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Distributed for Purich Publishing

Breathing Life into the Stone Fort Treaty

An Anishnabe Understanding of Treaty One

In order to interpret and implement a treaty between the Crown and Canada’s First Nations, we must look to its spirit and intent, and consider what was contemplated by the parties at the time the treaty was negotiated, argues Aimée Craft. Using a detailed analysis of Treaty One – today covering what is southern Manitoba – she illustrates how negotiations were defined by Anishinabe laws (inaakonigewin), which included the relationship to the land, the attendance of all jurisdictions’ participants, and the rooting of the treaty relationship in kinship. While the focus of this book is on Treaty One, Anishinabe laws (inaakonigewin) defined the settler-Anishinabe relationship well before this, and the principles of interpretation apply equally to all treaties with First Nations.

© 2013


Table of Contents

Foreword / John Burrows

Introduction: Treaty Interpretation and Implementation:Entwined Disconnection

Part One: What Came Before Treaty One
1. Skilled Negotiators and Diplomats:The Anishinabe and Indigenous, Fur Trade, and Crown Treaties
2. Manito Api — this “Piece of Land”: Treaty Making with the Indians of Manitoba

Part Two: Making the Stone Fort Treaty
3. The Anishinabe at the Stone Fort: The People that Belong to this Land
4. Building on Stone Foundations: Relationships and Protocols

Part Three: Anishinabe Inaakonigewin
5. Gizhagiiwin: The Queen’s Obligations of Love, Caring, Kindness and Equality
among her Children
6. “The Land Cannot Speak for Itself”: Relationships To and About Land

Part Four: Living the Treaty
7. Implementing the Treaty: Outside Promises and Post-treaty Disputes in the Immediate
Post-treaty Years.

Conclusion: Re-kindling the Fire: Finding and Embracing the Spirit and Intent
of Treaty One Today

Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

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