Today’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation must go beyond the state and church interventions that left Indigenous peoples with trauma, graves, and apologies. It should also be about understanding the sharp turn Canada made away from its original promise—and ultimately finding our way back to that shared path.
Before residential school policy was introduced in 1883, there was another vision for our shared home: one of peace, friendship, and, most importantly, coexistence. This vision was set forward 120 years earlier, on the shores of the Niagara River.
Looking back
In the summer of 1764, more than 2,000 chiefs representing 24 Indigenous nations from across eastern and central North America assembled with the Crown’s representative, Sir William Johnson, to further discuss the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and restate the relationship in what has become commonly known as the Treaty of Niagara.
Through this diplomatic engagement, Indigenous nations and the Crown set forth a vision of two peoples standing side by side: each respecting the sovereignty of the other in a shared home built on trust and mutual responsibility. It was, at its heart, the creation of a diplomatic vision for how two distinct peoples could live together on the same land.
As legal scholar John Borrows explains, “The two row wampum belt illustrates a First Nations/Crown relationship that is founded on peace, friendship, and respect, where each nation will not interfere with the internal affairs of the other.”
The treaty was ratified through wampum belt, binding the parties into what is often referred to as the “Covenant Chain”. Its creation also marked a promise to continually renew the relationship, or “polish the chain” when it grew dull.
The Treaty of Niagara set out a relationship of coexistence—not dominance.
This covenant should have been the foundation of what we now call Canada. Instead, the Crown—and later the Canadian state—opted for a different course. Over the decades that followed, the treaty’s principles were slowly abandoned. In 1867, the British North America Act formed the Dominion of Canada. Then, the 1876 Indian Act imposed a relationship of control over Indigenous Nations: centralizing power in Ottawa, restricting movement with the reserve system, making cultural practices illegal, and stripping away self-government. Instead, a legislated chief and council model was imposed, which, to this day, relies on Ottawa for final signing authority.
