RE "Confederacy says consultations for county must be taken to HDI." "HDI bases its existence on the Nanfan Treaty of 1701," The Sachem & Gazette May 9, 2008, page 3.
It is interesting the HDI bases its existence on the Nanfan Treaty of 1701 on two levels.
First, when that treaty was signed, no member of what is now Six Nations lived anywhere in what is now Southern Ontario let alone the Grand River Valley. All had been driven out of this area five years before by the Ojibwa and their allies so at the time of the treaty's signing, the area now in dispute was most definitely not occupied by what was then Five Nations and is now Six Nations. It must also be remembered that what was then Five Nations only occupied by conquest this area of what is now Southern Ontario for 45 years from 1651 - 1696 and are native only to the area south of the Great Lakes, primarily in what are now the states of New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The Six Nations also did not occupy any lands in this area at the time that the British declared sovereignty over what is now Ontario with King George's Proclamation of 1763. The Nanfan treaty in this area means even less now than it did in 1701 and it was meaningless to the lands here in question then as what is now Six Nations did not and could not use or inhabit this area when the treaty was signed and only moved to this area again after the land was purchased for their use, by the Crown, over 80 years after the Nanfan Treaty was signed.
Second, we have the treaty itself where the British (Nanfan was the Governor of New York at the time) agreed to protect what is now Six Nations in their hunting grounds but in return what is now Six Nations, to paraphrase the treaty, did surrender, deliver up, and forever quit claim, for themselves and their heirs, all right, title and interest to those lands to the British Crown and that the Five Nations, now Six Nations, were subjects of the Crown so there is no question of any Native "sovereignty" in the area the treaty covered.
To put all these events into perspective I will quote directly from an Ontario Court of Appeal decision made in October 1974 which demonstrates just how far apart both Six Nations and everyone else has been on this issue right from the start. The decision is from Isaac v. Davey and is a case that went from the Ontario High Court to the Ontario Court of Appeal and then all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada who ruled it was the Elected Council who governs Six Nations not the Confederacy yet here we have the Confederacy dictating to the Province and the County it must deal with HDI whose very existence is based on a treaty that is meaningless here for a number of reasons.
However, it's this bit of text from the Ontario Court of Appeal decision that is most interesting and needs to be repeated... from Isaac v. Davey Ontario Court of Appeal, Schroeder, Jessup and Arnup JJ.A., 4 October 1974
"In May, 1784, Haldimand on behalf of the Crown purchased from the Mississagas a large tract roughly described as six miles deep on either side of the Grand River from Lake Erie to the head of the river. On October 25, 1784, he issued the 'Haldimand Proclamation.'
"Brant interpreted the Haldimand Proclamation as having two effects:
"(i) as being full national recognition of the Six Nations as an independent national community;
"(ii) as a grant of the Grand River lands to the Six Nations in fee simple.
"The British Government firmly resisted both propositions, and the Crown's position has never changed. At least some members of the Six Nations have perpetuated Brant's position. (The allegation of national sovereignty was made in this very action but abandoned at trial.)"
The reason we are all going though this again is encapsulate in that quote.
This is not a question of one side or the other forgetting events in history, it's a case of events interpreted in different ways by both sides right from the very start. However, given that it was the Crown that purchased the land for Six Nations in the first place and it's been the Crown's contention from the very start that the "Haldimand Proclamation" was not recognition of Six Nations sovereignty or outright ownership of the land. One would think that the issue should be clear to all concerned but here we are, many generations later, rehashing the same arguments the Crown and Brant had in the late 18th century.
I do believe it is time for the federal government to step up and re-state these long held positions, and what they mean, for everyone's benefit and understanding before things spin totally out of control and we end up with the kind of problems nobody on either side really wants or will easily forget.
D.R.Goodbrand, Cayuga, Ontario