Honouring the Truth Reconciling for the Future

252 • Truth & Reconciliation CommissionIf Canada’s past is a cautionary tale about what not to do, it also holds a more constructivehistory lesson for the future. The Treaties are a model for how Canadians,as diverse peoples, can live respectfully and peacefully together on these lands wenow share.The Royal Proclamation of 1763 and Treaty of Niagara, 1764The history of Treaty making in Canada is contentious. Aboriginal peoples andthe Crown have interpreted the spirit and intent of the Treaties quite differently.Generally, government officials have viewed the Treaties as legal mechanisms bywhich Aboriginal peoples ceded and surrendered their lands to the Crown. In contrast,First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples understand Treaties as a sacred obligationthat commits both parties to maintain respectful relationships and share landsand resources equitably.Indigenous peoples have kept the history and ongoing relevance of the Treatiesalive in their own oral histories and legal traditions. Without their perspectives on thehistory of Treaty making, Canadians know only one side of this country’s history. Thisstory cannot simply be told as the story of how Crown officials unilaterally imposedTreaties on Aboriginal peoples; they were also active participants in Treaty negotiations.33 The history and interpretation of Treaties and the Aboriginal–Crown relationshipas told by Indigenous peoples enriches and informs our understanding ofwhy we are all Treaty people. 34 This is evident, for example, in the story of the RoyalProclamation of 1763 and its relationship to the Treaty of Niagara of 1764. The RoyalProclamation, which was issued by colonial officials, tells only half this story.On October 7, 1763, King George III issued a Royal Proclamation by which theBritish Crown first recognized the legal and constitutional rights of Aboriginal peoplesin Canada. In the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the British declared that all lands westof the established colonies belonged to Aboriginal peoples and that only the Crowncould legally acquire these lands by negotiating Treaties.At a time when Aboriginal peoples still held considerable power and conflicts withsettlers were increasing, British officials sought to establish a distinct geographicalarea that would remain under the jurisdiction of Indigenous nations until Treatieswere negotiated.Anishinaabe legal scholar John Borrows notes that the Royal Proclamation canbe fully understood only in relation to the Treaty of Niagara, in which the terms ofthe proclamation were ratified by Indigenous nations in 1764. As Borrows explains,the Indigenous leaders who negotiated the Treaty of Niagara with the Crown did sowith the understanding that they would remain free and self-determining peoples.Borrows observes: