Educating Our Educators Guide for Staff - Algoma District School ...

Many treat the Royal Proclamation of 1763 as a unilateral declaration of the Crown's sovereignty over FirstNations and Inuit Peoples and their land. However, the Royal Proclamation is only a part of the Treaty ofNiagara, a treaty that was negotiated between 24 First Nations and the Crown in1764.While the British Crown’s representative presented written words to the First Nations Peoples, the wordsspoken at the Niagara Treaty negotiations were preserved in belts of wampum, woven of hundreds of shellbeads. The Wampum Belts bore symbols that had become familiar to the Nations: the figure of a humanwas the sign of a Nation: humans holding hands meant friendship or common purpose; a diamond orhexagon symbolized a council fire of a nation; a white line was the symbol of the straight path of peace orcommunication.The Covenant Chain Wampum Belt preserves the Treaty of Niagara of 1764 that ratified the RoyalProclamation of 1763. The Covenant Chain belt bore symbols of two men holding hands, with the links of achain at each end, and the year 1764 worked into the design. Note - The design specifically represents anEnglishman and a First Nation person not just any two people.The Annual Presents Wampum Belt depicts the twenty-four nations holding hands, with a rock BritishNorth America (Canada) at one end (right) of the belt and a ship at the other end (left). The promise“spoken” into the belt was that the British would always deliver the presents from the King each year; thatshould they forget, the Nations would reach across the ocean and pull the ship by its cable to (Canada).The Two Row Wampum Belt symbolizes the Treaty of 1613, that was renewed 1764 at Niagara. When theHaudenosaunee first came into contact with the European nations, treaties of peace and friendship weremade. Each was symbolized by the Two Row Wampum Belt. There is a bed of white wampum whichsymbolizes the purity of the agreement. There are two rows of purple, and those two rows have the spirit ofthe ancestors of the Haudenosaunee, First Nation, and European Peoples. There are three beads ofwampum separating the two rows and they symbolize peace, friendship and respect. These two rowssymbolize two paths or two vessels, traveling down the same river together. One, a birch bark canoe will befor the Indian people, their laws, their customs and their ways. The other, a ship, will be for the white peopleand their laws, their customs, and their ways. Each will travel the river together, side by side, but in our ownboats. Neither will try to steer the other's vessel.Educating Our Educators – Educating Our Aboriginal StudentsRevised March 201145