Re: Canadian Indian Claims

[Victor Milne]

If any value including justice is made an absolute with no limitations, we
end up with a mess of insoluble complications, and much of what is
ultimately solvable benefits the lawyers far more than the victims, as Ed
Weick notes.

Is there such a thing as collective guilt? Are all whites legally liable to
compensate all Indians for the undoubted injustices? Or do we sort it out on
the basis of family history? Ed makes a good case that his Central European
ancestors had nothing to do with exploiting the first nations. I suppose I
could do the same. My German great-grandfather was certainly not a very
successful exploiter; in the mid 1870's he was in the workhouse (Victorian
workfare) at Berlin [Kitchener], Ontario, and so poor that he literally sold
my three-year-old grandfather to a prosperous merchant who wanted to adopt
him.

Even if we go with collective guilt, we find messy situations that cannot be
sorted out.

Do we prosecute the descendants of Danes for the extirpation of independent
Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the eighth century, which same Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
were founded by driving out the Celts?

Do the modern Italians have to make reparations for the damn near successful
Roman genocide against the Jews under Vespasian (68 A.D.)?

Do the modern Jews have to make reparations (and to whom?) for the multiple
genocides against Palestinian tribes in the Old Testament period? To cite
just one example of many, God is presented as ordering King Saul (ca. 1010
B.C.E.) to commit a genocide against the Amalekites: "This is what the Lord
Almighty says, '...Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy
everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and
women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1
Samuel 15:2-3) As is well known, the Old Testament records that God deposed
Saul because he failed to carry out this order to the letter. However, the
genocide was completed in the expansionist reign of King Hezekiah (720-692
B.C.E.) "They [families from the clan of Simeon] killed the remaining
Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day."

All this is NOT meant to suggest that we can ignore Indian land claims or
the claims arising out of the World War II Holocaust. It is meant to suggest
that striving for absolute justice creates more problems than it solves. In
justice as in medicine we need to do a kind of triage, ignoring the cases
which are past help, dealing first with the most serious cases which can be
remediated (but probably not fully healed) and leaving to the end the minor
cases.

Victor

- Original Message -
From: Robert Rosenstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: July 29, 1999 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: Canadian Indian Claims


| If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the
| idea of History is nullified. If an action such as a genocide has no
| force after a given number of years, then as long as one can get away
| with it for the requisite period, the action has no value except to let
| others know what can be gotten away with.  Consequently, except for a
| nuclear winter in which the slate is wiped clean, there is no justice.
|
| Robert
|
| ___
| Get the Internet just the way you want it.
| Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month!
| Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj.
|

Re: Canadian Indian Claims

[Ed Weick]

Brad:

>Another popular idea I find dubious is
>providing reparations to the living for the
>harms done to the dead.  Should a [black, indian,
>etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor,
>etc. be paid reparations for the harm
>done to his or her ancestors, who, being
>dead, are presumably beyond the ability of
>earthly things to affect them any more?
>


In the case of the settlement of aboriginal claims in Canada, it is not a
case of reparations to the living for what was done to the dead.  It is a
matter of recognizing longstanding rights which aboriginal people have held
since time immemorial and which are now entrenched in the Canadian
Constitution.  The dead held these rights, unique to aboriginal people, and
passed them on to the living.  The living are now able to enter into a
negotiating process in which the rights can be defined and distinguished
from more general rights held by the Canadian population as a whole.  In
this process, certain things to which the special rights apply, such as land
and resources, may be relinquished or become part of the public domain, and
it is for this that monetary compensation is paid.

Canadian treaties and claims settlements, which have acknowledged aboriginal
rights, have a rather mixed origin. The earliest treaties in which England
was the main colonial power, those in the Maritimes, did not deal with
rights but were essentially treaties of peace and friendship. In colonial
French Quebec, the process was similar. Initially, the French saw Canada as
fully occupied, and apart from establishing centers for trade with the
inhabitants, did not expect to settle extensively themselves.  In both
regions, Indian people were viewed as self-governing nations, and there was
no question of having them relinquish their rights to land and self-
government.  However, both regions were in fact settled.  While rights were
not extinguished, aboriginal people were pushed to the margins of society.
Subsequently, reserves in Quebec and the Maritimes were created in a variety
of ways, including lands set aside by the Catholic Church or lands
purchased by the Government of Canada.

For much of the rest of Canada, more clearly defined constitutional and
legal bases for settling aboriginal claims exist. Following the conquest of
Quebec, what is known as the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King
George III to establish a boundary between the colonies (including Canada)
and Indian lands.  The latter generally lay west of Quebec (excluding
Rupert's Land) and the Appalachian Mountains (in what soon after became the
United States). Whites who had settled in Indian lands were asked to leave
(whether they did so or not is another question). On their lands, as defined
in the Royal Proclamation, Indians should not be "molested or disturbed".
Purchase of the lands could only be made by the Crown. If Indians wanted to
sell their lands, they could only do so if via an assembly for the purpose.
Only specially licenced whites could carry on trade with the Indians.
Rupert's Land was excluded from the Royal Proclamation because it was
already under Royal Charter held by the Hudson's Bay Company.

The Royal Proclamation was reinforced in western and northern Canadian lands
by negotiation by the 1870 Order in Council by which the Northwest
Territories (originally the North-Western Territory, which then included the
prairies) and Rupert's Land were admitted into Confederation. It again
recognized aboriginal title and provided that such title could not be
extinguished except by negotiation with the Crown. However, the precise
legal meaning of this OIC, and what requirements and limitations it imposes
on government in settling aboriginal claims, is a matter of some ambiguity.

More recently, Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act (1982) recognizes
two sources of Native rights.  One is treaty rights, which consist of land
ownership, harvesting, and limited environmental and wildlife management
rights. It should be noted that Metis and non-status Indians are included as
native people in the Constitution Act along with Indians and Inuit.

While recognition of aboriginal rights has a long history in Canada, it is
only recently that government dealings with these rights has been a process
which might be termed "reasonable" or "fair and equitable". Initial rounds
of treaty making in Ontario in the 1820s were essentially land grabs.
Reserves granted to Indians at the time were small because they were viewed
as being places of transition into assimilation. The "numbered treaties"
which were signed with Indian people in western Canada beginning in
approximately 1870 were negotiated with a people who had no options but
acceptance of the government's terms.  Their numbers had declined, the
buffalo herds were vanishing, and their way of life had effectively ended.
Again, assimilation was felt to be but a matter of time.

The event which turned matters around and led to a more just process was the
Calder Ca

Re: Canadian Indian Claims

[Ray E. Harrell]

 I said:

> > First, it is NOT the issue you are describing.  It is the abrogation of

> > legal contracts that were ignored by
> > looters and brigands who found their way into the
> > government.  Many of those people's children today
> > are living off of the fruits of that theft.
>

Brad replied: Opening up Pandora's box  (snip)

> The issues here seem to me complex, but simply
> punishing Nazis' children or people who bought
> houses on putative former Indian territory,
> thinking they had clear title,
> doesn't seem to me to be the answer.

Nor do I.  But the Germans evidently disagree since
they have paid reparations to survivors families.   They
obviously agree with Kant or maybe he was just clearly
within the best ideals of their culture.  But the best we
get from the Christians is an "Oops, it was bad and we're
sorry about that."   I believe the answer to be found in
Governments protecting their citizens by paying their
debts.   In the case of the Black Hills which is more
to the Lakota than Jerusalem is to the Jews, I think
there is only one answer and that is to become Hitler or
to get out and let them have their sacred lands.  They
are just as stubborn as the Spanish.  The Lakota
have the only Amnesty International recognized political
prisoner in American Prisons.   And the government is
turning him into a poet and a Mandela.   Self destructive.
They one the only war against the U.S. then the
government took the Lakota General Red Cloud to the
East Coast and showed him the masses of populations.
His response was like an American when China entered
the war in Korea.  "They are like the leaves on the Trees."
It broke him but not the Nation's spirit.  Poor they are but
not of spirit.   It will ultimately be the American people
who lose that one.  It always seems that the war is
hopeless.

Although when my Grandfather bought a
mountain top in Tennessee and started a Cherokee
community there, where the people  spoke
Cherokee and functioned like a small corporation,
there was a lot of resistance from the locals.

It was
illegal to practice our religion until 1978 when Congress
wrote the Freedom of Religion Act for Native Americans,
but my Grandfather had found a way around it by forming
and incorporating a church called the "Temple of the
Great Spirit."   From Tennessee he spread it out to the
seven surrounding states and made it possible for all
Indian people to use the structure as a legal protection
from the law. (What's in a name?)

But this is a much
longer story so let me just say that the family of a local
powerful Senator in Tennessee connected to the Railroad
"discovered" coal on that mountain and also discovered
an older title to the land that my Grandfather's legal
title search had not.  Of course they simply strip
mined everything and my Grandfather lost his
community, his home and his business.  He had
a store and restaurant along the local highway.
He was a Master Chef who had been one of the
chefs for the Shoreham Hotel in Washington.  He
lost that too to the lawyers in the fight.

So my point here Brad is that the system is not
challenged when a White Man loses his land to
such a thing.  They just say that the right to private
property and deeds is supreme.  And it is too bad
for the individual.  That was what they said also
about my Grandfather.  But when it is an Indian
claiming an older deed that is different.  You should
read the front page articles, I'm sure they are still
searchable on this year's NYTimes about the
mineral royalties owed to our people in Oklahoma.
They pay out five bucks a month for a working
oil well on Indian property because the oil companies
can lobby the government or they just drive their
trucks up to the spicket and steal it.  So your
complaints ring more than a little hollow to me.

> Brad said:
> If one wishes to enlist the aid of the
> children of the exploiters in helping bring
> about conditions of more *universal* justice,
> it seems to me that they [the children of the
> exploiters] need to see themselves as benefitting
> from the solution, *as well as* helping the
> victims.  And, again, I think the ultimately
> nihilistic notion of *blood feud* (and related
> consepts) is relevant here.

Blood feud is between individuals, families or clans
not governments.  This is an issue of sovereign
governments.   When in the government it is called
"rule of law."

> Brad said on jobs:
> It seems to me that the issue is how to
> minimize the cases of *anybody* losing a job to anybody
> else.  The only problem I see here is similar to
> that of two [wo]men lusting after one [wo]man:
> In thos cases where a job can only be done by one
> person, then some people will necessarily be
> disappointed (astronomers may face this problem
> in "getting time" on the best telescopes, e.g.).

Corporate jobs are notoriously over-staffed and inefficient.
I have had people working for corporations spend many
hours on projects that they sold to me, using the
corporation

Re: Canadian Indian Claims

[Ray E. Harrell]

Victor, I think I answered all of this in my post to Brad.

I think that it is strange for economists to mix responsibility
for felonies up with financial responsibility for illegality in
the observance of valid contracts between large political
and corporate entitites.   Even an artist such as myself
can separate the two.If someone comes afterwards and
joins a company that has committed and benefitted from
an illegal act then the company still owes the debt and
if that late comer is a part of the company and is benefitting
from that relationship they also owe a part of that debt.

Why is that so hard to understand?   It feels a little
slippery when one flows so easily between corporate
and individual responsibilities.  It is the government's
responsibility to repay their citizens for any loss due to
their illegality at another time, not the people who were
victims of that illegality.   Valid contracts also have
nothing to do with old battles and wars won and lost
although the Irish have been fighting that one out for
400 years and as I told Brad, Columbus was able to
come to America because the Spanish resisted the
Moors and others for 700 years until they were finally
strong enough to reclaim their rights and land.

Victor, it just makes more sense to me for us to deal
with these issues in a way that doesn't create a 700
year wound that will eventually destroy what has been
built.  What makes you think that we have any shorter
memories than the Spanish?  Spain was a multi-cultural
society much like the U.S. before the Castillians kicked
out the Moors.  The Basques are still alive and fighting
the Spaniards over things that the Spanish did to them
that was as stupid as the Moor's and Jews mistakes
in Spain.   And today the Jews are fighting the same
issues in Israel that happened to them.  It just has to
stop someplace and ignoring the debts is not the way
you do it IMHO.

Ray.

Victor Milne wrote:

