Documents a vital part of our history

First treaty among papers on loan here

By: Mary Agnes Welch Posted: 7:36 AM CDT Thursday, Sep. 18, 2014

ONE got rained on and the Queen’s signature is now fading. Another is a homely piece of lined paper covered in scribbles. Another is a bit of a mystery, perhaps created as part of a young law clerk’s education.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/09/2014 (4032 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Taken together, though, they make up Canada’s human rights history — not all of it good.

Nearly a dozen documents, including the proclamation of Canada’s 1982 Constitution and the first treaty with Cree and Chippewa people that helped settle Manitoba, will be on display at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights when parts open for preview tours Saturday.

The documents rarely leave Canada’s national archive in Ottawa, and they have never been loaned out for a year all together. Even the Royal Proclamation, which turned 250 last year, has only been loaned for a day or two at a time, in part because it must be displayed at optimum temperature and pressure to preserve it.

Manitoba Treaty Commissioner James Wilson said rare public access to the proclamation and Treaty One couldn’t come at a better time. Indigenous issues are top-of-mind in Manitoba now, and the documents provide valuable history and context that even many indigenous people still have to learn. And elementary students are now learning about treaties in school, meaning they’ll have a chance to see their curriculum up close.

“The more you learn about them, the more you learn they have everything to do with the future, not the past,” said Wilson.

Also on display at the CMHR will be the proclamation of the 1982 Constitution Act, signed by Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau on a rainy day in Ottawa. Drops of water and smudged ink can be seen on the paper, and the pen the Queen used is prone to fading under light. A special case that’s only modestly illuminated when a visitor is near has been built to display the document.

The human rights museum will also have the Kitchen Accord, a constitutional deal made in the kitchenette of the National Conference Centre and jotted down on a piece of paper by then-Saskatchewan attorney general Roy Romanow.

“If you look at them from the perspective of human rights, they are our core documents,” said Guy Berthiaume, Canada’s chief librarian and archivist of the collection of 11 documents on loan. “They are very representative.”

But they are not all noble. In addition to legislation, charters and proclamations, the museum will also display four Chinese immigration certificates, otherwise know as head-tax certificates, issued to thousands of Chinese immigrants after 1885, when their cheap labour was no longer needed to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. The certificates record the $50 or $500 Chinese immigrants were forced to pay to enter the country, evidence of generations of racist immigration policies.

“It’s not one of our finest hours, but they are worthy documents,” said Berthiaume.

maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca

Documents on display

SOME of the historic records on loan to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights from the national archive in Ottawa.

Royal Proclamation — 1763

WHAT IT SAYS: It established that aboriginal title to land existed and continued to exist and all land in the colonies would be considered aboriginal land until ceded by treaty. And it banned settlers from claiming land, unless it has been first bought by the Crown from First Nations and then sold to the settlers. The proclamation set up the title-transfer process, saying it could only happen by mutual consent following a big public meeting between the Crown and First Nation, a process that established how future treaties were negotiated. And it reserved vast swaths of territory in the interior of the continent for indigenous peoples.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: It’s often described as the “Indian Magna Carta” because it established indigenous land rights that exists to this day.

Treaty 1 — 1871

WHO SIGNED IT: Cree and Chippewa leaders named Mis-koo-ke-new, Ka-ke-ka-penais, Na-sha-ke-penais, Na-na-wa-nanan, Ke-we-tay-ash, Wako- wush, Oo-za-we-kwun and Indian Commissioner Wemyss M. Simpson, who signed on behalf of Queen Victoria.
WHAT IT SAYS: The First Nations “cede, release, surrender and yield up to Her Majesty the Queen and successors forever” all the lands that are now Winnipeg, Brandon and most of southern Manitoba. In exchange, the Crown set aside reserve lands — 160 acres for each family of five — for bands that now include Peguis, Sagkeeng, Long Plain and others.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: It was the first of a series of numbered treaties that essentially gave the Crown title to nearly all of Western Canada, allowing for waves of immigration, railway construction and settlement. The meaning of the treaty, and the parts that were agreed to orally but never written down, are still hugely contested. It’s the basis, for example, of the long, drawn-out court battle over Kapyong Barracks.