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During the half-century directly following the Royal
Proclamation, the colonial governments of North America
embarked on signing a number of peace and land treaties with Aboriginal
peoples to retain them as allies, while purchasing land for settlement
and resource development.
During this period, however, the balance of power began to shift
as the British consolidated their control. The pragmatism that had
prompted the British Crown
to protect Aboriginal interests in the Royal Proclamation gave way
to British paternalism, a policy of assimilation
and the attitude that the Aboriginals were British subjects - and
not equal, independent nations.
Topics in this section:
Niagara Treaty, 1764
Fort Stanwix Treaty, 1768
Treaty of Paris, 1783
Upper Canada Treaties, 1764 - 1836
The Jay Treaty, 1794
Other Interesting or Important Documents
Niagara Treaty, 1764
The Niagara Treaty created a new Covenant
Chain between Britain and the Aboriginal nations of the western
Great Lakes, including the Iroquois
Confederacy, the Algonquin
and the Huron
nations. Britain had been at war with some of these nations since
1760.
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The British were represented by Sir
William Johnson, who reaffirmed the historic relations between
the two groups and offered solutions to problems between them. This
treaty grew out of the Royal
Proclamation of 1763, which proposed fair and voluntary
land dealings between the British and Aboriginals.
The Niagara Congress met in July 1764 and it included members from
24 Aboriginal nations and Crown officials. More than 2,000 people
attended.
Promises made by Johnson during this congress were preserved on
wampum belts that were woven with hundreds of coloured shell beads.
These belts made up the Twenty Four Nations Belt that recorded the
event.
The Annual Presents Belt shows twenty-four figures (representing
the Aboriginal nations) holding hands between a ship (Britain) and
a rock (North America). To the Aboriginals, the promise spoken to
them was that the King would always give gifts each year to the
24 nations on the belt. If the British forgot this promise, the
Aboriginals would link together to pull the 'ship' from Britain.
Johnson promised these presents for "as long as the sun shone
and the grass grew, and the British wore red coats." These
promises would, however, be gradually discontinued in Upper Canada
starting in 1836.
These promises were recited every year for nearly a century during
annual gift-giving ceremonies. The Aboriginals placed importance
in the material goods given to them - blankets, pipes, pelts and
various tools of much better quality than could be obtained through
fur traders. However, they place as much importance on the symbolism
of sharing and respect between the British and Aboriginal nations
that took place during these ceremonies.
During the War of 1812, Aboriginals involved with this treaty would
fight with the British, as they believed the treaty bound them to
the British cause.
Fort Stanwix Treaty, 1768
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While this is a treaty that did not involve land in what is now Canada,
it was important as it was the first major land transfer treaty
signed after the Royal Proclamation. It was made between
fur traders in Pennsylvania, one of the Thirteen
Colonies, who sued the British government. The traders wanted
compensation for damages incurred during Aboriginal rebellions against
European settlers around the Great Lakes during the mid-1760s.
In 1768, the British Indian Department decided to compensate these
companies with land. The ensuing treaty signed at Fort Stanwix,
New York, pushed the border between Indian
country and the colonies west to the banks of the Ohio River. About
3,400 Iroquois attended this signing.
British allies, such as the Iroquois, received land in western
New York. Other tribes, such as the Shawnee, lost land. This led
to bitterness between these Aboriginal nations for many years.
Some Aboriginals also believed this treaty was a promise by the
British that no further land west of the Ohio River would ever be
surrendered to settlers, and that the river would remain an international
boundary between the European colonies and Aboriginal nations.
Instead, this treaty actually appeared to encourage English American
settlement westward. In 1784, the Iroquois would be forced to sign
a second treaty at Fort Stanwix to give up more land.
Treaty of Paris, 1783
The Treaty of Paris, 1783, created a new international
border between the new United States and the British colony of Québec
within the Great Lakes region. This treaty, however, ignored promises
made to British allies - namely, the Iroquois Confederacy - in the
Covenant Chain and the 1768 Fort Stanwix treaty on both sides of
the Québec-U.S border. The Aboriginals were never invited
to take part in the signing of this treaty, despite the fact that
many Mohawks
fought on the side of the British during the American
Revolution. These Aboriginals had decided that the British were
less likely to interfere with their land and way of life than the
Americans.