> If any value including justice is made an absolute with no limitations, we
> end up with a mess of insoluble complications, and much of what is
> ultimately solvable benefits the lawyers far more than the victims, as Ed
> Weick notes.
>
> Is there such a thing as collective guilt? Are all whites legally liable to
> compensate all Indians for the undoubted injustices? Or do we sort it out on
> the basis of family history? Ed makes a good case that his Central European
> ancestors had nothing to do with exploiting the first nations. I suppose I
> could do the same. My German great-grandfather was certainly not a very
> successful exploiter; in the mid 1870's he was in the workhouse (Victorian
> workfare) at Berlin [Kitchener], Ontario, and so poor that he literally sold
> my three-year-old grandfather to a prosperous merchant who wanted to adopt
> him.
>
> Even if we go with collective guilt, we find messy situations that cannot be
> sorted out.
>
> Do we prosecute the descendants of Danes for the extirpation of independent
> Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in the eighth century, which same Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
> were founded by driving out the Celts?
>
> Do the modern Italians have to make reparations for the damn near successful
> Roman genocide against the Jews under Vespasian (68 A.D.)?
>
> Do the modern Jews have to make reparations (and to whom?) for the multiple
> genocides against Palestinian tribes in the Old Testament period? To cite
> just one example of many, God is presented as ordering King Saul (ca. 1010
> B.C.E.) to commit a genocide against the Amalekites: "This is what the Lord
> Almighty says, '...Now go attack the Amalekites and totally destroy
> everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and
> women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1
> Samuel 15:2-3) As is well known, the Old Testament records that God deposed
> Saul because he failed to carry out this order to the letter. However, the
> genocide was completed in the expansionist reign of King Hezekiah (720-692
> B.C.E.) "They [families from the clan of Simeon] killed the remaining
> Amalekites who had escaped, and they have lived there to this day."
>
> All this is NOT meant to suggest that we can ignore Indian land claims or
> the claims arising out of the World War II Holocaust. It is meant to suggest
> that striving for absolute justice creates more problems than it solves. In
> justice as in medicine we need to do a kind of triage, ignoring the cases
> which are past help, dealing first with the most serious cases which can be
> remediated (but probably not fully healed) and leaving to the end the minor
> cases.
>
> Victor
>
> - Original Message -
> From: Robert Rosenstein <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: July 29, 1999 10:13 PM
> Subject: Re: Canadian Indian Claims
>
> | If there is no such thing as obligations to past generations, then the
> | idea of History is nullified. If an action such as a genocide has no
> | force after a given number of years, then

Re: Canadian Indian Claims

[Ray E. Harrell]

That is a terrific description from an obvious
professional.  Thanks Ed.

Ray

Ed Weick wrote:

> Brad:
>
> >Another popular idea I find dubious is
> >providing reparations to the living for the
> >harms done to the dead.  Should a [black, indian,
> >etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor,
> >etc. be paid reparations for the harm
> >done to his or her ancestors, who, being
> >dead, are presumably beyond the ability of
> >earthly things to affect them any more?
> >
>
> In the case of the settlement of aboriginal claims in Canada, it is not a
> case of reparations to the living for what was done to the dead.  It is a
> matter of recognizing longstanding rights which aboriginal people have held
> since time immemorial and which are now entrenched in the Canadian
> Constitution.  The dead held these rights, unique to aboriginal people, and
> passed them on to the living.  The living are now able to enter into a
> negotiating process in which the rights can be defined and distinguished
> from more general rights held by the Canadian population as a whole.  In
> this process, certain things to which the special rights apply, such as land
> and resources, may be relinquished or become part of the public domain, and
> it is for this that monetary compensation is paid.
>
> Canadian treaties and claims settlements, which have acknowledged aboriginal
> rights, have a rather mixed origin. The earliest treaties in which England
> was the main colonial power, those in the Maritimes, did not deal with
> rights but were essentially treaties of peace and friendship. In colonial
> French Quebec, the process was similar. Initially, the French saw Canada as
> fully occupied, and apart from establishing centers for trade with the
> inhabitants, did not expect to settle extensively themselves.  In both
> regions, Indian people were viewed as self-governing nations, and there was
> no question of having them relinquish their rights to land and self-
> government.  However, both regions were in fact settled.  While rights were
> not extinguished, aboriginal people were pushed to the margins of society.
> Subsequently, reserves in Quebec and the Maritimes were created in a variety
> of ways, including lands set aside by the Catholic Church or lands
> purchased by the Government of Canada.
>
> For much of the rest of Canada, more clearly defined constitutional and
> legal bases for settling aboriginal claims exist. Following the conquest of
> Quebec, what is known as the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King
> George III to establish a boundary between the colonies (including Canada)
> and Indian lands.  The latter generally lay west of Quebec (excluding
> Rupert's Land) and the Appalachian Mountains (in what soon after became the
> United States). Whites who had settled in Indian lands were asked to leave
> (whether they did so or not is another question). On their lands, as defined
> in the Royal Proclamation, Indians should not be "molested or disturbed".
> Purchase of the lands could only be made by the Crown. If Indians wanted to
> sell their lands, they could only do so if via an assembly for the purpose.
> Only specially licenced whites could carry on trade with the Indians.
> Rupert's Land was excluded from the Royal Proclamation because it was
> already under Royal Charter held by the Hudson's Bay Company.
>
> The Royal Proclamation was reinforced in western and northern Canadian lands
> by negotiation by the 1870 Order in Council by which the Northwest
> Territories (originally the North-Western Territory, which then included the
> prairies) and Rupert's Land were admitted into Confederation. It again
> recognized aboriginal title and provided that such title could not be
> extinguished except by negotiation with the Crown. However, the precise
> legal meaning of this OIC, and what requirements and limitations it imposes
> on government in settling aboriginal claims, is a matter of some ambiguity.
>
> More recently, Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act (1982) recognizes
> two sources of Native rights.  One is treaty rights, which consist of land
> ownership, harvesting, and limited environmental and wildlife management
> rights. It should be noted that Metis and non-status Indians are included as
> native people in the Constitution Act along with Indians and Inuit.
>
> While recognition of aboriginal rights has a long history in Canada, it is
> only recently that government dealings with these rights has been a process
> which might be termed "reasonable" or "fair and equitable". Initial rounds
> of treaty making in Ontario in the 1820s were essentially land grabs.
> Reserves granted to Indians at the time were small because they were viewed
> as being places of transition into assimilation. The "numbered treaties"
> which were signed with Indian people in western Canada beginning in
> approximately 1870 were negotiated with a people who had no options but
> acceptance of the government's terms.  Their n

