Treaty Promises Indian Reality

The story of life on reserves after treaty is a story of power: the power of Indian Affairs. Indian agents controlled every aspect of life on and off reserve - the dreaded pass system and permission slips needed to sell farm produce, or not as it suited the agents; the instructors whose job it was to transform Indian hunters into farmers; the residential school system, and the questionable surrender of reserve land. Yet, this book does not make a political statement. It does not judge the actions of the government, its agents, or anyone else. In an ever-respectful voice, this book relates things as they were, and points to the many successes of Indian peoples despite the many challenges they faced.

What, other than numbers and power, justifies Canada’s assertion of sovereignty and jurisdiction over the country’s vast territory? Why should Canada’s original inhabitants have to ask for rights to what was their land when non-Aboriginal people first arrived? The question lurks behind every court judgment on Indigenous rights, every demand that treaty obligations be fulfilled, and every land-claims negotiation. Addressing these questions has occupied anthropologist Michael Asch for nearly thirty years. In On Being Here to Stay, Asch retells the story of Canada with a focus on the relationship between First Nations and settlers. Asch proposes a way forward based on respecting the “spirit and intent” of treaties negotiated at the time of Confederation, through which, he argues, First Nations and settlers can establish an ethical way for both communities to be here to stay.

Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indians explores the promises, diplomacy, and betrayals involved in treaties and treaty making between the United States government and Native Nations. One side sought to own the riches of North America and the other struggled to hold on to traditional homelands and ways of life. The book reveals how the ideas of honor, fair dealings, good faith, rule of law, and peaceful relations between nations have been tested and challenged in historical and modern times. The book consistently demonstrates how and why centuries-old treaties remain living, relevant documents for both Natives and non-Natives in the 21st century.

"Compact, Contract, Covenant" is renowned historian of Native-newcomer relations J.R. Miller's exploration and explanation of more than four centuries of treating-making.

On July 1, 2017, Canada celebrated the 150th anniversary of Confederation. The nation-wide festivities prompted ambiguous reactions and contradictory responses since they officially proclaimed to celebrate 'what it means to be Canadian.' Drawing on the analytical perspectives of Diversity Studies, this fifth volume of the 'Diversity / Diversité / Diversität' series explores the repercussions of 'Canada 150's' focus on identity. The contributions touch upon issues of Canada's French and English dualism; of its settler colonial past and present and the role of Indigenous Peoples in Canada's identity narrative; of Canada's religious, cultural, ethnic and racial diversity; and of the challenge of forging a 'Canadian' identity. The authors analyze these and other problems arising from the tensions between identity and diversity by empirically addressing topics such as multicultural memories, Canadian literary and political discourses, Métis history, Canada's Indigenous peoples, Canada's official federal discourse on language and culture, and Canada's evolving citizenship regimes. Contributors: Marie-Eve Beaulieu, Charles Blattberg, Paul Carls, Sarah Henzi, Jane Jenson, Wolfgang Klooss, Gillian Lane-Mercier, Pierre Lavoie, Ursula Lehmkuhl, Laurence McFalls, Nikolas Schall, Lisa Schaub, Elisabeth Tutschek

In the pre-reserve era, Aboriginal bands in the northern plains were relatively small multicultural communities that actively maintained fluid and inclusive membership through traditional kinship practices. These practices were governed by the Law of the People as described in the traditional stories of Wîsashkêcâhk, or Elder Brother, that outlined social interaction, marriage, adoption, and kinship roles and responsibilities.In Elder Brother and the Law of the People, Robert Innes offers a detailed analysis of the role of Elder Brother stories in historical and contemporary kinship practices in Cowessess First Nation, located in southeastern Saskatchewan. He reveals how these tradition-inspired practices act to undermine legal and scholarly definitions of “Indian” and counter the perception that First Nations people have internalized such classifications. He presents Cowessess’s successful negotiation of the 1996 Treaty Land Agreement and their high inclusion rate of new “Bill-C31s” as evidence of the persistence of historical kinship values and their continuing role as the central unifying factor for band membership.Elder Brother and the Law of the People presents an entirely new way of viewing Aboriginal cultural identity on the northern plains.