This lesson covers:
Why treaties matter.
Why treaties are still relevant and to discover if they are being upheld today.
Definitions between historic Treaties, numbered Treaties, and modern Treaties.
What ‘unceded lands’ really mean.
Artifact 01 > Raven. “Home on Native Land: Lesson #2: Gordon Christie.” Vimeo, 2022.
I started this free workshop called HOME ON NATIVE LAND, in the Summer of 2024. As it is free, I encourage everyone to take it - especially Canadian visitors to my website. The course website describes the class as an opportunity to:
“Join in conversation with leading First Nations thinkers, artists, and legal experts. This series of videos and lessons is essential knowledge for anyone who is committed to living in a fair country. If you are ready to open your mind and have a good laugh while you do it, jump in and explore “Home on Native Land”.
Let’s be fair: most of us didn’t learn this stuff in history class. In a lighthearted, conversational and occasionally very funny series of videos, we’ll take a tour through the laws of this land we call Canada, and discover the good, the bad and the ugly about Indigenous-settler relationships.
This self-guided course involves:
— 10 video conversations with prominent Indigenous thinkers, scholars, and legal experts with host Ryan McMahon;
— 10 lessons laying out the fundamentals of Treaty rights, the Indian Act, Constitutional rights, and environmental rights & Indigenous stewardship – with illustrations; and
— Prompts for self-reflection and ways to initiate dialogue – at work, at school, or around the dinner table.”
This online journal will serve as a repository of my class notes, expanded with descriptions of ideas from other sources, along side my reflective written responses to the various dialogue prompts given throughout the course.
This lesson will cover the concepts of manifest destiny, doctrine of discovery, terra nullius, and how the Crown came to have dominion over land in Canada.
We can’t have a conversation about Indigenous justice, environmentalism, or politics without first understanding whose land we’re on. How the land came to be taken away from Indigenous Peoples and granted, sold, or expropriated by newcomers is a story worth understanding, because it affects the very ground we are all standing on, today.
ARTIFACT 01 > Raven. “Home on Native Land: Lesson #1: Jeff Corntassel.” Vimeo, 2022.
RESERVE LANDS / RESERVES: today, reserve lands or reserves make up just 0.2% of the land in the country. The Canadian Encyclopedias defines Reserve Lands as representing:
“…land set aside by the Canadian government for use by First Nations. Reserves are managed under the Indian Act. Reserve lands represent a small fraction of the traditional territories First Nations had before European colonization. While reserves are places where members of a First Nation live, some reserves are used for hunting and other activities. Many First Nations hold more than one parcel of reserve land, and some reserves are shared by more than one First Nation. There are reserves in every province in Canada, but few have been established in the territories. Most reserves are rural, though some First Nations have created urban reserves, which are reserves within or neighboring a city.”
The Encyclopedia also describes how:
“Reserves are tracts of land set aside for First Nations by the Canadian government. First Nations are one of three groupings of Indigenous people in Canada, the other two being Métis and Inuit. Métis and Inuit do not hold reserve land. The reasons for this are complex, but lie primarily in the fact that the reserve system is governed by the Indian Act, and Métis and Inuit peoples’ relationship to the federal government is not.”
The government of Canada is more specific in noting that Reserve Land: “…is a parcel of land where legal title is held by the Crown (Government of Canada), for the use and benefit of a particular First Nation.”
CROWN LAND: The Government of British Columbia defines Crown Land as: “…land (or land covered by water like rivers or lakes) that is owned by the provincial government. This type of land is available to the public for many different purposes – from industry to recreation and research.”
DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY: The course website noted how: “The Doctrine of Discovery established a spiritual, political, and legal justification for colonization and seizure of land not inhabited by Christians.” The Indigenous Corporate Training Inc website also describes how: “The Doctrine of Discovery provided a framework for Christian explorers, in the name of their sovereign, to lay claim to territories uninhabited by Christians. If the lands were vacant, then they could be defined as “discovered” and sovereignty claimed.” An important aspect of this doctrine is the supposition that Christian peoples were a superior people who had superior ways of doing things. The doctrine as a legal n principle, laid the groundwork to establish the legal, political, and economic rules for European exploration and conquest. It also helped to ensure that different European Nations did to end up at war with each other over the lands they ‘discovered.’
ARTIFACT 02 > Home on Native Land. “The Doctrine of Discovery.”
TERRA NELLIUS: “…a Latin term for ‘empty land’, and in law it refers to the idea that the land in North America (or referred to as Turtle Island) was either vacant or that it was not being used in a way that European law recognized.
For European Nations to be able to make a claim that they had discovered lands under the Doctrine of Discovery, terra nullius required that:
“…lands that were not occupied by any person or nation, or which were actually occupied but were not being used in a manner that European legal systems approved…”
- ROBERT MILLER
“The legal doctrine of Terra Nullius, land that is legally deemed to be unoccupied or uninhabited, allowed for the Crown to grant land to its colonial interests, including 70-80% of Canada's land mass to the Hudson Bay Company.” It provided for an interpretation of land use that required it be used in a way that was considered a ‘civilized’ manner by Christians (for example - by those who were white, and spoke European languages). The ways in which Indigenous Peoples used the land were considered ‘savage’ by settlers, and therefore illegitimate… The course website describes how this “…trick of law, the coast territories belonging to Indigenous Peoples were deemed ‘empty of civilized human habitation.’”
