Residents in communities such as Kitchener, Guelph and Cambridge are living on leased Six Nations land that the band says it hasn't seen payments on for more than a century.
That was one of the points band representatives made last night as they spoke on their history along the Grand River in the context of the Caledonia dispute. The land in those communities was leased for 990 years in 1798.
More than 200 people overflowed a McMaster University lecture hall to hear Mohawk Chief Allen MacNaughton, Cayuga sub-chief Leroy Hill and Hazel Hill, a spokesperson for the "reclamation" of a housing site in Caledonia, give history they say is not taught in Canada's history books.
Six Nations now consists of the reserve south of Brantford, which is 5 per cent of the 385,000 hectares they were given in 1784 by the British Crown along the Grand River for help during the American War of Independence (10 kilometres on each side).
The trio told the crowd, including a number of Caledonia residents, they never gave up their rights to the land, but over the years it was gradually stolen by the colonial government.
"Those titles that now exist out there ... were created by the Crown," Hazel Hill said. "It was an outright theft."
The history is noteworthy as the "reclamation" of the Argyle Street South housing site approaches its first anniversary. Six Nations says it never surrendered the property, but Ottawa says it gave up the land in the 1840s. Negotiations are ongoing.
Leroy Hill told the crowd that shortly after 1784, Lieutenant-Governor John Simcoe removed 81,000 hectares from their land grant (in 1792). It is land above Kitchener, but Hill said the land remains Six Nations.
"We've never been compensated. It's ours. To that 200,000 acres, there's a question mark."
He also said land north of the Grand River, between Brant and Port Maitland, was leased to also generate revenue for band members. Land on the other side of the river, between Burtch and Lake Erie, was designated as land to accommodate the expansion of the reserve.
"We don't surrender to this day," Hill said. "We lease and stick to this agreement."
The meeting caused a bit of a controversy for the university. Many sent e-mails to organizer Prof. George Sorger decrying the lack of representation from Caledonia residents. Sorger said the meeting was held so the natives could get their point of view heard.