Pre-Contact History of the Americas - A Diversity of Societies Wax & Wane - Chapter 4

In the twenty-first century advancements in science and technology have enabled humanity to uncover a wealth of new knowledge about our planet, the galaxy in which it is housed, and the multitude of galaxies that make up the universe beyond the Milky Way. We have come to witness the magnificence and enormity of that vast and open space above our heads and to reduce the mystery of what lies beyond our skyward gaze. It is an age of endless possibilities and extraordinary new insights to be gleaned from adventurous explorations into the stars. Undoubtedly, the sparkle in the eyes of contemporary astronauts is little different than it would have been for pilots who hoisted anchor and set sail with merchant ships for the New World in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Landing on the shorelines of the American continents, men the likes of Christopher Columbus, Giovanni de Verrazano, Hernando de Soto, Jacques Cartier, and Martin Frobisher, would likely have had little conception of how vast a discovery of land mass they planted their feet upon. Fully eight times the size of the European continent from whence they came, this foreboding wilderness would take centuries more to cross. The 'Age of Discovery' is in actuality a misnomer and should perhaps be titled the 'Age of Arrival' since the word discovery implies an attribute of awareness and knowledge about the New World that did not exist. As Jack Weatherford has observed in his book, Indian Givers- How the Indians of the Americas Transformed The World, "Columbus arrived in the New World in 1492, but [the Americas have] yet to be discovered...The history and culture of [the Americas] remains a mystery, still terra incognita after five hundred years."

The original legal doctrine from the Law of Nations used to support European imperial claims to acquisition of territories in the Americas was the doctrine of Discovery. According to the dictates of this doctrine, title to terra nullius (unoccupied) lands could be acquired and sovereignty established by symbolic acts such as erecting a coat-of-arms on a pole or burying coins in the soil. However, title to the lands was only considered to be valid if said lands were not already in the possession of a Christian Prince. Also, at the end of the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Europe was still operating intellectually within the framework of Natural Law, which acknowledged the right of 'infidels' to dominium. Therefore, it had to be established within a claim to territories that were already occupied by non-Christian peoples that they were in fact not human at all, but rather a sub-human species. This would nullify their rights under Natural Law and make it valid for representatives of a European monarch to claim sovereignty over their lands under Canon Law. It was through incorporation of this rationale that Spanish explorers asserted sovereignty over the territories they arrived at in the Americas; claiming title on behalf of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella through reference to the 1493 Papal Bull, Inter Catera, while also suppressing and exterminating the indigenous peoples they encountered.

Who were those beings that Hernando de Soto and Francisco Pizzaro encountered in Mexico and Peru, that Jacques Cartier met on the St. Lawrence River, and Captain James Cook traded with along the North West Coast? Were they really a sub-human species incapable of political organization, outside the protection of Natural Law and devoid of property rights? The revolutionary advances in science and technology during the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have not only served to open a gateway to the heavens, but have also aided significantly in unlocking some of the hidden stories of ancient civilizations on the Earth. A window into the antiquity of the Americas has started to reveal glimpses of the land's history through the efforts of archaeologists, anthropologists, linguists, and ethnohistorians in the latter part of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth. Of particular utility to archaeologists was the development of Radio Carbon Dating (Carbon 14 Dating) techniques in the 1960s. Through this procedure for testing of organic matter unearthed in dig sites it became possible to calculate the age of their finds with an enhanced degree of accuracy.

The renaissance of indigenous cutural identities in the Americas over the past quarter century has also stimulated an unearthing of volumes of hitherto forgotten and ignored documentation of inter-relations and formal agreements reached between Aboriginal peoples and European imperial representatives since the time of first contact. As knowledge about the Pre-Contact and Historic eras of the Americas has accumulated it has exposed a host of erroneous assumptions that hitherto have shaped perceptions and attitudes about the peoples who inhabited these lands before immigrants from Europe settled in their midst.

The findings of these studies thus far indicate that human beings have been inhabiting the length and breadth of the American continents for at least the past 11,000 years. Archaeological sites have produced Radio-Carbon datings of 13,000-15,000 B.P.(Before Present) in Monte Verde, southern Chile; 10,500 B.P. in Charlie Lake Cave, British Columbia; 9,000 B.P. from a Longhouse unearthed in Mission, British Columbia, and from the Fletcher (Bison kill) Site in southern Alberta; 10,600 B.P. in Debert, Nova Scotia; and 3,000 B.P. on the Red Deer River in central Alberta.

It is still a matter of conjecture as to how the continents became populated but the generally accepted view is that during the last Ice Age a landbridge of snow and ice 1000 kilometers wide formed across the Bering Strait (also known as Beringia), thus connecting Siberia to the North American continent. As the theory goes, Paleo-Indians in pursuit of Mammoths simply walked across Beringia and in time migrated south and spread out across the Plains, into the Woodlands, and beyond. Knut Fladmark, a Canadian archaeologist, holds the hypothesis of a coastal migration route. Since the west coast was unglaciated anywhere from 60,000 to 25,000 years ago this is also a viable theory, though a lack of any archaeological evidence to support the argument leaves it open to challenge. Last, but not at all the least, is the suggestion made by Alan McMillan that the arrival at various times of separate populations with very different cultural adaptations would help to explain the diversity of distinct peoples and cultures that comprise the indigenous population of the Americas.

Although the true origin of Aboriginal peoples in the New World remains contentious, what is clear is that,  "[f]or a thousand generations, the American continents have been home to Indian people. From forager to farmer, tribe to nation, the native American civilizations waxed and waned. They developed sophisticated forms of art, elaborate political and social structures, intricate intellectual patterns, mathematics, handicrafts, agriculture, writing, complex religious and belief systems, imaginative architecture - indeed a whole panoply of human endeavors that rivaled the cultures developing in the Middle East, Europe, and China." Several excellent books have been published in recent years which provide extensive descriptions of a host of diverse cultures and societies in the Pre-Contact era and it is well beyond the scope of this article to repeat that recording and analysis. A brief synthesis is necessary, however, to stand as evidence for both the antiquity of civilization in the Americas and to refute any assertion of a 'sub-human' characterization for these peoples.

The oldest archaeological discoveries to date identify a foraging peoples that have come to be known by the name, Clovis. Dig sites have produced Radio-Carbon dates between 9,500 and 9,000 B.P., though not much is known about these peoples beyond their identification as Homo Sapiens and the design of the spear points that they used in hunting for their survival. The other cultures and societies that have been discovered can be divided into three distinct periods: the Archaic Period (6000 B.C. - 1000 B.C.); the Initial Woodland Period (1000 B.C. - A.D. 900); and the Terminal Woodland Period (A.D. 900 to the historic era).

From the Archaic Period (6000 B.C.-1000 B.C.) we have as an example of the age the Olmec, who achieved political domination and military authority over a vast area of settled agricultural villages along the Mexican Gulf Coast from 1500 B.C. thru 600 B.C.. It has been hypothesized that the Olmec was not actually a specific culture, but rather a pan-Middle American religion that preceded the birth of the first pan-European religion (Christendom) by 1500 years. The symbolic icon of the Olmec religion was the Rain God; an ogre with human and jaguar aspects. The example of these peoples serves to demonstrate a sophisticated construct of spirituality and counters the premise later utilized to diminish the rights of Aboriginal peoples to dominium under Natural Law; namely that the indigenous population were a dumb and brutish species incapable of political community. The stone edifices that have been discovered also provide evidence of a capacity for intricate craftsmanship and a flare for expression of world views that parallels anything produced in Greece and Rome during the same era.

Also within the Archaic Period is evidence of the Laurentian culture in the region of what is now referred to as southern Ontario and Quebec. Archaeologists have also identified these peoples as belonging to the categorization of foragers. Through examination of burial sites, evidence has been uncovered that provides insight into complex ceremonialism, the practice of warfare, and the existence of extensive trade networks. In contemporary appraisals indicators of ritual in burial practices infers a 'civilized' attribute, while the ability to organize for warfare and trade stand as benchmarks for a people's right to recognition of statehood and demonstrates the capacity for political community and a sovereign will to possess the benefits of a defined territory.

The Initial Woodland Period (1000 B.C. - A.D. 900) is marked by the cultures and societies of the Zapotec (500 B.C. - A.D. 700) in the valley of Oaxaca, Mexico; the carefully planned city construction, field irrigation system, and pyramid-building of the Teotihuacan (150 B.C. - A.D. 750); the agricultural practices, Longhouse government tradition and communal organization of the Owasco (A.D. 100 - A.D. 1300) - ancestors of the Iroquois - in upper New York State; the Mayan Empire (A.D. 300 - A.D. 900), with its hieroglyphic language recorded on walls of stone that parallels the complexity of the Egyptian hieroglyphic tradition; the continuous presence of nomadic and communal Bison hunters on the Plains from early in the Archaic Period, and the system of community policing they employed to regulate the competing interests of group vs. individual rights; and the hierarchical and patriarchal political communities of the North West Coast whose ancestors are now referred to as the Haida, Tsimshian, Tlingit, Kwakiutl, Nuu-chah-nulth, Nuxalk and Gitksan.

In the Terminal Woodland Period (A.D. 900 to the historic era) the Americas were home to the Mississippian cultures (A.D. 750 - A.D. 1539) of the Eastern Woodlands region - ancestors of the Creeks, Chickasaws, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Cherokees - whose burial mounds and ceremonies demonstrated an elaborate cornucopia of religious customs and spiritual beliefs; the Anazazi (A.D. 900 - A.D. 1150) of the Colorado Plateau - ancestors of the Pueblo Indians and builders of what has come to be known as the Chaco Phenomenon; the Ontario Iroquois Tradition of the Huron, Petun and Neutral cultures as well as the St. Lawrence Iroquoian cultures of the Stadaconans and Hochelagans; The Innu (Montagnais-Naskapi) of northern Quebec and Labrador; the Algonkian of northeastern North America - ancestors of the Cree and Ojibwa; the Thule peoples (A.D. 1000 - A.D. 1600) of the Arctic - ancestors of the Inuit; the 'dog days' of nomadic life for the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Gros Ventre; and the floating city of the Aztec Empire (A.D. 1325 - A.D. 1520) in Peru.

This cursory synthesis undoubtedly captures only a fragment of the historical complexities and cultural identities of the Americas during the Pre-Contact ages but should provide sufficient evidence to undermine any pretense of a natural inferiority as a defining characteristic of Aboriginal peoples. These people were no less susceptible to the currents of social and political change that are so much a part of all societies throughout the histories of every region on the globe. Like Europeans, Africans and Asians, the record of their histories demonstrates the same capacity for adaptation and utilization of the Earth and its resources for survival, a common affinity toward political community, family and group allegiance, territorial attachments, inter-societal trade arrangements, and warfare. They have demonstrated their intelligence through a host of cultural achievements, spiritual philosophies, language formulations, agricultural developments and pharmacology discoveries.

The inherent humanity of these peoples, it is important to note, was not denied by the first European explorers to arrive on the American continent either. Before their greed for gold consumed the last vestiges of their morality and consciences, explorers acknowledged and validated the identity of Aboriginal peoples with attributes equal to or greater than their own. Jacques Cartier referred to the Indians he encountered on his first voyage by noting that, "...there can be no doubt that they are a superior race." Francisco Pizzaro and his mates were awe-struck by the spectacular Aztec engineering feat of building a floating city on top of a lake and one of them considered it as more magnificent than anything he had ever seen in Europe. Indeed, it was not until the discovery of treasures in Mexico and Peru that the 'Noble Savage' made a transformation of identity within the minds of European explorers into the 'Savage Beast.'

Support for the assertion that a customary rule validating territorial claims based on Discovery within the Law of Nations did not, in fact, achieve coalescence into a mutually recognized right acceptable to all states, even in Europe, comes from several observations. First, as noted earlier in this work, Spain was criticized throughout much of the sixteenth century "...for cruelty of human to human" and the contemporary revulsion with the immorality of their actions has been enshrined for historical reference within La Leyenda Negra. Secondly, the arguments of Spanish Dominican, Las Casas, as presented to the Spanish Crown exposed the detestable activities of the Conquistadors in the New World, defended Aboriginal rights to dominium under Natural Law, and attacked the Aristotelian notion of an inherent 'servile' character within perceptions of the indigenous population of the New World. As a result of his arguments, the Spanish Crown accepted an Aboriginal title to the land, at least in the abstract, and encouraged its representatives in the New World to complete treaties with the Aboriginal peoples for their lands.

Last, but not least, prominent scholarly opinion also denounced the claim. Francisco de Vitoria (A.D. 1480? - A.D. 1552), Dominican and Primary Professor of Sacred Theology at the University of Salamanca, has been recognized as "...one of the most important thinkers of this period," and "[h]is work had a tangible influence on the policies and attitudes of the powers of the day..."  In A.D. 1532 his work, "De Indis Et De Jure Belli" was published, which"...outlined basic concepts of the rights of indigenous peoples." According to Vitoria's argument, there was "...no ground for making war and seizing the property of barbarians", "aborigines are true owners from both the public and private point of view", and "...claims based on 'discovery' are discounted." As Maureen Davies has observed, "Vitoria's concept of the Law of Nations recognized that certain rights inhere in men as men and that state equality was applicable to all states, not merely to those that were Christian or European."

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the Law of Nations that arose out of the political dynamics of Europe during the sixteenth century was to provide the catalyst for the evolution of international customary rules for judging the validity of territorial claims under International Law. The legal validity of claims based on the doctrine of Discovery has not changed in four hundred years. As was the view of Innocent IV, Las Casas and Vitoria in the sixteenth century under the Law of Nations, so too under International Law it has been invalidated by Judge Ammoun of The United Nations International Court of Justice. In the Western Sahara Case of 1975 Ammoun ruled that, "[i]n short, the concept of terra nullius, employed at all periods, to the brink of the twentieth century, to justify conquest and colonization, stands condemned."

Pre-Contact Europe and Precursors to First Contact in the Americas - Chapter 3

Between the fifth and the tenth centuries Europe was in chaos and disorder. Invading armies from Scandinavia, North Africa, and central Asia swept across the continent, "...gutting cities and effacing any semblance of government" in their wake. As a means for seeking security and protection, people turned to local land owners and offered their labors in exchange for safety. This system of obligations, known as Feudalism, became established throughout most of France, England, Germany and northern Italy by the end of the eleventh century. Local land owners and the armies of mercenary soldiers they employed ruled the lives of all who lived under their domain. Law, in the sense of a unified body of accepted legal principles designed to regulate political relations between regions and interpersonal affairs within communities, did not exist at the beginning of the twelfth century. Instead, norms of acceptable behavior and the sanctions meted out for misconduct were established and enforced by the lords of the estates under which people lived and owed their servitude, and the law across Europe was a 'labyrinth' as a consequence.

Nation-states, within which the people of the twenty-first century find their identity and security, did not exist at that time and would not begin to take shape until the rise of Absolute Monarchy in the sixteenth century. Rather, supra-regional authority over the lives of the masses in Europe was housed within the over-arching influence of the Christian religion and the institutions of spiritual and temporal power that guided it; the Roman Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. The vacuum of universal standards for assessing the rights and obligations of mankind within Europe was filled by ecclesiastical decrees, the cumulative body of which is referred to as the Canon Law. With the codification of these decrees in the early twelfth century, Canon Law provided a more coherent body of moral and legal principles under which people should live their lives than any other source of law in Europe at the time, and its influence increased throughout the century.

It would be difficult to over-state the power of religious beliefs during the Middle Ages. The world-view in Europe during this period, and well into the Modern Era, divided humanity into Christian and non-Christian realms. Invasions by the Jews and Moslems into Christian-claimed territories in the Holy Land had prompted the Church in Rome to call upon Christian princes to undertake Crusades of liberation, "...in the name of Christ", against the 'infidels' of the non-Christian kingdoms in the Near East throughout the twelfth century. Many of the land owners that financed the mercenary armies in the feudal system were also members of the clergy within the Church, and owed their primary allegiance to the papacy in Rome. The cumulative effect of these circumstances served not only to assure the military resources to fulfill the calls to Crusade, but also resulted in an increased centralization of power in both spiritual and temporal matters within the hands of the Pope, who sat at the apex of the Church's hierarchy. This would embolden Pope Innocent III to claim what he called the "...God-given, universal sovereignty of the papacy" when he came to office in 1198. No longer confined to the realm of spiritual leadership, he asserted plenitudo potestatis (the fullness of power) in both spiritual and temporal domains.

The assertion of papal authority over temporal matters did not go without challenge within Christendom and the early thirteenth century witnessed an ongoing feud and struggle for power between Pope Gregory IX and the Holy Roman Emperor, Fredrick II. The effect of this struggle was to gradually diminish the power of both and to open the door for other secular monarchs in Europe to assert sovereign title to the territorial regions controlled by their armies against the papal claim of 'universal sovereignty'.

Another effect of the struggle was to see the re-introduction into Europe of Roman Law scholarship. Fredrick II had come into possession of this body of legal principles from the ancient Roman society through contacts in the Arab world of the Near East during the years of his Crusade efforts. With their emphasis on civic responsibility and the good of the state, these principles served to challenge the system of personal obligation owed within the feudal order, both undermining and gradually replacing these relationships. Natural Law, as the ancient legal principles of Rome came to be called, also placed a new sense of priority on questions about the inherent rights of mankind in relation to this world, and subordinated the Canon Law tenets that had hitherto placed the examination of mankind's' rights solely in relation to the after-life and the Kingdom of Heaven.