FW One-Sided Class Warfare in the USA (fwd)

[S. Lerner]

>Date: Thu, 29 Jul 1999 16:18:03 -0400
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Originator: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Precedence: bulk
>From: Robert Weissman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: Multiple recipients of list CORP-FOCUS <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: One-Sided Class Warfare in the USA
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>X-Comment:  Please see http://lists.essential.org for help
>
>An Outsiders' View of the One-Sided Class Warfare in the USA
>By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
>
>"While in theory U.S. law provides for workers to have freedom of
>association, the right to join trade unions and participate in collective
>bargaining is in practice denied to large segments of the American
>workforce in both the public and the private sectors."
>
>That is the central conclusion of a new report issued by the
>Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU)
>.
>
>Sometimes it takes an outsider to put matters in perspective. Those living
>in a society may become dulled to its everyday injustices; or key elements
>of society may be hidden from the view of many; or people may come to view
>their culture as the natural state of things, rather than the particular
>result of a certain social arrangement.
>
>It was this outsider's point of view that enabled Alexis de Tocqueville to
>write one of the still-great political sociological critiques of the
>United States, Democracy in America.
>
>And this same perspective enables the ICFTU researchers to plainly,
>directly and concisely convey the widespread sabotage of worker rights in
>the United States.
>
>Here's what the report details with piercing clarity:
>
>* "Employers receive legal protection for extensive interference in the
>decision of workers as to whether or not they wish to have union
>representation. This includes active campaigning by employers among
>employees against union representation as well as participating in
>campaigns to eliminate union representation."
>
>* "Penalties for breaking the law are so limited and ineffective that
>there is a high level of corporate lawlessness with respect to labor law.
>At least one in 10 union supporters campaigning to form a union is
>illegally fired."
>
>* Employers engage in widespread harassment and intimidation against union
>supporters. Often the consultants, detectives and security firms used to
>intimidate workers engage in "surveillance of union activists in order to
>discredit them. In some cases, court, medical and credit records of union
>activists are obtained and the family lives of activists are studied for
>possible weaknesses."
>
>* Many government workers, the report notes, are denied the right to
>strike or bargain collectively over hours, wages and other critical
>issues. Nearly half of public workers suffer from full or partial denial
>of collective bargaining rights.
>
>Union supporters who suffer from illegal firings, harassment, surveillance
>or improper employer electioneering do not have adequate remedies at the
>National Labor Relations Board. NLRB procedures, ICFTU correctly states,
>"do not provide workers with effective redress in the face of abuses by
>employers." NLRB delays and inability to award damages more than job
>reinstatement and lost wages (minus earnings during the period between
>illegal dismissal and NLRB order) are so severe that many wronged union
>supporters simply do not bother filing a case with the NLRB.
>
>Employers also routinely eviscerate the rights of those workers who are
>unionized:
>
>* "The law gives employers the 'free play of economic forces.' If
>employers cannot get what they want through collective bargaining, they
>can unilaterally impose their terms, lock out their employees, and
>transfer work to another location, or even to another legal entity." The
>ICFTU reports refers to Crown Central Petroleum's lockout of 250 Texas
>workers as an example.
>
>* "An increasing number of employers have deliberately provoked strikes to
>get rid of trade unions. Unacceptable demands are made of workers and are
>often accompanied by arrangements for the recruiting and training of
>strike-breakers."
>
>* Strike-breakers are also used to prevent unions from ever reaching a
>first contract.
>
>* And, in one of the great travesties of the U.S. legal system, while the
>law does prohibit the firing of workers for exercising collective
>bargaining rights, at the same time it permits employers to lock out and
>"permanently replace" those workers.
>
>The ICFTU report also criticizes the United States for permitting
>widespread use of child labor, especially in the agricultural industry and
>among migrant workers; and, in a growing number of cases, permitting
>prisoners to be compelled to work for pay (for rates as low as 23 cents a
>day).
>
>"A series of far-reaching measures need to be taken in order to establish
>genuine respect for core labor standards within the United States,
>particularly with reg

