and at least one military officer be present at the public council;
(d) that there be a proper explanation to the Indians of the nature and extent of the proposed disposition and the proceeds to be paid therefore; and
(e) that deeds of conveyance and descriptive plans of the lands so conveyed be attached to the deed and be executed in public by the Principle Indian Chiefs and the Superintendent of the Indian Department or his appointee, and duly witnessed.
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There is no doubt Crown officials told non natives to vacate land along the Grand River. That was because the land had been set aside for the exclusive use, as Haldimand had said, of the “Mohawk Nation and such others of the Six Nation Indians as wish to settle in that quarter to take possession of and settle upon the Banks of the River commonly called Ours [Ouse] or Grand River”.
Of course, we should remember Mohawk leader Joseph Brant himself granted, leased and sold land along the Grand River to non natives and some chiefs granted land along the Grand River to non natives so maybe that is part of the reason some non native people were on that land.
With regard to the government’s (the Crown’s) instructions for alienating Indian land, jbowman is assuming the land along the Grand River was Mohawk or Six Nations land.
However, as I have pointed out before, Governor Haldimand bought the land along the Grand River from the Mississauga Indians on May 22, 1784. The later October 25, 1784 Haldimand document was not a treaty and not a deed for land along the Grand River from the Crown to the Six Nations. It was a license from Governor Haldimand for Six Nations people to occupy, not own, the Crown’s land along the Grand River or a license of occupation and courts have said so.
And Mohawk leader Joseph Brant and the Six Nations chiefs did not accept or take hold of the 1793 Simcoe Patent, a deed to land along the Grand River so that land remained the Crown’s land.
So, there would have been no need for Crown officials to follow the Crown’s instructions precisely when obtaining surrenders of use of the Crown’s land from Six Nations of the Grand River people. The Six Nations weren’t like the Ojibwa and other indigenous Indians who might have wanted to dispose of or surrender some of their land. The Six Nations had moved onto the Crown’s land along the Grand River. The Six Nations weren’t surrendering, alienating, giving up or disposing of their land. They were giving up or surrendering their ability to use the Crown’s land.
In fact, when it was the Crown’s land, the Crown could have evicted the Six Nations or could have expropriated the Crown’s land along the Grand River if the Crown had needed some or all of that land but the Crown didn’t do that.
Crown officials made an effort to meet with Six Nations chiefs and, according to the 2009 Holmes Report to Justice Arrell in the Brantford injunction case, in 1844, forty five chiefs from the Six Nations of the Grand River agreed the Crown could sell the Johnson settlment land, the Martin settlement land, the Eagle’s Nest tract and the Oxbow tract. In 1846, sixty chiefs agreed the chiefs had said the Crown could sell the Johnson settlement land, the Martin settlement land, the Eagle’s Nest tract and the Oxbow tract. In 1848, the chiefs agreed the Crown could sell the Burtch tract land and, after further negotiations with Crown, the Six Nations chiefs agreed to the current reserve and that was approved by Lord Elgin the Lieutenant Governor and the Crown’s representative in 1850.
Crown officials, Six Nations chiefs and interpreters were at those meetings and the Crown officials made every effort to get consensus from the chiefs but, as I said, the land along the Grand River was the Crown’s land so if the Crown had wanted to the Crown could have simply evicted the Six Nations or expropriated the Crown’s land.
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