The claims to universal papal sovereignty, the conflict between Pope Gregory IX and Fredrick II, the Crusades into the Near East, and the influence of Natural Law principles combined to set the stage for the emergence of a debate within ecclesiastical scholarship over the question of the legitimate exercise of power outside the Church and the rights of non-Christians. "Did non-Christians - all those who were extra-ecclesiam (outside the church) - possess natural rights to property? Did their rulers exercise legitimate authority? In short, did unbelievers possess dominium (lawful possession of property and political power)" within Canon Law?

Initial support for the legitimacy of non-Christian rights to dominium came from the arguments of Innocent IV (pope, 1243-1254). Adhering to the generally accepted view in Europe at the time, "...that the entire globe was the property of God and, as such, distributable by the Pope as His delegate on earth," and despite the ideal of universalism that directed political ambitions within Christendom, Innocent "...defended the right of non-Christians to exercise power,..." "On the question of the legitimacy of secular power outside of the church, Innocent IV held that all rational creatures, Christian and non-Christian, had the right under natural law to own property and to exercise political authority in their own lands."

This view was to be challenged by one of Innocent's pupils, Henrico de Segusio (d.1271, generally known as Hostiensis), who was cardinal of Ostia and a leading member of the Sacred College. Although Hostiensis was willing to concede that non-Christians could exercise dominium as a matter of fact, he was not about to recognize that such exercise of power could ever be justified in Canon Law. It was his view that, "...infidels, neither recognizing nor obeying the power and authority of the Roman Church, are not worthy to have kingdoms, government, jurisdiction nor dominium."

Both men attracted contemporary ecclesiastics to their respective points of view. While the majority of canonists came to agreement that "...legitimate authority did exist in societies other than Christian, and that their princes were entitled to rule...", popular belief coalesced in favor of Hostiensis's rights formulation as the intellectual debate moved from the ecclesiastical to the secular intelligentsia. As regional monarchs increasingly challenged the universal authority of the Papacy over the spread of Christianity, "[i]t was the less tolerant of the two traditions which came to prevail in practice: the accepted rule of action was that Christians had a duty to convert the heathen, and if persuasion did not succeed, then force should be used."

It should be noted at this point that the formulations of both schools of thought with respect to this debate occurred at a point in history when Europe and the philosophers and legal scholars of the age had absolutely no knowledge of the existence of the American continents. All of their ideas and attitudes were stimulated through the perceptual lenses of a physical environment that was brutish and insecure against the backdrop of perpetual aggressions exchanged between Europeans and peoples from societies to the Near East. It is quite striking to consider that such a difference of philosophy over human rights should even come to fruition within Canon Law and Christendom during an era when the climate of inter-societal relations was so intensely confrontational.

It is instructive also to consider the large measure of attention that the debate received within the scholarship of the late pre-contact era and the legal consensus that was achieved within the Church's intellectual elite in spite of such conditions. One is left to wonder whether Hostiensis would have drawn the same conclusions were he to have had the benefit of the 'European Enlightment' which was sparked, at least in part, by the intellectual imagery of the 'Noble Savage...living in the state of nature' and served to influence later scholars like John Locke and Sir Thomas More toward visions of democratic and utopian societies.

Hypothetical conjecturing aside, it must be remembered that Hostiensis's views were framed within the confines of Canon Law scholarship. To juxtapose his views on 'infidel' rights to dominium within Canon Law into an analysis of International Law rights, as they have emerged through the Positive Law tradition, suggests the likelihood of manipulation and subjective interpretation. Hostiensis acknowledged the right as a matter of fact (ie: under Natural Law), but denied the right as a matter of law within Christendom. He was not arguing rights within a world where independent nation states, rather than the universal authority of the papacy, dictated the division of power.

It is also a fallacious assumption that the debate was concluded prior to the discovery of the Americas; thus serving to define a custom that had coalesced into an accepted law recognized by all states in Europe as legitimate for defending claims to the acquisition of new territories. A consensus was in fact achieved within Canon Law which gave credence to the right of Aboriginal peoples to possess dominium but, as with many other occasions in humanity's history, when the recognized law stood in contradiction to the ambitions of the powerful and wealthy it was simply subverted and ignored.

The philosophical mood of Europe immediately preceding the Age of Discovery was also shaped by events and circumstances that were independent from ecclesiastical scholarship, and proved to challenge the previously accepted intelligence of societies across that continent. Five distinct elements of fifteenth century European history, when fused together, help to demonstrate how conditions became ripe for the voyages of exploration that began at the end of that century. When considered holistically with the ecclesiastical debate over the rights of non-Christians, they help to shed light on the moral and legal assumptions Christendom (remember, that's Christendom and not the international community) was operating under when the Old World and New World collided.

First, there was the phenomenon of the Italian Renaissance. The resurgence of classical Greek and Roman scholarship that took place on the Italian peninsula at the beginning of the 1400's may be regarded as a period of unprecedented enrichment in knowledge for the societies of Europe during that age. It may also be regarded as the initial stimulant to five hundred years of suffering for the First Nations' societies across the Americas. Of particular significance was the translation in 1406 of a book titled, Geography, originally written in the second century by Claudius Ptolemaeus (also known as Ptolemy). "His text, summarizing the understanding of the earth at the height of the Roman Empire, contained a gazetteer of known places. In an important innovation, it also described a system of references based on a globe divided into a grid of two sets of circles marked off into degrees, the now-familiar coordinates of latitude and longitude. A map of the world as Ptolemy knew it accompanied the text." The importance of these ideas to navigation cannot be overstated. Previously all vessels of the seas had only natural landmarks to guide their navigations by, and this reliance on visual checks assured that ships would seldom stray far from the coastlines of the known world. However, by adopting Ptolemy's system,  "...potential explorers not only saw the rest of the world as accessible but also had a model against which they could compare their discoveries." Without the contribution of ideas incorporated from Ptolemy's work, it is quite possible that the Americas might well have remained undiscovered, at least at that point in Europe's history anyway.

The second major influence from the Renaissance period was the incorporation of Aristotle's doctrine of natural servitude ("that some men are by nature free and others servile") into the ongoing debate over the rights of non-Christians to the legitimate exercise of dominium. It would provide the 'out', so to speak, from the accepted principle that infidels did possess such a right within Canon Law by enabling explorers and monarchs of Europe to later claim that the people they came into contact with in the Americas were actually a sub-human species whose barbaric nature placed them outside the protection of Natural Law. That being the case, they could not possibly possess a right to dominium within Canon Law and their lands could be seized from them with impunity. This argument did not achieve unanimous support, and several influential thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries would present challenges to its moral tenets. The lack of its validity as accepted custom can also be recognized from the reaction in Europe to the brutality of the Spanish explorers, which resulted in La Leyenda Negra (The Black Legend). I will return to examine these counter-arguments as their significance to claims of sovereignty in the New World and their impact on the Law of Nations became pronounced. It is of import at present merely to identify the birthplace of an idea that was to provide later monarchs and explorers with a paradigm that could serve to rationalize the suppression and extermination of Aboriginal peoples when the day came that they encountered one another.

Secondly, it should be recalled that the Law of Nations within a Natural Law paradigm, and not International Law as understood from within the Positive Law paradigm that emerged gradually through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, was the frame of intellectual reference.

The third, fourth and fifth elements are intertwined. During the fifteenth century Europe experienced a population increase. There was also an increased appetite for luxury items, particularly in spices provided to Europe through Constantinople, and the Asian trade networks of the Byzantine Empire. When, during the closing years of the century, the Byzantine Empire collapsed under the strength and expansionism of the Ottoman Empire, Europe found its luxury markets and trade routes threatened. The Ottomans, "...who were fierce proponents of Islam, ...and virulently anti-Christian..." now firmly controlled "[t]he old channels of trade that passed from Asia to the Middle East and the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea..." With the Ottoman Empire now in control of the terms of trade, it was essential for Europe to increase its efforts to find a western passage by sea that would give them direct access to the markets of the Orient. Had the 1,000-year-old Byzantine Empire not collapsed, it is very questionable whether Christopher Columbus would have persuaded King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to finance his explorations. It is much more likely that he would have been rebuffed, as he was by King Afonso V of Portugal during the eight years he spent endeavoring to convince the Portuguese monarchy to back his outlandish scheme, from 1476 to 1484.

Speculation aside, the fact is that he did make those journeys of exploration for which he has become so famous, and with him came the motivations and mentality of a European society that was in transition to new legal paradigms for the definition and utilization of guiding tenets for both life and the law of their Age. Far from achieving any measure of consensus on legal customs for regulating inter-regional territorial claims, local self-interest ruled the day. It was an era when the rules of politics were determined by the adage, 'might is right', and when the acquisition of new territories, the development of new trade routes, and the accumulation of new sources of wealth became the cornerstone of ambitions toward self-government and self-determination for monarchical communities vis-a-vis the centralized authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the Papacy.

My Vision Quest - Chapter 2

"How do you eat an Elephant?" About two decades ago now my Mom posed that question to me in an email. She was responding to a note I had sent to her earlier in the day, in which I had expressed my troubled thoughts over the daunting task that lay ahead of me; writing my Master's Thesis. For some time, despite a massive volume of collected research to draw upon, I had been like a man standing paralyzed on a high diving board, with toes gripping tightly to the very edge. I knew I was not going to turn around and climb back down the ladder, but the longer I stood there the harder it seemed to be to take the plunge. Her answer, "one bite at a time!", not only made me laugh, but also reminded me of another piece of profound wisdom; "the first step in solving any problem is to begin." Keeping both of those lessons in mind, the time has come to spring forward. It has been nineteen years since I put my Thesis draft in a box and withdrew from the M.A. program, but it is time now to resurrect the words I wrote back then in a series of articles for my blog, because it is a voice and an argument that is every bit as important to be heard today as it was back in 1996.

Finding a meaningful voice in the dialogue relating to First Nations' aspirations for self-government and self-determination within Canada's assumed territories has required a rather lengthy vision quest. Born into a family of Christian Missionaries, the earliest experiences of my life were from the 'Dark Continent', where my Grandfather was serving as a Doctor in Angola, and my Father was serving as a Minister with the United Church of Zambia at the time of my birth in 1963. Throughout my childhood I was raised to believe in and to respect the dignity and worth of all peoples within the family of humanity, as well as to support and defend the rights of all peoples to equality and freedom from persecution and oppression. The associations and friendships my parents shared were with people from a diversity of racial identities, and I grew up in those early years as comfortable in the companionship of a 'black' child as with a 'brown' or 'white.' It was a world in which I had been one of the 'minority', but also one in which, at least as far as I can recall, race played no part in the friendships I made or shared.

When I arrived in Canada in 1970 my family settled in Medicine Hat, Alberta, for a period of about six years, and it was during this time that I received my first exposure to the images of the 'Noble Savages' of North America. Despite my egalitarian upbringing, like every boy (and some girls) I knew at the time, we played 'Cowboys and Indians', watched the Westerns on T.V., and spent the early evening hours before moms called us off to bed pretending we were settling the 'Wild West' in days of old. The racial composition of my environment had changed dramatically with the move to a 'New World', but my exposure to 'real Indians' was quite limited. There were the occasional despairing souls who came to the door of the Manse we lived in seeking food stamps and lodging arrangements, but I was perhaps too young at the time to appreciate the gravity of their predicaments or to make the correlation between their indigenous character and the socioeconomic conditions they faced. Aboriginal peoples dressed in buckskins and headdresses, mounted on horses, and riding in the annual Medicine Hat Rodeo Parade or Calgary Stampede provided the surreal identity for those "dusky" foe that lurked around the corners of Mr. Gardner's garage or the bushes in the Daniel's front yard. Geronimo was taken down by my steady aim on many a night. I did not perceive myself as a racist at the time, and I do not recall feelings of hatred either. It just seemed like pretending to kill Indians was what kids in Canada did for fun. Years later I would look back on those 'games' with both regret for my ignorance over the indoctrination that such boyhood imaginations were perpetuating, and my naiveté over the implications of 'playing' out genocide against the 'Red Skins' of the Prairies on which I was living.

In 1976 Dad's career required a move to Edmonton, where for the first year we settled into the Strathcona community. My first friend in the neighborhood was Ravin Eagle-Spirit (not his real name), an Aboriginal boy my age who lived a few houses east and across the back alley. Ravin and I spent every day out-and-about; riding our bikes in Mill Creek Ravine, skateboarding along White Avenue, playing street hockey in Kinsmen Park, and smoking cigarettes while hiding in the garage attic with girlie magazines. His indigenous heritage was of no significance to me then, except perhaps in providing a personal affirmation of the authentic humanity within a peer's 'Indian' identity. We were not peer's in every respect though, and it was from my friendship with Ravin and access to his home environment that I was first exposed to at least three aspects of family life that all-too-frequently serve to define reality for a vast majority of Canada's Aboriginal peoples today; abject poverty, spousal violence, and intoxicated requital.

Our time of companionship on the road of life only lasted for about a year before my family moved to the west side of the city and we lost touch. As the years passed though, like many other Canadians, I followed the resurgence of the First Nations' political agenda leading up to the Patriation of the Constitution in 1981. My prior friendship with Ravin provided an intimate frame of reference in which I was able to identify with some of the consequences attributed to divestiture, which it has been proven that the Canadian government has practiced against the First Nations' peoples throughout the state. The 'games' I had played around the neighborhood in Medicine Hat and the movies I'd watched with friends at Saturday Matinees flashed back to provide mental images of the type of treatment that Aboriginal peoples faced during the formative years of our nation's history, and still continue to struggle against. Images of dire poverty and social decay in reserve communities, reports of abhorrent levels of unemployment, and evidence of disproportionate hardship through incarceration statistics captured the media spotlight and were graphically portrayed with increasing regularity on National and local news broadcasts throughout the 1980s. As I passed from youth, through adolescence, and toward adulthood I was quickly becoming a 'less-proud' Canadian, and the road was being paved for the years of intellectual inquiry that were to follow during the course of my endeavors in post-secondary education.

I became more intensely interested in the plight of Canada's Aboriginal peoples as the Constitutional Conference mandated by S.37 of the Constitution Act, 1981, and the three subsequent Conferences, proceeded to capture center-stage on the national political and media agendas during the period from 1983 through 1987. Then, in 1987, while I was studying toward a Diploma in Law Enforcement at Lethbridge Community College (L.C.C.), in Lethbridge, Alberta, a more localized set of circumstances became the focus of my attention. For a couple of years thereafter the 'coffee-house agenda' in Lethbridge periodically centered around discussions over a number of deaths of Kainaiwa Nation (Blood) peoples in Lethbridge and on the reservation that stretches south from Fort Macleod to the town of Cardston, in southern Alberta. Being privy to some of those conversations as a consequence of over-hearing them while performing part-time Server functions in the Restaurant Industry, I became disillusioned by the assumptions of inferiority and worthlessness I repeatedly heard used to define Aboriginal identity. The Constitutional Conference process failed to reach consensus on the establishment of understanding in relation to the 'rights' of First Nations' peoples to self-government and self-determination, and the climate in Lethbridge provided me with ample evidence of unresolved intolerance from 'white' people toward 'Indians'. An attachment to the principle of a 'cultural mosaic' as the defining characteristic of Canada's identity and my altruism both served to motivate me into searching out an argument that could provide the moral and legal authority to convince fellow Canadians that the premise of an inherent right to self-government and self-determination for Aboriginal communities throughout the nation was one that they must acknowledge and give credence to.

In 1988, Chief Roy Fox sent letters to the Premier of Alberta that expressed his community's concerns over what was perceived as a pattern of  increasing incidents of deaths and murders of Kainaiwa Nation members under peculiar and mysterious circumstances. Those letters, and others sent by concerned parties, also expressed dissatisfaction with the police investigations into those deaths, and suggested that the authorities had been either unwilling or unable to solve the tragedies to the satisfaction of the community. A Public Inquiry was established under the direction of Commissioner C.H. Rolf in 1989, and shortly thereafter hearings began in Lethbridge and Cardston. Coinciding with the climate of intercultural tensions in southern Alberta at the time, in 1988 I had graduated from L.C.C. and had decided to move across the Coulee to the University of Lethbridge (U. of L.), to begin a four-year term of study toward a Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in Political Science. Throughout my years of study at L.C.C., and during the years that would follow at the U. of L., I became increasingly disturbed by the allegations of racism and genocide that members of the Kainaiwa Nation claimed were motivating the treatment they received at the hands of the authority figures responsible for justice administration within their community. Hitherto I had not given much thought to the colonial regime that provided the foundation of our nation's historical evolution, nor had I understood how many comparisons were possible with the Apartheid regime in South Africa and the colonial administrations that had emerged to exploit and oppress the indigenous peoples across Africa during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Driven by the influences of my early life in Africa; by the experiences of thirteen years living in southern Alberta and the exposure I had to some racist attitudes; by my belief in the concept of a 'just' society, fairly and impartially governed by the 'rule of law'; and by my passion for investigating, rooting out, and exposing injustice, the appeal to learn more about the historical and legal arrangements between the Crown and Aboriginal peoples magnified.

