I can understand if Canada's Dakota people didn't celebrate Canada Day this year.
According to a government e-mail, the Dakota First Nations in Canada are American Indians who signed treaties in the United States. The government offered them a deal to buy out their treaty and aboriginal rights -- which they turned it down without hesitation and rightly so.
This is a serious insult to the Dakota who claim that they choose to live in Canada much like the United Empire Loyalists or the Mohawks of Tyendinaga.
In Saskatchewan we have four Dakota Nations including Wahpeton, north of Prince Albert, White Cap south of Saskatoon, Standing Buffalo near Fort Qu'Appelle and Wood Mountain south of Moose Jaw. There are also five Dakota First Nations in Manitoba. All these bands are considered non-treaty and the land they received was marginal and not related to their population base.
Dakota reserves resemble more of an afterthought than a serious attempt to provide an adequate land base. The Canupawakpa First Nation in southern Manitoba, for example, consists of four square miles to support a population of more than 300. The situation is similar in Saskatchewan.
It had been their wish to sign adhesions to Treaties 4 and 6, and receive treaty rights the same as the rest of the province's First Nations. It was a strategy that had the support of the FSIN and its member First Nations. The first resolution in support was passed by the FSIN chiefs in 1973, and was subsequently followed by resolutions of support from the Prince Albert Grand Council and the Touchwood, File Hills, Qu'Appelle Tribal Council. This issue has been simmering for the past 40 to 50 years.
It's impossible to come up with a statement claiming that the Dakota have no rights in Canada. For one thing, the border didn't even exist prior to 1846 when the Oregon Treaty established the 49th parallel as the line between the two countries, and even then the border was porous and undefined across the plains.
First Nations on both sides regularly crossed it with impunity. Cree and Blackfoot nations hunted deep into Montana and in return the Dakota Nations traveled northward into "British territory" as it was then know. The Blackfoot have communities on both sides of the border and at Akwesasne the border runs right through Mohawk land. Historically many Dakota bands lived permanently north of the "border".
In Canada the Nakota. or Assiniboine people, had lived in peace for generations. They were allied with the Cree and along with the Dakota they are members of the "Great Sioux Nation". They speak the same language but with different dialects.
Historians hold that the Assiniboine lived on the plains prior to the Cree and Saulteaux nations. When the Cree and Ojibway moved on to the plains more than 300 years ago they allied themselves with the Nakota people who in turn taught the Cree and Ojibway about the culture and religion of the plains. Later the Ojibwas would be known as the Saulteaux or plains Ojibway.
Today the Assiniboine people are scattered among the Cree and Saulteaux First Nations indicating their status and historic alliance. The Dakota nations were able to travel unmolested because of their relationship with the Nakota, so consequently their current reserve land is spread across the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
At one time we thought that the Dakota nations would be able to gain treaty rights in Canada. However, the Canadian government now considers them American Indians who signed treaties in the U.S. Several Dakota nations living in Manitoba signed a treaty in Fort Laramie in 1868 but moved north rather than settle in the States.
American treaties were usually signed at the point of a gun so negotiations were in name only.
The Treaty of Fort Laramie set aside the Black Hills for the Sioux, but when gold was later discovered in the hills, the Dakota people were driven out. In 1876 Gen. George Custer attacked the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Bighorn River, resulting in the annihilation of his detachment.
Over the years the Canadian Dakota nations have been unable to benefit from any settlements in the United Sates because the Americans and the other Dakota tribes consider them Canadian. This is a strange situation and it leaves the Dakota in some kind of legal no man's land.
The deal offered by Ottawa amounted to a termination agreement. They would receive a one-time amount of $60 million if they renounced their claim to aboriginal rights in Canada. The Dakota chiefs didn't consider a settlement but rather a surrender.
Canada's shabby treatment of the Dakota First Nations stands out as a piece of unfinished treaty business. The circle will not be complete until all the First Nations are brought under the treaty tent.