Law & History

"Indigenous Nationals/Canadian Citizens begins with a detailed policy history from first contact to the Sesquicentennial with major emphasis on the evolution of Canadian policy initiatives relating to Indigenous peoples. This is followed by a focus on the key Supreme Court decisions that have dramatically enhanced Indigenous peoples' legal and constitutional rights. Attention is then directed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the associated "Calls to Action," including their relationship to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

"For more than fifteen years, Keith Crowe's A History of the Original Peoples of Northern Canada has informed a multitude of residents in and visitors to the Canadian North and has served as a standard text. Now, in a new epilogue, Crowe describes and analyses the changes in the North which have come about since the book's first publication.

"Today the First Nations are demanding a new recognition of their place in Canada. For them this demand is a renewal of the historical relationship between themselves and the European newcomers, based on mutual respect and a separate but equal status in which neither side would interfere with the integrity of the other's culture, language, law, or religious and political systems.

"The story of James Sewid, a twentieth-century Kwakiutl Indian Chieftain, brings to life the experience of one man caught in conflict as the traditional Kwakiutl culture gave way to the demands of an expanding Western society in British Columbia. Born in 1910 into a rapidly disintegrating Indian culture, Sewid as a young child received unusually intensive training and special treatment from his elders because he was their heir to many 'names,' which he early learned carried great responsibility with them.

"When Christopher Columbus first encountered the original inhabitants of the New World, he remarked they were 'So tractable, so peaceable . . . that I swear . . . there is not in the world a better nation." Yet wave after wave of European arrivals sought to wipe those nations from the earth. By what right did one race seize the land belonging to another and subjugate its people? Distinguished jurist and Native rights advocate Thomas Berger surveys the history of the Americas since their 'discovery' by Europeans and examines how the colonizing powers wrestled with the moral issues.

"Volume I begins with the spread of Ice Age hunters out of a land mass called Beringia that once joined Asia and North America. Most of the country was covered by glacial ice, and extinct animals such as mammoth and sabre toothed cats occupied the tundra and lichen woodlands. People of this first and subsequent migrations from Asia gradually adapted to the rapidly changing environment. Eventually, distinct cultures occupied all of Canada`s major environmental zones.

"This is the first major body of annotated texts in James Bay Cree, and a unique documentation of Swampy and Moose Cree (Western James Bay) usage of the 1950s and 1960s. Conversations and interviews with 16 different speakers include: legends, reminiscences, historical narratives, stories and conversations, as well as descriptions of technology. The book includes a detailed pronunciation guide, notes on Cree terms, informants’ comments, dialect variations, and descriptions of cultural values and customs.

"In past treaties, the Aboriginal people of Canada surrendered title to their lands in return for guarantees that their traditional ways of life would be protected. Since the 1950s, governments have reneged on these commitments in order to acquire more land and water for hydroelectric development.