The cumulative impact of all of these experiences stimulated my interest in pursuing graduate studies, and in 1993 I began course work at the University of Alberta, Department of Political Science, toward the Master of Arts Degree that this, my Thesis draft paper was prepared for. By that point I had already been influenced by reading the reports and findings of the Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall, Jr., Prosecution in Nova Scotia, the Report of the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry of Manitoba, the Report of the Task Force on the Criminal Justice System and its Impact on the Indian and Metis People of Alberta, the failed Meech Lake Accord process, the Oka Crisis in Quebec, and the Lone Fighters Society attempted blockade of the Old Man River Dam project in Southern Alberta. The evidence available to stand in support of the dismal treatment Aboriginal peoples have experienced during their centuries of association with the Imperial and Canadian Crown is abundant, and yet the political and legal will in Canada has been quite resistant to the acceptance of an inherent right to self-government and self-determination for First Nations' peoples. For at least the past thirty years Canadians have been struggling to articulate exactly what is meant by the sentence, "existing aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby recognized and affirmed," as it reads in Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1981.

Without question, the greatest source of dissension has arisen out of the correlation between inherent rights and sovereign rights. Instructed by Brian Slattery's observation that, "issues of sovereignty are implicated in many current disputes between native Americans and governmental authorities over such matters as land claims, treaty rights, the application of customary law, and powers of self-government," I arrived at a similar conclusion to the one that he reached in a 1991 article, "Aboriginal Sovereignty and Imperial Claims," (published in the Osgoode Hall Law Journal, Vol.29, No.4, at p.322). Slattery noted that, "[u]ntil some understanding on this matter is reached, it seems unlikely that the disputes will be resolved or fade away."

The argument presented in this and subsequent articles on this blog is primarily addressed toward reaching resolution of these disputes. In an effort to bring closure to the debate over the scope and content of Aboriginal rights, therefore, I intend to focus the analysis within these articles on the following question:

Is the right to self-government and self-determination an inherent right possessed by Aboriginal peoples as a consequence of being the original occupants of the lands now claimed by the Canadian state, or is it a contingent right, based on the benevolent 'grant' of powers and jurisdiction from the Federal and provincial governments?

Further on the examination of this point, I want to consider the underlying question that inevitably flows from a consideration of the dichotomy between these opposing schools of thought toward the rights of First Nations' peoples in territories claimed as being a part of the sovereign domain of the Canadian state:

In International Law, does Canada possess an unfettered sovereign title to the territories it has assumed control over; based on Imperial Crown transfer of land title, Post-Confederation Treaties with First Nations' peoples, and/or premised on a 'Settlement Thesis' legitimating acquisition of title to lands over which no treaty was signed? Or, conversely, regardless of Treaties and the settlement of Canada by peoples of European heritage, do First Nations' peoples still possess a sovereign title to the lands that their ancestors have inhabited since time immemorial that can serve to fetter Canadian sovereignty over British North America?

During the course of the past three decades I have traveled a trail through eight centuries of convoluted legal and historical scholarship with the aim of discovering a conclusive appraisal of those seemingly elusive 'existing aboriginal and treaty rights'. As a consequence of the research I have completed, I defend the argument that the historical archives and my research supports:

First Nations' peoples in Canada possess an inherent right to self-government and self-determination. Further, and coincident with this right, there must be an acknowledgment by the Government of Canada, the provincial legislatures, and the people of Canada that First Nations' peoples continue to enjoy a sovereign title over the lands on which they live and have a right to establish whatever processes and institutions they deem necessary and desirable for the good and orderly governance of their communities - including the right to make laws and to establish independent justice systems for dispute and conflict resolution functions within First Nations' territories.

Undoubtedly, there are those who will shudder at the potential for jurisdictional chaos within such a hypothesis, not to mention the possible threat that such a conclusion could hold for the very complex of the existing Confederation. Those who hold and manipulate the strings of power and authority under the current 'quasi-federal' system will most certainly resist, as they have for well over a century, any infringement on the 'rights' and 'titles' that they have come to believe they inherited from the forefathers who reached terms of agreement for the formation of Canada, and from the imperial Crown that preceded them. Those prone to 'doom and gloom' imaginations of such a complication of legal entitlement over Canada's assumed territories will hesitate in giving any credence to such an argument, regardless of its merit, for fear of the change that it will bring to the identity of the state that they have found a sense of security within and an allegiance toward. In response to such resistance and defensiveness, I intend to suggest that, far from tearing apart the very fabric of our society, there is the potential within such an acknowledgment for a positive and dynamic reconstruction of the ties that bind us together. As a means to articulate this vision, I propose that in fact:

Syncretism of 'distinct societies' within 'the Village' (Canada) can be achieved through the paradox of pluralism in governing bodies and institutions, by adopting and promoting a new 'Longhouse' paradigm of cohabitation.

As the above synthesis of my vision quest infers, this work is the product of many contributions. If the evidence and insights I share herein serve to improve the lives of First Nations' peoples and help to strengthen 'the Village' in the twenty-first century, the credit goes to those people who I have met and been influenced by along the journey to now. I thank them for their teaching and guidance, for their support and encouragement, and for the wisdom I was able to glean from their thoughts. If this endeavor does not prove to contribute to those aims, the burden for failing to do so is mine alone. That said, I believe my conscience will be clear, for all that I am attempting to do is share with you 'the truth as I have come to know it.' Beyond that, no person can go.

Truth & Reconciliation - Toward a New Path - Chapter 1

Crescent Falls, a few minutes drive west of Nordegg, Alberta, is a deep gorge and waterfall in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Standing on the rocks above and watching the water rush over the ledge to the canyon floor, it is hard to think of anything but the magnificence of nature. A glance up-stream to the towering mountain range in the distance binds the imagination to pondering over the millions of years it took to shape such splendor. Mesmerized by the roar of waves dancing head-long into the stream below, the anxieties of daily life and the polemics of humanities relations seem transient and trivial against the back-drop of nature's apparent antiquity and immortality. Undaunted by the affairs of mankind, these waters have continued to flow along their course, day-after-day, since continental ice sheets contracted to expose an ice-free corridor from the Yukon to Montana some 12,000 years ago.

The perpetuity of this stream running through the wilderness is analogous to the sustained fluidity of transition that characterizes the history of civilization. During the same epoch that the waters at Crescent Falls have been pouring across the rocks, the ancient societies of Babylon, Rome, Greece, Prussia, the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of the Kongo, the Mayas, and the Aztec Empire all rose to prominence and then fell to impotence. Their individual eras are little more than fleeting moments in the life of a tributary, and they are only a small number of the societies and cultures that have come and gone.

The year is now 2017 A.D., and across the globe currents of change persist in their assaults on the complexion and organization of many other political communities. In our preceding twentieth century alone a host of distinct societies and political orders proved incapable of stemming the tides that threatened to erode their foundations. The once powerful British Empire succumbed to the demands of self-government asserted by colonial societies throughout the regions of its realm and transformed into the Commonwealth of Nations; a loose alliance of independent nation-states. German society was divided by a brick wall and barbed-wire fences after the defeat of Adolph Hitler's Third Reich in the Second World War, only to be reunited by the collapse of Communism and the crumbling of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. South Africa emerged from decades of Africana-minority rule under the Apartheid system of government to see the day when Nelson Mandela, one of the founders of the indigenous liberation movement, was elected as the first black President. In the 'Americas' a renaissance of indigenous cultural identities, suppressed by the ancestors and institutions of European imperial powers over the course of the past few centuries, underscores intensified quests for self-government and self-determination in First Nations' communities across both 'New World' continents.

The focus of this article, and subsequent ones to be posted on this blog, is the broad subject of claims to rights of self-government and self-determination by Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The challenge to the hegemony of Canada has become located within the articulation of legal rights that the Constitution Act, 1981 claims to protect for First Nations' peoples living within its borders. In Part II of the Act, Rights of the Aboriginal Peoples of Canada, Section 35.(1) states that, "[t]he existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed." The Act did not, however, define just exactly what rights it was referring to in the context of "...existing aboriginal and treaty rights..." Instead of defining those rights, the Act established a process of Constitutional Conference(s) in Part IV, Section 37., that were intended as a means to arrive at "...the identification and definition of the rights of those peoples to be included in the Constitution of Canada,..."  Somewhat ass-backward, the idea was that the Constitution Act, 1981 would provide constitutional recognition for whatever rights it was that the Constitutional Conference(s) agreed upon; through the participation of the Prime Minister, the First Ministers of the provinces, and whatever "...representatives of those [Aboriginal] peoples..." the Prime Minister chose to invite participation from in the course of the discussions.

