Politics

On 1 October 1993 the Mi’kmaq and the province of Nova Scotia signed a historic agreement designed to recognize past agreements made between the two peoples. This commitment is renewed at a ceremony held the first day of October each year. Recognition of aboriginal rights is especially important to Woodland Algonquians living in the Maritime provinces and parts of southern Quebec and northeastern Ontario because no negotiations regarding land cessions have ever taken place in these areas. The legal arguments on which these peoples must base their claims to land and resources must stem from still developing, international conceptions of what constitutes aboriginal rights, as well as clauses from pre-Confederation treaties of peace and friendship, where they exist, signed with the British in the eighteenth century. Another recent addition to the mix – and one that holds great promise for Algonquian peoples – is the Supreme Court’s 1997 decision in Delgamuukw that aboriginal title to land not covered by treaty remains unextinguished.

Land and resource issues constituted an important theme of discussion during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Grand Council forums among the Mi’kmaq, southeastern Ojibwa, Ojibwa of the Treaty 3 area, and Saint-François Abenaki. Many of these councils’ historical roots extended back as far as the mid-eighteenth century, if not earlier, and almost all lent their traditions of leadership and achievement to the modern regional political organizations which arose in the late 1960s. A White Paper introduced by the federal Liberal government in 1969, which advocated disbanding the Department of Indian Affairs, transferring Indian lands to the provinces, and giving native reserves municipal status, aroused universal condemnation in the native community. Across Canada, native regional organizations, where they did not already exist, came into being to protest the bill incorporating the White Paper’s recommendations, and in 1971 the bill was withdrawn. Over the years several of these organizations, including those in Nova Scotia and Ontario, have undergone major changes. In 1984 the Mainland Confederacy split away from the Union of Nova Scotia Indians originally founded in response to the 1969 White Paper, to form a separate political jurisdiction, while the Union of Ontario Indians (with political roots in the 1920s) recently underwent restructuring to meet the modern demands of its mostly Woodland Algonquian constituents, who represent over one-third of that province’s native communities.

Other regional organizations have had to overcome difficulties associated with the composite nature of their membership. Malecite and Mi’kmaq communities represented by the Union of New Brunswick Indians, founded in 1967, had not acted as close political allies since the late 1800s. For over a hundred years prior to this date, the positions of Malecite chief and subchief were held for life and ratified by neighbouring Abenaki, Mi’kmaq, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscot chiefs. Eastern Algonquian chiefs, with their subchiefs, assistants, and principal men known as captains, met periodically as members of the Wabanaki Confederacy. Devised to reach common positions on policies set forth by colonial powers, this alliance, with its great council fire at Caughnawaga (Kahnawake), Quebec, also preserved a corporate memory of past treaties and transactions recorded mnemonically in wampum records kept by each member group. With the disappearance of the Wabanaki Confederacy, political cooperation among the eastern Algonquians declined for many years. As noted above, an unsuccessful attempt was made during the 1950s to establish a pantribal Malecite political entity known as Wulastock. Yet, in recent times, the desire for greater unity has reasserted itself, owing to the political legacies left by several unique individuals, such as “Billy” Saulis at Tobique.

At the local level, in 1896 the Indian Act mandated three-year terms for elected chiefs, although the practice of selecting life chiefs did not end on many reserves until well into the twentieth century. In 1951 a revised Indian Act granted councils enlarged responsibilities but endowed the Department of Indian Affairs with veto power over all decisions. Today, an elected chief-and-councillor system continues in force, with band administrators and their staff assisting in the administration of community affairs.

When band councils and regional associations fail to address pressing problems effectively, grass-roots activist groups or protest movements arise. Woodland Algonquians were instrumental in setting up the pan-Indian Boston Indian Council in the early 1970s, they participated in protest demonstrations held by the American Indian Movement in the 1960s and 1970s, and they established “warrior societies” in defence of a wide range of causes. Native lobbying groups supported a campaign for reinstatement under the Indian Act of native women who had lost Indian status through marriage to non-natives, or persons of both sexes who had been involuntarily enfranchised owing to their educational attainments or war service. This campaign achieved its goal in 1985 with Parliament’s passage of Bill C-31, which amended the objectionable features of the Indian Act. Algonquian leaders also have operated forcefully within the Canadian political system. Ovide Mercredi, former leader of the Assembly of First Nations, is of Central Algonquian parentage. Elijah Harper, the member of the Manitoba legislature who played a leading role in destroying the Meech Lake constitutional accord, speaks a variant of Ojibwa and is of mixed Ojibwa and Cree ancestry, known as Oji-Cree. While their means and methods may differ, Algonquian leaders have done their share to elevate aboriginal concerns to a prominent place on Canada’s national political agenda.