Copy shows treaty ‘was about allowing access to the land, not selling the land’: elder
CBC News: What is thought to be the final remaining community copy of a 150-year-old treaty that opened a gateway to what is now Western Canada is on temporary display at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg.
The 24 Anishinaabe chiefs who signed Treaty 3 in 1873 were given copies of Manidoo Mazina’igan — the sacred treaty — by the Crown.
Naotkamegwanning First Nation Chief Paabamasagaa’s copy — believed to be the last of its kind and which has since been cared for by his descendants, Ottawa and the Lake of the Woods Museum — has been on display at the human rights museum since Monday.
Treaty 3 “was about allowing access to the land — not selling the land, not giving up our birthrights,” said Elder Sherry Copenace, a great-granddaughter of Chief Paabamasagaa. “We know that the land is our mother, so we wouldn’t sell her.”
Treaty 3 territory covers an area of about 142,000 square kilometres, spanning northwestern Ontario and southeastern Manitoba. The treaty is also known as the Northwest Angle Treaty, since that is where it was signed on Oct. 3, 1873.
Copenace says the display offers a chance to learn who the Anishinaabeg of Treaty 3 are “as a people — that we’re not historical.” “We’re alive and well, and we’ve kept our side of the treaties.… We still have trust in the treaties and that it will be fulfilled at some point.”
All Canadians should be familiar with the country’s treaties with Indigenous people regardless of where they live, Copenace says. “Everyone has a role and responsibility in regards to fulfilling [Treaty 3],” she said, but “the wholeness of the treaty needs to be honoured by the Crown.”
Rocky road to ratification
Treaty 3 negotiations took four years — considerably longer than treaties 1 and 2, which were signed within weeks in 1871.
Though Treaty 3 was meant to be the first of the numbered treaties, negotiations faced repeated delays due to several factors. Those included opposition to some of the Crown’s conditions such as land surrender as well as farm and settlement use.
Another version of the treaty also exists, known as the Paypom Treaty. That document contains written notes by Joseph Nolin, a Red River Métis man hired by the Anishinaabeg to record the oral negotiations, and differs from the Crown’s version of Treaty 3 primarily because it does not say that the Anishinaabeg had agreed to give up their lands.
The document that will be on display at the national museum until Sunday reflects the Crown’s version of the text, but is written on vellum rather than parchment and differs slightly in format from the Crown’s version.
Although the Paypom Treaty has been long thought to be the more accurate version of Treaty 3 by the Anishinaabeg, it has been suggested that some negotiators seemed not to fully understand what they were agreeing to. A treaty commissioner documented that one chief said he did in fact recognize that he was signing over his “birthright and lands.”
Of the 24 chiefs who signed Treaty 3, only three marked the document with an “X” to confirm their assent to its terms. It has been said that “the remaining 21 just touched the pen, because they knew they weren’t in full agreement, but they knew it was the best they could do,” according to Copenace.
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Even so, the negotiators of Treaty 3 had bargained for benefits that far outweighed what had been included in the first two, such as hunting and fishing rights, higher annuity payments and a four-fold increase in reserve land.
The treaty was crucial to Canadian Confederation, as the British needed a way to travel between what are now Thunder Bay and Winnipeg without entering the United States. It was also a benchmark for negotiations of the remaining numbered treaties and revisions of the first two.
‘Proof that our ancestors did look to us’
Copenace says whenever she sees Manidoo Mazina’igan in person, she feels immense honour and pride that her great-grandparents held on to their copy. “It’s proof that our ancestors did look to us — their descendants — 150 years later.… They wanted the best for us, and not only us, but for the people that were coming from across the seas to live with us,” she said.
“They knew that in the future, people would come to look at it and see that even though the promises haven’t been kept by the government, we still … honour it as Anishinaabe people.”
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Matthew Cutler, vice-president of exhibitions at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, says the institution is honoured to share the documents and stories behind Treaty 3 with the public.
“As we listen to elders and Indigenous leadership — and take in the powerful significance of the original documents on display — it is clear that we all need to recommit to our treaty promises, to be accountable to the relationships that treaties were meant to build and sustain,” he said in a statement to CBC News.
Manidoo Mazina’igan’s Winnipeg display is the last stop for the exhibition. It was previously shown throughout Treaty 3 territory in honour of its 150th anniversary.
The travelling exhibition also marked the treaty’s first showcase alongside its three adhesion agreements, including one which was signed with the “Halfbreeds of Rainy River and Lake.”
In 2017, the Ontario government and the Métis Nation of Ontario announced the identification of six historic Métis communities throughout the province, including those who signed that adhesion.
However, Grand Council Treaty #3, which represents First Nations situated roughly between Thunder Bay, Ont., and the Manitoba border, says the federal government failed to consult with them before signing an agreement with the Métis Nation of Ontario.
In March of this year, First Nations in northeastern Ontario asked a federal judge to cancel an MNO self-government agreement signed in February, alleging a lack of consultation and potential violations of their rights.
Clarifications
- This story has been updated to provide more context and clarity on an adhesion agreement that is featured in the exhibit.Oct 21, 2023 3:34 PM CT
Corrections
- An earlier version of this story said a copy of the Paypom Treaty, which differs from the Crown’s version of Treaty 3, is on display at the Human Rights museum. In fact, the text of the version on display at the museum reflects the Crown’s version.Oct 20, 2023 11:26 AM CT
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ozten Shebahkeget, Reporter
Özten Shebahkeget is Anishinaabe/Turkish Cypriot and a member of Northwest Angle 33 First Nation who grew up in Winnipeg’s North End. She joined CBC Manitoba in 2021 through the inaugural Pathways program. She is also a recent graduate of the master of fine arts in writing program at the University of Saskatchewan, during which her poetry appeared in CV2, Prairie Fire, the Winnipeg Free Press and with the Winnipeg Art Gallery.