In approaching this field of study it is my intention to center my analysis around two specific ongoing debates. First, I will examine the debate between 'inherent' and 'contingent' rights approaches to the acceptance of an Aboriginal right to self-government and self-determination in Canada. Secondly, I will address the common perception that the Government of Canada possesses exclusive sovereign title over the territories that it has assumed, and the corresponding challenge being presented by Aboriginal peoples against this claim to unfettered title over lands that their ancestors have lived on since time immemorial. Drawing upon references from legal and historical scholarship dating back to as early as the thirteenth century and following right through to the twenty-first century, I conclude from my analysis of these two debates and the body of research behind them that Aboriginal people in Canada do possess an "inherent" right to self-government and self-determination; that such an inherent right encompasses an existing right to sovereign authority over their lands and peoples; and that the Government of Canada's sovereignty is not exclusive within the Canadian confederation of regions. I further assert that, coincident with the recognition of these rights, Aboriginal peoples in Canada and the governments of their making possess the right to establish whatever processes and institutions they deem necessary and desirable for the good and orderly governance of their communities - including the right to make laws and to establish independent justice systems for dispute and conflict resolution functions within First Nations' territories.

To the vast majority of Canada's population an argument made by a citizen of this country that brings into question the legitimacy of Canadian sovereignty might be perceived as tantamount to treason. On November 11th of each year, Remembrance Day, millions of people across this country gather at cenotaphs and/or wear red poppies to pay their respects to those men and women who have fought and died for the protection of the rights and freedoms of Canada's citizenry. To assert that the country these people died to protect may have been founded on a debasement and bastardization of International Law principles, and to suggest that other 'nations' may have equally legal and moral claims to this territorial region, is likely to be taken as a great insult by many war veterans.

My Grandfather and Father, as well as many other members of our family tree, served in the defence of Canada, and our family has roots in British North America that date back five generations. Many lives were lost so that I and the other children of my age could live in a future where ideas and arguments are expressed freely, and to live in a world where notions of peace, freedom, and respect for rights to life and liberty shape the idealism in international political pronouncements. Any who believe that I am somehow less committed to respecting and serving that legacy are sadly mistaken. However, there is a rapidly growing body of historical and legal literature emerging that stands in support of an existing Aboriginal right to sovereign title over the lands on which they live and on which their ancestral heritage is located, and 'justice' dictates that it cannot simply be ignored. There are also many Aboriginal families who lost the companionship of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, as well as mothers and fathers to the battlefields of Europe during the 1940s, and it seems self-evident that their ancestors have an equal claim to ensure that articulations of Canada's historical evolution take into account the communal rights of First Nations' peoples.
Rather than presenting a threat to the hegemony of the Canadian state, as many might first be inclined to believe, I would assert that recognition and statutory articulation of such rights within our nation could have dynamic consequences that would serve to remind all in our society that, "...as Canadians we take our life from the fruitful collision and interpretation of many inheritances and thus, we grow."

Toward defence of this premise, in future articles on this blog I will support the argument that syncretism of 'distinct societies' within 'the Village' (Canada) can be achieved through the paradox of pluralism in governing bodies and institutions, by adopting and promoting a new 'Longhouse' paradigm of cohabitation.

There are a few points to make for clarification in reading of future articles on this blog. First, I have used italics, perhaps more frequently than readers my be acustomed to, in order to emphasize the specific legal paradigm that the reader should be considering while reflecting on the accompanying text. For example, at several points the reader may encounter the terms Canon Law, Natural Law, Positive Law, Roman Law, English Law, the Law of Nations and/or International Law within the same paragraph/page. Each of these titles refers to a specific legal paradigm or tradition and the transition from one body of legal theory to the next might be confusing unless emphasis is utilized to draw attention to the specific paradigm/tradition under consideration. I should also note that I do not pretend to be providing in these articles a comprehensive overview of these bodies of law. If the reader is not versed in these legal traditions it will be necessary to seek elsewhere for a detailed account of their constructs.

Secondly, throughout this work readers will find the terms indigenous, Aboriginal, and First Nations' peoples used interchangeably to identify those peoples whose societies and cultures possess an ancestral heritage on the American continents which precedes the arrival of European explorers, colonial representatives, and immigrant settlers from the 'Old World'.

Lastly, while I hope that this work will be easy enough for a reader of general interest to understand and appreciate, I do not present these articles as an introduction to the issues of First Nations' politics in Canada. This is a multi-article argument addressing a critique of historical and legal interpretations that have served to disadvantage First Nations' peoples in Canada, and its intended audience is most specifically those scholars and public policy formulators who, in my opinion, need to reconsider and reflect on the inaccuracies and injustices within the paradigms of legal rights and entitlements that they have hitherto been relying upon to guide their thoughts and actions.

In a multi-media age of fifteen second sound-bites it is frequently possible, and in some cases preferable, to make rapid judgments based on scant information. Many television news broadcasts now feature summaries of the top stories of the day within the first few minutes and the last few minutes of an hour-long broadcast; just in case members of their audience do not have the time or patience to stick around long enough to hear the whole story. I would implore my audience to discard such haste in drawing conclusions with respect to the 'existing aboriginal and treaty rights' of First Nations' peoples in Canada as they are presented in this and subsequent articles on this blog. Two points should be kept in mind. First, by acknowledging and articulating Aboriginal rights to self-government and self-determination in Canada's assumed territory it is not necessary to view the relationship as a dichotomy of rights or a zero-sum argument. Secondly, it is also not possible to achieve a thorough understanding of the merit within a call for their recognition by reading the Introduction and Conclusion. I ask that the reader suspend popularized understandings of Canadian history and hitherto common perceptions as to the legal rights of First Nations' peoples within it while absorbing the argument that is to be laid before you. Instructed by the maxim, "...it's easy enough to have a clear conscience - all it takes is a fuzzy memory," I propose that by doing so the experience will be made richer through the clarity that insight and objectivity can produce. I would also ask that the reader reflect on the words of Carl Schurz:

"Our country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right, when wrong, to be put right."

Turtle Island - Our Home in First Nations' lands - Preface

The Mithraic and early Christian association of the turtle with 'internal forces' is a reality in Canadian historical and contemporary society and culture. It is an apt description for these lands we all share and consider as, "...the true North, strong and free". "Our home and native land..." has indeed been governed for generations by the use of power and violence on people who were already living in these territories when the forefathers of European immigrants claimed 'dominion' over them and established governing laws and institutions to facilitate their assimilationist and genocidal intents. It is an abhorrent legacy for any 'Village' to acknowledge, but We own it no less.

The rights and freedoms of the First Nations' peoples housed within the shell of Turtle Island has been the subject of public discourse for as many centuries as immigrants from European nations have lived amongst them. Debates employing Canon Law, Natural Law, the Law of Nations, International Law, along with English and Canadian Law have all been exhausted for and against the inalienable First Nations' inherent right to be respected in law and in fact as equal in their humanity and in their capacity to own title to these lands preceding the arrival of European colonizers, to justify today an inherent right to self-government and self-determination in these lands. The Federal government has acknowledged these rights, and even enshrined them as "hereby recognized and affirmed" in Canada's Constitution Act, 1981, and still more than a quarter century later our society is grappling with what that means and how best to make it a reality. The Chief Justice of The Supreme Court of Canada recently acknowledged this pathetic record, but until the Government of Canada starts living the spirit and intent of the words it has agreed to in both national and international treaties, covenants and pronouncements that pace of progress will continue in keeping with the speed of a tortoise.

Through the decades of debate First Nations' women continue to go missing at alarming rates, alcohol, drug abuse and violence rip apart families and communities, that themselves suffer the added challenge of insufficient opportunities for employment, a lack of adequate schools and resources, and poor or non-existent infrastructure in terms of fresh drinking water and the systems for dispensing it, along with inadequate housing and challenges with respect to the costs and delivery mechanisms of food supplies rage on. These challenges are endemic and glaring examples of the incapacity of the Government of Canada to live up to its fiduciary responsibilities toward "Indians and lands reserved for the Indians" as specifically recognized and affirmed in the British North America Act of 1867. Since the invention of television and the advent of the nightly news you will undoubtedly find news stories about the third world living conditions, abject poverty and high rates of substance abuse and crime in many of Canada's First Nations' communities. In contemporary times gang and drug turf challenges increase the complexity of needed solutions.

