The Caledonia Six Nations blockade and dispute: what a mess!(Aboriginal Law)

• Author: Fenwick, Fred R.

In the Spring of 2006, long simmering disputes around the Six Nations reserve in southern Ontario bubbled over to blockades, protest marches and masked "warriors". What are the background issues? (What isn't?!)

For starters, the Six Nations have long been at the crossroads of North American history and there is no doubt that their contribution to our history has not only been important, but in many respects crucial to who and what we are today.

The "six nations" in their modern reference are all famous names from our history. The French called them the Iroquois Confederacy, and the individual national names were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Tuscaroras. Their name for themselves was (roughly translated) The People Building a Long House and the Long House was not only a dwelling, but symbolic of their government which has been described as the oldest living participatory democracy on earth. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are acknowledged by most historians these days as owing a specific debt to the Six Nations in their formation of the American Constitution.

The Six Nations ended up in the Hamilton/Brantford area of southern Ontario by taking up with the British in the French and Indian Wars and later in the American War of Independence. Before 1776, their traditional lands south of Lake Ontario had been protected from encroachment by the American colonies by the Royal Proclamation of 1765 which established an Indian territory as roughly west of the Ohio River. At the end of British/American hostilities, the Treaty of Paris of 1783 between the new American Nation and the British left out the Six Nations land. They were left to make a deal with the Americans who were more than a little cool to them because of the Six Nations' formal allegiance with the Brits. Not only that, but the Americans were pretty interested in expanding west of the Ohio River.

The British did acknowledge their debt to the Six Nations. The British Prime Minister wrote in a letter:

"... the King ... much approves of your having sent Major Holland to ... survey the North side of Lake Ontario, your endeavour to prevail upon the Mohawks to settle to the Northward of the Lake, provided the Country should be found well suited for their convenience, These People are justly entitled to Our particular attention and it would be far from either generous or just in Us after our Cession of their Territories and Hunting grounds, to Forsake them."

So...