Six Nations Land

When an Anglican prelate with long years of experience in the North and an Ontario magistrate who is himself a Six Nations Indian both recommend that the Indians of Ontario be given the rights of ordinary citizenship, the case has two powerful advocates.

Agreeing on this, The Financial Post thinks it is time to make a complete examination of the historic policy of Canada toward the aboriginal races.

That policy, our contemporary points out, was originated in an era when the 20th century concept of educability of all human beings, regardless of their racial origin, was not widely held.

"It was assumed," The Financial Post goes on, "that if any member of these races was ever to amount to anything it could only be by the complete adoption of the manners and mores of the White Man. That such races had a valuable culture of their own was held to be the preposterous theory of a few sentimentalists... We have abandoned, one by one, all of these errors, but we have never thought out a new policy, a way of making use of the best that the native races can contribute to the lift of Canada. There is much to be done besides granting the franchise and the right to acquire alcoholic beverages. But one of the great hypotheses of liberty is that which was stated by Professor G. B. Watson of Columbia: 'People treated as if they were able to decide wisely for themselves become so.'"

In essence this is the right of it, but The Financial Post should be aware that not all Indian "wards" of the Government can be parcelled together. The Six Nations people on the Brantford Reservation are in a class virtually by themselves. It is contended by them and on their behalf, and with historic justification, that they are not wards of the Government but allies of the Crown, Officialdom at Ottawa seems nearly always to be singularly obtuse on this point. Yet it is a point of great significance.

There are those, like Bridgadier O. M. Martin - the magistrate referred to above - and Archbishop Renison, who feel, no doubt with good reason, that the granting of the franchise to Indians generally would serve useful and unifying purpose. Again, however, there must be reason and tact in any effort to make such an arrangement. There should be no ordering, after the manner of some bureaucracies. Allies should be invited, not commanded, to share with us the responsibilities of Canadian citizenship. At the proper time such invitation might be found to be acceptable.

But under no circumstances, so far as the Six Nations people of the Grand River are concerned, should there be any hint or suggestions that, as a price for the franchise, they should be forced to surrender a single square foot of the lands which are rightfully theirs.

Our local Indians, as the Federal officials should well know, were not "placed" on their reservation, nor is the latter a sort of charitable asylum for them. The territory, as every school child hereabouts is aware, was freely and gratefully granted to them by King George III in compensation, in part, for lands in the Mohawk Valley Captain Thayendanegea (Joseph Brant) and his people lost by reason of remaining loyal to the British Crown and cause in the American Revolution. Once that point is grasped, nobody in his logical senses could subscribe to the suggestion that enfranchisement should entail dispossession.

Accepting that as a fundamental tenet, it may be possible to explore the possibilities mentioned by Brigadier Martin, Dr. Renison and our contemporary.