Our Annuities Trial
The HISTORY of the ROBINSON HURON TREATY By Laura Sharp, Associate, Nahwegahbow Corbiere
This article comes from a portion of David Nahwegahbow’s opening statements during Ontario’s appeal of the Stage One decision of the Annuities Case at the Ontario Court of Appeal. David Nahwegahbow is the Robinson Huron Plaintiffs’ lead legal counsel. His statements have been edited for clarity and length. This is a map of Upper Canada in 1838 which shows that all the new settlements and townships at that time reached as far as Lake Simcoe. Just north of this is the Robinson Huron Treaty Territory. It stretches along the north shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron to Batchewana Bay, just past Bawaating (Sault Ste. Marie), and up to the height of land (where the water north of the height of land flows to James Bay and water south of the height of land flows to the Great Lakes and surrounding watersheds). Roughly, the Treaty Territory makes up the vast areas described as ‘Great Tract of Wilderness’ and ‘Immense Forests’ in the 1838 map of Upper Canada. This is all ‘Anishinaabe Country’— Anishinaabeakiing. In 1838, up to the time of the Treaty in 1850 and for some time beyond, the population of this area was almost exclusively Anishinaabe. There were some non-Anishinaabe people living at or around trading posts at Bawaating (Sault Ste Marie) and Michipicoten. But apart from that, this is Anishinaabeakiing territory, lands and waters, that the Anishinaabe have an inherent relationship with. This is an important point to understand because apart from a military garrison at Penetanguishene, there was no state apparatus or physical Crown presence in the territory. The Crown depended upon its longstanding alliance and Treaty 22
| E-Wiindamaagejig: The Robinson Huron Treaty Times
relationship with the Anishinaabe to protect the territory from incursion. The history of the Crown-Anishinaabe alliance relationship dates back to the 1750s, during the Seven Years War when the French and the British fought for control over what is now Ontario and Quebec and the northeastern United States. At the start of the war, the Anishinaabe had been in a military alliance with the French and for much of the war, the British were unable to defeat them. A pivotal point came in 1760 when the British, through Sir William Johnson—the first Superintendent General of Indian Affairs—were able to convince the Anishinaabe and other
TODAY, THE PROCLAMATION AND THE INALIENABILITY OF INDIAN LANDS TO ANYONE BUT THE CROWN, IS RECOGNIZED AS THE SOURCE OF THE FIDUCIARY DUTY AND THE HONOUR OF THE CROWN.