The British government in London, however, had little interest
in the Aboriginals' right to be a part of these negotiations, as
it now hoped to pursue its own imperial
worldview on its remaining North American colony and Aboriginal
allies.
News of this betrayal shocked Loyalists
in the Iroquois Confederacy. To appease this group, Québec
governor Fredrick
Haldimand decided to offer two parcels of land near Lake Ontario
in 1784 to Iroquois who were still loyal to the Crown.
An agreement was reached with the Mississauga
Indians
who owned this land, which would ultimately lead to the creation
of the Six Nations Reserve near current-day Brantford, Ontario,
nearly a decade later.
Upper Canada Treaties, 1764 - 1836
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In the years immediately following the Royal Proclamation,
numerous treaties were signed with the Aboriginals to surrender
small parcels of land in the province of Québec (later Lower
Canada) in exchange for a lump sum of money, gifts and the creation
of smaller reserve
lands specifically for the Aboriginals. Annual cash payments to
the Aboriginals usually followed for some time after these deals
were made. Many of these treaties were signed so the British could
take land for settlements, roads, churches to help 'Christianize'
the Aboriginals, and other uses.
In one particular abuse, blank treaties
- where the Aboriginal chiefs signed their tribes' land
rights away on a blank document - were often the order of the
day.
Many of these treaties were hastily and carelessly put together,
particularly during the 1780s and early 1790s when the British were
faced with an influx of Loyalist settlers emigrating from the newly
created United States to the northern shores of Lake Erie and Lake
Ontario. John
Graves Simcoe, Upper Canada's first lieutenant-governor, was
responsible for purchasing and assigning this land.
British representatives often made hasty oral promises to Aboriginals
that were never written down, simply to rush things along in obtaining
land for farming and settlement. Because the Aboriginals valued
their oral tradition over written legal documents, they would later
complain that the British made promises that were not kept.
While efforts were made after 1794 to ensure the treaty process
was done with more fairness to the Aboriginals living in this region,
outstanding land claims remained, particularly in regards to the
blank treaties.
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The so-called Gunshot Treaty gave
the British land rights stretching along Lake
Ontario from just west of present-day Toronto
east to the Bay of Quinte. The Aboriginals gave
up their land rights extending north of the Great
Lake within the sound of a gunshot - almost 20
kilometers - in exchange for annual gifts.
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The Jay Treaty, 1794
The Jay Treaty is technically not an Aboriginal treaty as
it was signed between the British government and the United States.
However, it affected Aboriginals in Canada, particularly the Six
Nations.
Following the American Revolution, Aboriginals in the newly created
United States began to be pushed further west by white settlement.
The British also continued to post soldiers in garrisons in the west.
American cavalry expeditions into the Ohio Valley in the early 1790s
were met with fierce resistance and fighting from Aboriginals, which
culminated in 1794 in the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The latter side
lost this battle near current-day Toledo, Ohio, which resulted in
the opening of white settlement further west.
To prevent war with the U.S. over Aboriginal land
rights and the creation of a 'buffer' state between setters
and Aboriginals, Britain negotiated a peace agreement. They agreed
to remove all Crown officials from their posts south of the Great
Lakes by June 1796. In return, the British obtained permission for
Aboriginals to freely cross the Canada-U.S. border.
This was done partly out of concern for Aboriginal allies, but
also to ensure the continued success of the fur trade - as traders
in Montréal relied on furs from Aboriginals in the upper
Mississippi Valley.
In recent times, the U.S. government has seen the Jay Treaty
as an agreement that gives status
Indians the right to freely work and live across the border.
However, the Canadian government does not. This difference in legal
opinion has been frequently challenged in the courts by Six Nations
tribes, whose ancestral lands have been cut in two by the U.S.-Canadian
border.
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When the Jay Treaty was
signed, it angered the French as it allowed the
British to seize French goods off American ships.
The French pulled their minister from the U.S.
and began seizing American ships on the Atlantic.
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Other Interesting or Important Documents
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