It is long past time that Canadians demanded that the Federal and Provincial governments work together with First Nations' peoples to make significant strides in achieving an enhanced quality of life and improved communal and economic conditions for Canada's First Nations peoples. If Canadians valued the humanity and historical legacy of First Nations' peoples we share as much as they valued "black gold" you can be certain they would all be living in Utopias by now. The fact is that there have been enough pronouncements from enough politicians and representatives of the judiciary. We do not need as a society any more guilt and shaming exercises and speeches. What we do need is for the Federal government to live up to its fiduciary responsibilities honourably, and to commit with priority in manpower and resources to the obligations it has, as long as the sun rises and the rivers flow, to serve ALL of its citizens with equality and justice before and under the law of this nation. To do any less is to bastardize the integrity of The Government of Canada and prove it disingenuous in its sacred commitment and obligation to the service of our collective well being as its nation's citizens. That must no longer be tolerated.

The record is clear, it is no longer uncertain, and it is not at all pretty. It is time to do something about that in the now. The next Government and political party I vote for will commit to doing exactly that or they will not be getting my vote. I urge all Canadians to take an equal stand. Canada and all that makes it wonderful and unique began and is at its core identifed with its First Nations' peoples. It is past time ALL Canadians benefit equally and are able to be rightly proud of the reality that is our cultural mosaic. It is past time that We treated all of Our peoples with the honour, dignity and respect that they deserve as Our brothers and sisters in humanity and as Our fellow citizens in Our home and their native lands.

Perplexed by the way things are done sometimes? Me too!

I admit it, I am a political junkie. It's hard not to be, since political community is an ever-present part of what it means to live in society with fellow human beings. I'm also a proud Canadian, but I must confess from the outset that I am not a fan of the Conservative party in charge of the government on behalf of our citizenry. I, like many Canadians, have lost faith in and respect for the leadership we are receiving, and have become disenchanted at least, and enraged at worst, with the judgement being employed and the decisions that are being made and not made on our behalf.

This week I have been reading John Ralston Saul's impressive work, "A Fair Country - Telling Truths about Canada". I strongly recommend it to all Canadians as a very worthy read. Some of John's observations relate to language and the utilization of words in languages, as well as in regions of the world and Canada, and their influence on culture as well as on one another within a shared culture. I have also been following a fair amount of news recently referencing the, "Stephen Harper Government". It struck a chord with me this evening that personality politics in Canada is damaging our democracy severly and needs to be altered promptly. 

Stephen Harper, as leader of the Conservative Party, was appointed as Prime Minister of Canada, on behalf of Her Majesty, Queen Elizebeth II. It is not and never has been "Stephen Harper's Government" or even the "Conservative's Government" and we need to stop allowing these individuals and the media to refer to them as such. It is the "Prime Minister's Government", and the "Government of Canada". It does not belong to Stephen Harper or the Conservative party for the duration of their majority mandate and its formal identity should never be attached to individuals or their political identities. 

These individuals were elected to represent Canadians in OUR federal government public offices and have been entrusted to serve OUR Government of Canada while they are holding those public office's in good standing, regardless of their political stripes. The only time we should be experiencing the partisan nature of Canada's political system is during the election phase. At all other times, the political stripes of the individuals and groups should be subordinated/eliminated from public discourse in respect to the actions and initiatives of the governments that are there to serve us all, regardless of partisan values and priorities. 

A mandate to govern is not the same thing as a mandate to proseltize and Canadians do not need the perpetual focus on the divisiveness inherent within the partisan nature of the current environment and practice of Canadian politics. Outside of the election phase, all Canadians want their governments focused on good judgement and management of their collective best interests. The privilege to govern is not a license to enter a perpetual sparing match with the other representatives of the People appointed to govern on behalf of the People. All MPs, MLAs and Councillors, once elected, are there to work collaboratively and cooperatively with their peers to achieve the best interests of the citizenry as a whole. Failing to keep their focus on that quest, or allowing it to be distracted by partisan politics, should be grounds for recall and/or banishment. 

We also need to take the personalities out of all references to Federal, Provincial and Municipal publicly elected officials. When the Minister of Health speaks on a podium at a luncheon, or releases a media press release on a new law, regulation or initiative, we should not be attaching an individual personality or political party identity to the vessel fulfilling a function on behalf of all Canadians. Rona Ambrose's personality, and that of all other public servants, needs to be subordinated to the Office that she, and they, are charged to hold by not being utilized at all, period. It is my view that this can help to significantly reduce the egos that emerge and run rampant when celebrity-like status inflates an individual's or a group's persona above that of the people's Office held.    

I know, about now you are looking for something better to do because you thing I have gone wing-nuts, but please, let's play these thoughts out together. 

First off, by eliminating any individual or political personas from the Offices of our governments, we minimize the likelihood and ability of individual ego's being able to expand exponentially to put their own personalites, priorities and values ahead of the Public's best interests as a whole and the Mandate they were elected collectively to serve. 

Secondly, it would also reduce the ability of the media to turn what should be the reporting of news into a perpetual ideological struggle rampant with speculation, and at times even fabrication, being passed off as 'news'. Simply put, it will help to make reporting of the work of the government(s) that serve us more about the actual actions and inititiatives of OUR governments, and much less about the nature and political persuasions of the characters in the suits and dresses standing at the podiums explaining them. If it serves to reduce the constant competitiveness and ideological conflicts between elections that is often times created and fueled by the media, that would be a positive outcome for the on-going dialogue about the influence and impact of governments in our daily lives. 

Thirdly, it would also allow all of those elected officials to spend much less time worrying about their personal safety or about what they will read about themselves in the morning paper or find said about them in social media, and will allow them to focus instead within their relative anonymity and diminished stature with increased emphasis on their servitude to the duties they have been elected to fulfill.  

There are a plethora of changes that need to be made within the systems and processes of governance in Canada to counter the current capacity of individuals and political parties, who represent only a portion of the Canadian populace, to hijack and/or distort the Mandate they have been given the sacred privilege of fulfilling on behalf of the People they serve. An increase in individual obscurity in favour of increased prominance for the Office and its ownership by the People would be a start in a positive countering of the propensity for some to forget that they are there to serve US and are entitled to no more or less than that. 

Backwards Progress - Challenges of Contemporary Times

Reaching the half-century mark a couple of years back, I've witnessed my share of change; in the communities and societies I have grown up in, in the greater world beyond and the many nations that comprise it, and in my personal life along the journey to now as well.

"Life is about change", as someone at some time or another is undoubtedly credited with having observed along the way, and accordingly that reality is not in itself extraordinary. But if one stops to ponder for a few minutes on the historical changes in technology, lifestyle, societal values and cultural norms that have taken place over the past five decades in Canada, as well as around the world, I think one has to concede the half-century I have lived is pretty mind-boggling in comparison to most if not all earlier generations in human history. 'Survival of the fittest" has taken on a whole new meaning, literally and virtually.

I type today on a wireless keyboard to my IPad, using an App that backs up all my files to an Internet storage location, transmitted wirelessly. When I started College in 1985 we were just starting to see computer labs introduced and most all of my term papers were still done on a typewriter through Under-graduate studies in College and University. If you messed up a page half way down the text, you had to re-type it. There was no auto-correct and a Dictionary on the desk was your best friend in a slow, deliberate key-pecking process. As a child there was one phone in the house and a black and white T.V. made by Zenith. It had 3 channels as I recall. We were allowed one hour of T.V. a night and the rest was time spent on homework or playing outside with friends in the neighbourhood.

Today I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google, Pinterest and Instagram accounts, to name but a few, and if it weren't for needing to walk the dogs a couple of times a day I likely wouldn't see much of the great out-of-doors at all. Even when I do, I could easily get a half dozen distracted walking tickets a day with my IPhone in hand, practically always. Pretty much all of the familial ties and friendships I have in life are now more virtually present than physically present in my experience of daily living. My 'Social Network' is global today, but my 'Social Circle' seems to have shrunken proportionately. I have a 'small' 32" colour LED flat screen T.V. with at least 30 channels to watch, and I can never find anything I want to see on them. It all seems like a backwards kind of 'progress' to me at times, and in many ways it is! These are also only some of many ways our country and our world has taken one step forward while taking more than two backwards along the journey to now.

As a Missionary's kid in Zambia in the mid to late-60's, my early years were shaped by an environment where being 'white' meant you were in the minority, with gated properties and bars on the house windows being the norm. I have childhood memories of being inside our home when burglarly attempts were in progress. I was then transplanted at the start of the 70's into Southern Alberta, where the kids in the neighbourhood were pretty much all shades of beige. We watched Westerns at Saturday Matinees and then played 'Cowboys and Indians' around the neighbourhood for "fun". The only 'Indians' I actually met in person were ones experiencing hardships, who came to the Manse we lived in looking for lodging and food stamps. The only 'Savages' I ever saw were on horses, dressed up in their war paints and feather head-dresses and riding in the summer Rodeo parades.  The only 'black' guy in the community I knew about was a homeless man I'd see around town from time to time.

I don't recall 'racism' in Africa or feelings in respect to it, perhaps because I was still too young then to understand. I also had parental guidance that respects and champions the equality of all people and the value that each has in teaching and stewarding the commonalities shared between us. I was raised to know that wherever 'racism' exists, it is most certainly wrong and must be challenged.

