October 2020

October 1, 2020 This essay will be the first in a series exploring what it means to be a treaty person in Atlantic Canada and addressing Canadian legal structures that inhibit Indigenous rights recognition and implementation in our region. What does it mean to be a treaty person in Canada today? The answer to that question will differ from person to person, as, for each of us, it depends on who we are, where we are from, and where we live and travel.  For me, as a settler person living in K’jipuktuk (Halifax)—which is one small part of Mi’kma’ki, the large, unceded, and unsurrendered territory of the Mi’kmaq—being a treaty person means several things.  Among other things, my identity as a settler treaty person in Mi’kma’ki means that I have a responsibility to honour and act in accordance with the covenant chain of Peace and Friendship treaties that the British Crown established with the Mi’kmaq throughout the eighteenth century, including the treaties of 1725, 1752, and 1760-61. The Mi’kmaq entered into those treaties believing that they were agreeing to share the land and its resources with the British; they believed that their right to inhabit their territory and access its plentiful…