Inside native politics: the dispute within the dispute in the Six Nations standoff

CBC News Online | April 21, 2006

On the face of it, the native blockade by Six Nations activists in tiny Caledonia, Ont., appears pretty straightforward: It's about land, isn't it? Or is it?

Certainly land figures prominently in the dispute. In this case, the parcel in question is a reasonably modest subdivision project on the Grand River – in an area that has been the subject of both a formal 19-year-old land claim by the adjacent Six Nations reserve as well as an emotional one by these same peoples that stretches back almost to the mists of time.

The Six Nations Confederacy, as any schoolchild should know, is one of Canada's storybook groups. In the 1770s and '80s, under British-educated chief Joseph Brant, they fought alongside England in the U.S. War of Independence. And for their loyalty they were awarded large tracts of land in what is now Quebec and central Ontario.

The Ontario portion was huge. Known initially as the Haldimand Tract, after the British officer who chose the allotment, it stretched for ten kilometres on either side of the meandering Grand River, from Lake Erie up through what is now much of Brantford, Cambridge and Kitchener-Waterloo.

But it was never clear – though Brant thought it was, according to at least some historians – whether all this land was actually ceded to the Six Nations, or whether it was merely the area from which they were to choose the portion they wanted to live on. (Today they are a community of about 26,000.)

The result was the usual meandering hodgepodge of Canadian history. Much of the Haldimand Tract was sold, some by Brant in the early going (suggesting natives did have at least some actual ownership); more was just appropriated by settlers or communities. Lawsuits abounded, the reserve grew smaller and at least 29 land claims have been filed with the federal government since the early 1980s

Of these, only one small claim involving a rail right of way has been settled. The official Ottawa view is that the Six Nations surrendered all lands that are not now part of their reserve; and if there is any historical liability it is pre-Confederation and therefore Ontario's problem.

Flash forward to the real world and this is the backdrop to what you see on the TV news: the nearly two-month protest at the development site; the bungled, early-morning Ontario Provincial Police raid to evict demonstrators – even as high-level talks with federal and provincial representatives and the band council were going on! – the burning tires, roadblocks and groups of young natives with bandanas over their faces, reminiscent of the Oka crisis in 1990.

The clan mothers

However, it is probably a mistake to see land as the whole story in this dispute. The other, equally compelling component is band governance – the power of tradition, if you like – which is something that has bedeviled the Six Nations in particular and has also had a huge impact on modern Canadian history.

In the past, the tribes that make up the Six Nations were governed by hereditary chiefs, who were chosen in turn by clan mothers (one for each clan). These matriarchs were also meant to be the ones responsible for all collective lands, hence the basis for some of the land claims: That clan mothers never signed off on certain historically disputed transactions.

Back in the 1920s, the federal government tried to force the Six Nations into having only an elected band council – that was the only group Ottawa would deal with under the Indian Act. But that fight led all the way to the Supreme Court in the late 1970s and in the end it might be said that both sides won.

The role of the elected council was strengthened but so was the concept of traditional aboriginal government, which has since undergone something of an upsurge, particularly among young natives.

Opposing groups

The upshot: Six Nations still has both groups, an elected council and the old hereditary leadership, often competing with each other and calling each other names.

It was the council that was negotiating with Ottawa and Queen's Park to try to resolve the dispute while it was the clan mothers and their young followers who were organizing the protest at the construction site.

The clan mothers are an impressive lot. On the day in March when a local judge had first ordered the protesters dispersed, a group of about 500 (by some reports) mostly women showed up to keep police at bay.

More impressive is their command of the internet. Powered by a plea from the B.C.-based International Indigenous Youth Conference Secretariat, the Caledonia standoff has become a growing point of discussion in recent weeks on native and other activist sites right across Canada, with the American Indian Movement in the U.S. and as far away as Australia.

This huge international interest in the dispute may explain why the OPP acted as oddly as it did, without even informing anyone in the McGuinty government. Though trying to fathom police politics can be as tricky as trying to figure out who really holds power in a native organization.

The implications

The big one of course is who speaks for the Six Nations. On internet blogs, band members reported that council was willing to hand over responsibility for all land matters to the clan mothers and hereditary chiefs, but that it also appeared to want a band-wide vote on that as well as what should be done about the sit-in at the construction site.

Before the police moved in, the council was negotiating a deal with Ottawa and Queen's Park that would, among other things, have offered federal funding to examine the Six Nations governance structure (which could mean some kind of referendum to see who should run the show).

It would also have included a promise from Ottawa to accelerate land claims, though the two in particular the band council had in mind would not have included the occupied property for the proposed subdivision.

Beyond the band

There are also broad issues here for Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty (what's up with his police force?) as well as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Assembly of First Nations Grand Chief Phil Fontaine.

Harper has so far said all the right soothing things about the Caledonia situation. But he is on record during the election campaign as wanting to see much more direct accountability by native groups, a concept that doesn't easily square with governance by unelected chiefs and clan mothers.

Fontaine, too, has been campaigning vigorously for universal suffrage – to have his position elected by all status Indians, not just chiefs, elected or hereditary.

He probably doesn't want to take on the traditionalists and the clan mothers directly. But he wants an elected mandate to strengthen his hand when dealing with Ottawa and others, so he can clearly say he is speaking for native people.

Today's young traditionalists are agitating to speak as a people, which is why they are calling on the UN and the Governor General to intervene even in places such as Caledonia. That's not likely, of course, but it does show there is much more at stake here than just a few designer houses on a nice bend in the river.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]