In contrast to my early years in Africa, I certainly saw and heard no shortage of racism in the communities I lived in on the Prairies during my childhood and in young adulthood while attending College and University. Sadly, as with the 'Cowboys and Indians' games I participated in as a kid, as a young man I even told a few disparaging jokes about 'Natives' as well. It was not until I read and studied the Rolf Inquiry Report, The Manitoba Justice Inquiry Report, and then the subsequent Royal Commission Report on the experience of First Nations peoples within Canada and it's 'majority' Anglo-European inhabitants and Institutions that I really started to appreciate, and feel pathetic about, my part in perpetuating the indoctrination such games and jokes were aimed to serve; namely the denigration and genocide of fellow human beings based solely on skin colour and being defined as a "them" distinct from and inferior to "us".

I ultimately pursued post-secondary studies for eleven years, undertaking a host of courses in law, politics, history and international affairs in respect to First Nations peoples and the Canadian state, to glean an in-depth understanding of the impact of Colonialism and European migration to North America. It is not a historical legacy that any of its ancestors should be particularly proud of in my opinion, and demonstrates hypocrisy to stand on soap boxes professing the 'barbarous' nature and tactics of ones adversaries today. The contempt is clearly well earned from any measured reading of the annals of 'Discovery', 'Settlement' and 'Conquest'.

I certainly came to appreciate through those years of post-secondary studies how naive I had been, and still am today, about the plights that many good people have faced and still face today in Canada, as well as globally, in striving to enjoy the basic needs of Maslow's Hierarchy. I read it reported recently that there are over 50 Million people on Earth today living in Refugee Camps! Are you kidding me? That is more people than live in Canada, by another third at least! In Canada the evening news regularly features stories month to month, year in and year out, decade on decade, about the third-world conditions many First Nations peoples continue to live in within their communities, with no or minimal basic services available.

It is a sadly observable reality that while 'progress' may have been made in leaps and bounds in technology, when it comes to achieving a 'civilized' global community it is most definitely stunted, if there has indeed been any 'progress' in my life-time. Canada is lagging well behind the curve of where it should be for the pronouncements it makes in support of Human Rights in Canada and internationally. It is unacceptable failure and a perpetual example of hollow words and unfulfilled values to my reckoning, and based on many an official governmental inquiry report and tribunal decision rendered over the decades as well!

When I was a lad looking out at the awe-inspiring starlit nights on the Prairies I recall feeling the fear and contemplating the very real threat and the 'doom's day' propaganda of that era; namely Nuclear devastation of the Planet. I spent many a night falling to sleep, or not falling to sleep, thinking about what I would do if ever the news came, and looking and listening for planes coming in the night sky from our Russian neighbours to the North. Today that threat and the fear associated with it still exists, but it has been muted by the "War on Terror", and the more recent sensationalism and barbarism in beheadings of hostages to serve a defined 'Extremist' group's political, social and, purportedly, religious aims. In more recent months tensions in Ukraine and global tensions between Russia and the 'West' rip scabs from latent childhood fears of mass devastation. I can well imagine children today are falling asleep, or not falling asleep, the world over with one eye a bit less tightly shut than before all this nonsense took centre stage again as adversarial events and regional conflicts within the global community wax and wane, and wax again.

ALL of my life's education and experiences impress on me ever-more each day that OUR collective problem as humans is OUR propensity to focus on the differences that define a narrowly conceived and constructed 'US' rather than the commonalities that do exist and can serve to harmonize a global WE and serve aims that are in OUR common interests as fellow human beings on Earth.

There have been an enormous number of past, and present, injuries that have been and are being perpetuated in defence and defiance of states, races, ethnic or religious identities that in some way or another claim 'insult' and 'persecution' as the measure of the justness for their atrocities and to rationalize root causes for their hostilities and violent aggression. The motives in reality were and are most definitely all driven at the core by human greed and primal survival urges for 'supremacy', and by it the achievement of physical and economic security of ways and means to better ends than what people had before.

It should be clear by now that the rush to 'progress' at any cost has and is exacerbating and not marginalizing the distinctions between US and ensures that WE cannot ever get past acting out our humanity's "Grumpy Amygdala" like our cave dwelling ancestors; with a destructive and vicious reaction to each new insult and injury triggering mob insecurity and absurdity the world-over of one form or another in one group or another every day of the year!

Mass candle-light ceremonies following the most crushing atrocities affecting the collective human psyche are an example to my mind of Humanity's capacity to achieve brotherly love, tolerance and compassion the world over. I have witnessed such mass movements on nightly news casts in recent weeks that have included countries in a diversity of regions and on different continents standing up for equality, justice and the virtues of respect within our shared human community, and standing in protest of those who would try to utilize fear to achieve divisive, destructive and audacious means for political and 'Extremist' ends. The will of the masses is most certainly there to over-come the grievances of the marginalized and disenfranchised, but the leadership to date is devoid of actions that are genuinely intended to achieve mutually advantageous resolutions and outcomes.

There is a seminar being held presently in Washington, hosted by President Obama, that is addressing the very real concern of 'Extremist' movements throughout the world. I applaud the initiative if the intent is to gain greater understanding of the concerns of one's adversaries and if a genuine interest in seeking their win/win resolution is the guiding intention. Otherwise, it is akin to having a conversation while the Elephant is out of the room. It's flaw is in thinking it will arrive at possible resolutions absent of the offended parties and instead only perpetuates the opportunities for Intellectuals and military strategists to sit around agreeing with themselves about their interpretation of how others feel and why they are acting the way they are and doing the things they are doing because of it.

Lets face it, my Canada and my world are not the nice, welcoming, caring, secure and 'progressive' environments they should be for all the human knowledge and international principles and proclamations that exist in print that we and all nations are signatories to. WE need to get better at practicing what is agreed to and holding our leadership accountable to support the values and pronouncements of Human Rights, rather than think they have a mandate to amend them to their defined group's interests.

To my mind the usefulness of political parties has outgrown itself in the contemporary era. Smart Canadians need to sit down and think about how fellow Canadians can be better served than through an adversarial political system designed to perpetually stimulate conflict and confrontation and take valuable time and energy away from cooperation and collaboration in the day-to-day affairs of those elected to represent further micronized communal interests. With a business approach, we need to undertake a 'Situation Analysis' and work through a process of consensus building to achieve a renewed Mission and Vision, along with an agreed-upon direction for the country and its citizenry that can be voted upon through trust-worthy and transparent on-line election processes.

There is an opportunity existing today for Canada to renew its historical reputation as a peace-keeping nation, with an international rainbow of citizens proudly comprising its societal and cultural mosaic. WE need a process that achieves an updated 'Social Contract' and a renewed commitment to walk-the-walk on internationally agreed-upon Human Rights principles and declarations. In so doing it can provide an example of the possible and a testament to it for the rest of the global community.

WE as Canadians need to focus our collective energies with a renewed sense of urgency and priority on achieving acceptable living conditions for all Canadians in communities from coast-to-coast-to-coast; with basic services of electricity, water and sewage systems, adequate housing, schools and employment opportunities. WE need to ensure that the people of our northern regions can receive their goods and services at reasonable costs comparative to all southern regions of the country, and that they can receive their governance and justice in ways that best serves their communities as well. We need to address homelessness and addiction with compassion, to aid and nurture recovery and reintegration. Restorative justice needs greater exercise in achieving genuine resolution of some crimes and offences as well. In reality the whole Justice system needs extensive reform to achieve restorative rather than punitive Justice aims. Holistically, WE need to renew our commitment to 'Good Governance'; binding it less to 'Institutions' designed to control people and attaching it primarily instead to serving the 'Greater Good' by adapting and modifying the institutions and tools of governance to meet that objective.

WE have had enough experience with looking forward while taking steps backwards as a country and as a global community. WE need leadership that genuinely cares about the fellow human beings they serve. WE need to strive diligently to utilize tools such as the Economy to achieve the 'Greater Good' through renewed instruments of 'Good Governance', rather than the self-interests of the wealthy, political and military 'elite' that today make it quite clear they have not earned OUR trust and confidence to steer OUR course forward well, nor seem to be genuinely trying to do so with much earnest.

That is what I will be looking for from those who want my vote in coming Federal and Provincial elections. I am a champion of change after five decades of experiencing it, so long as it for the better, and not a continuation of OUR backwards 'progress' simply dressed in renewed rhetoric that is rooted in divisiveness and promotion of a 'fear' agenda.


Andrew Gilchrist B.A., C.C.M.

Member of the Canadian Society of Club Managers since 2002
Internationally accredited Certified Club Manager (C.C.M.)