Terra nullius makes up one of the elements of the Doctrine of Discovery.
SOCIAL DARWINISM: Wikipedia describes how social darwinism is “…the study and implementation of various pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics. Social Darwinists believe that the strong should see their wealth and power increase, while the weak should see their wealth and power decrease. Social Darwinist definitions of the strong and the weak vary, and differ on the precise mechanisms that reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others, emphasizing struggle between national or racial groups, support eugenics, racism, imperialism and/or fascism.”
ARTIFACT 03 > Kahn Academy. “Screenshot of SOCIAL DARWINISM IN THE GILDED AGE.”
See > American Museum of Natural History. “Misusing Darwin’s Theory.”
Under terra nullius, racist ideas such as those found in social Darwinism were brought to Canada to separate peoples by social class and ethnicity - in short, the course website notes how:
“…Indigenous Peoples were placed at the bottom of this invented hierarchy with European people at the top. Ultimately, these notions were infused into Canadian policies, affecting how Indigenous Peoples could exist, and use their land. While Indigenous Peoples were, and continue to be, organised within complex societies grounded in law, and despite the fact that they had never even heard of the Christian religion, the Doctrine of Discovery automatically relegated them to a status of less than human, or as the lawyers put it, a “pre-political state of nature”.
We know that Indigenous Nations had their own forms of governance, spiritual practices, and ways to manage their lands and waters that mutually benefited them and the environment. That was all disregarded by the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius.”
LABOUR THEORY OF PROPERTY: Wikipedia notes how this theory (also called the labour theory of appropriation, labour theory of ownership, labour theory of entitlement, or principle of first appropriation) was a theory of natural law that holds that property originally comes about by the exertion of labour upon natural resources. It was developed by the writings of 17th Century philosopher, John Locke who wrote that: “…land is only effectively occupied and therefore capable of legal possessions when a person hath mixed his Labour with, joyned to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his Property.”
MANIFEST DESTINY: According to Kahn Academy, Manifest Destiny was “…the idea that white Americans were divinely ordained to settle the entire continent of North America. The ideology of Manifest Destiny inspired a variety of measures designed to remove or destroy the native population.” According to Wikipedia, “Manifest destiny was a phrase that represented the belief in the 19th-century United States that American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("manifest") and certain ("destiny"). The belief was rooted in American exceptionalism and Romantic nationalism, implying the inevitable spread of the Republican form of governance. It was one of the earliest expressions of American imperialism in the United States of America.” The course website notes how MANIFEST DESTINY IS THE DOCTRINE OR BELIEF THAT THE EXPANSION OF SETTLER COLONIALISM THROUGHOUT THE AMERICAN CONTINENTS WAS BOTH JUSTIFIED AND INEVITABLE. The course website described it as follows:
ARTIFACT 03 > Home on Native Land. “Screenshot of Manifest Destiny Definition.”
0.2% of land in Canada is reserve land, while 89% is Crown Land.
Land was removed from Indigenous Peoples based on the concept that non-Christians were not ‘civilized’ and so not entitled to land.
The ideas within the Doctrine of Discovery and terra nullius still form the basis for land tenure in Canada.
Manifest destiny is a belief that the United States is morally superior to other Nations and ordained by God to spread its way of life across the globe.
Lnad in what is now the Americas was deemed to be ‘terra nullius’ — empty land — because Indigenous Peoples were not seen to be using the land in a way that Europeans recognized.
In thinking about both the Doctrine of Discovery, it feels very much like the game children play (as I did growing up in the 1980/90s) called ‘finders-keepers,’ which Wikipedia describes as being: “…an English adage with the premise that when something is unowned or abandoned, whoever finds it first can claim it for themself permanently.” Wikipedia also notes how the short phrase is: “…sometimes extended as the children's rhyme finders, keepers; losers, weepers.” Both the doctrine and the children’s adage represented a justification for seizing something that doesn’t belong to the person or group making the claim. The doctrine continues to influence land and law in Canada today because, although governments acknowledge that the lands of Turtle Island are ‘unceded territories,’ little to nothing has been done to rectify that situation.
Terra nullius, the concept that land in the Americas was ‘empty land,’ allowed European Christian explorers to view the land as being up for grabs, as Indigenous Peoples were not seen as using the land in ways that Europeans deemed suitable. Alongside the Doctrine of Discovery, and Manifest Detisny, allowed Europeans to view Indigenous, First Nations, and Inuit as uncivilized, savage, and even dying peoples - inferior to the white Europeans who lusted after the bounty that the lands of what would become known as the Americas, had to offer.