Crown-directed Colonization of six Nations and Métis land Reserves in Canada
Date
1994
Authors
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ORCID
Type
Degree Level
Doctoral
Abstract
This study focuses upon contact between British-Canadian,
Aboriginal and Mennonite colonists' systems of property.
Both Aboriginal peoples and Mennonites sought to maintain
within the British-Canadian state their own areas of civil
jurisdiction, including distinct property systems. They
gained de facto civil autonomy at first, but eventually the
British-Canadian state presumed to define their property
rights according to British-Canadian law. Aboriginal
peoples' property rights, secured by promises from the Crown,
gradually were incorporated into the British-Canadian
property system as usufructuary interests which could be
converted into fee simple estates only at the discretion of
the Crown. Mennonite property rights, derived from Crown
grants, immediately were incorporated into the British-Canadian
property system as fee simple estates which were
enforceable against all parties including the Crown. The
systematic enforcement of British (later Canadian) property
rights, against competing Aboriginal property rights,
ultimately led, by 1848, to the dislocation in Upper Canada
(today's Ontario) of the Six Nations from the Grand River
Valley; and in what is now southern Manitoba, to the dislocation of Métis people from the Red River Valley by
1878.
The provincial governors/lieutenant-governors ensured
that Aboriginal peoples' dislocation occurred without resort
to the degree of bloody armed conflict that characterized
Aboriginal-newcomer relations in the American Northwest. So
long as the Six Nations in Upper Canada and the Métis people
in Red River/Manitoba held the balance of military power,
provincial gave governors/lieutenant-governors recognized
Aboriginal property rights secured by prior agreements. The
Six Nations and Métis people consequently exercised their
military power consistently in favour of the Crown because
they believed that their interests could best be promoted by
enforcing prior agreements through this channel. Thus, at
every flashpoint in the periods under investigation--whenever
they might have united with newcomers in opposing
imperial/dominion control of the administration of "Crown"
lands--the Six Nations and Métis people forestalled such
action and prevented an American-style revolution from taking
place in Canada.
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Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
Department
History
Program
History