A Settler Many Times Over
As I write this in October of 2020, Canada is in the midst of disrespecting and abdicating its Treaty obligations to the Mi’kmaq peoples of Atlantic Canada. This Treaty (ironically named the Peace and Friendship Treaties) was signed in 1752, making it older than the establishment of Canada in 1867.
These are all things that I’m in the process of learning as a settler here. My parents and I arrived in Winnipeg (Treaty 1, est. 1871) as refugees from Czechoslovakia in 1990. I was too young to remember much, but my parents later told me that they were warned by settlement services about ‘those people’—you know, the urban Indigenous. So began the socialization process that alienates the land we know from Canada’s original inhabitants.
We were only in Winnipeg for a couple of years before relocating to Calgary (Treaty 7, 1877). I didn’t think much of Indigenous peoples growing up as the curriculum was light on residential schools and heavy on ‘explorers’. My clearest memory of my relationship with the local Indigenous peoples was when I started playing club basketball and we played the Siksika Nation. As a 14-year-old I was warned they were rough, the refs wouldn’t save us, and that win or lose we shouldn’t waste time changing and we should grab our stuff and get out of the gym.
For six years of post-secondary, I lived in the Niagara region where I was much more likely to hear about the exploits of Sir Isaac Brock during the War of 1812 than I was to hear about the Treaty of Niagara, which was originally established in 1764. The Brits were buoyed in the aforementioned War of 1812 as the First Nations believed that the Treaty bound them to the British cause—for the sum of 12 thousand blankets, 23,500 yards of cloth; 5,000 silver ear bobs; 75 dozen razors and 20 gross of jaw harps.
I then lived abroad for a few years where I saw the impacts of colonialism on the state of Bahia in Brazil, where 1.7 million slaves were brought from Africa in the 17th century, forever transforming the demographics of South America. A stint in Germany followed, where I got another deep historical education in the Holocaust. I also learned that a German form of gender policing and anti-Indigenous sentiment exists in “ein Indianer kennt keinen Schmerz”—essentially ‘an Indian doesn’t feel any pain,’ referring to boys who are not supposed to cry.
Another stint in Calgary precludes my current residence in Vancouver, which is actually on unceded (no Treaties = occupation with no rights) territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. This presents an interesting challenge for contemporary settlers as we seek to establish Nation-to-Nation relations as part of Truth and Reconciliation.
Through my learning and unlearning (as well as reading Bob Joseph’s 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act) I’ve come to see Treaties as often having been negotiated in bad faith due to information asymmetry as to the value of land, a projection of patriarchal governance structures by settlers onto Indigenous peoples, as well as being tied to a colonial justice system which meant little to nothing to the First Nations.
Suffice to say, the more I learn, the more I know that I don’t know and am humbly a student.
Written by Next Gen Men Executive Director Jake Stika as part of Treaties Recognition Week, an annual event that offers an opportunity to learn more about our collective Treaty rights and obligations. We are all Treaty people.