Nanotechnology & Society

[Steve Kurtz]

Please email me off list if you would like a copy of a summary of the
state of affairs in this field. I hesitate to post it because it is
perhaps 4 pages long. I was unable to stop reading it once I began.
Implications for the future of work and social processes are enormous,
and both the article by Phyl Holz(2 pgs) and comments by Tom Atlee(2
pgs) cover these.

Intro by Tom Atlee:
Nanotechnology is the science of engineering and
manufacturing machines, computers, robots, and self-replicating objects 
and substances at the atomic level, much smaller than we normally think
of
as "miniature."  I had not realized how far this technology had come,
nor 
the connection it has to the Brookhaven experiment (see the section
below
on strange matter and isotope collisions).  After the article, I've
added 
some further reflections about the nature of the hot pot we find
ourselves
in and which directions we might jump to get out. 

Steve

Re: Canadian Indian Claims

[Thomas Lunde]

Thomas:

This is great stuff Ed and I thank you for taking the time to share it, I'm
learning.

Respectfully,

Thomas Lunde
--


--
>From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: Re: Canadian Indian Claims
>Date: Fri, Jul 30, 1999, 3:54 PM
>

> Brad:
>
>>Another popular idea I find dubious is
>>providing reparations to the living for the
>>harms done to the dead.  Should a [black, indian,
>>etc.] M.D., lawyer, university professor,
>>etc. be paid reparations for the harm
>>done to his or her ancestors, who, being
>>dead, are presumably beyond the ability of
>>earthly things to affect them any more?
>>
>
>
> In the case of the settlement of aboriginal claims in Canada, it is not a
> case of reparations to the living for what was done to the dead.  It is a
> matter of recognizing longstanding rights which aboriginal people have held
> since time immemorial and which are now entrenched in the Canadian
> Constitution.  The dead held these rights, unique to aboriginal people, and
> passed them on to the living.  The living are now able to enter into a
> negotiating process in which the rights can be defined and distinguished
> from more general rights held by the Canadian population as a whole.  In
> this process, certain things to which the special rights apply, such as land
> and resources, may be relinquished or become part of the public domain, and
> it is for this that monetary compensation is paid.
>
> Canadian treaties and claims settlements, which have acknowledged aboriginal
> rights, have a rather mixed origin. The earliest treaties in which England
> was the main colonial power, those in the Maritimes, did not deal with
> rights but were essentially treaties of peace and friendship. In colonial
> French Quebec, the process was similar. Initially, the French saw Canada as
> fully occupied, and apart from establishing centers for trade with the
> inhabitants, did not expect to settle extensively themselves.  In both
> regions, Indian people were viewed as self-governing nations, and there was
> no question of having them relinquish their rights to land and self-
> government.  However, both regions were in fact settled.  While rights were
> not extinguished, aboriginal people were pushed to the margins of society.
> Subsequently, reserves in Quebec and the Maritimes were created in a variety
> of ways, including lands set aside by the Catholic Church or lands
> purchased by the Government of Canada.
>
> For much of the rest of Canada, more clearly defined constitutional and
> legal bases for settling aboriginal claims exist. Following the conquest of
> Quebec, what is known as the Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King
> George III to establish a boundary between the colonies (including Canada)
> and Indian lands.  The latter generally lay west of Quebec (excluding
> Rupert's Land) and the Appalachian Mountains (in what soon after became the
> United States). Whites who had settled in Indian lands were asked to leave
> (whether they did so or not is another question). On their lands, as defined
> in the Royal Proclamation, Indians should not be "molested or disturbed".
> Purchase of the lands could only be made by the Crown. If Indians wanted to
> sell their lands, they could only do so if via an assembly for the purpose.
> Only specially licenced whites could carry on trade with the Indians.
> Rupert's Land was excluded from the Royal Proclamation because it was
> already under Royal Charter held by the Hudson's Bay Company.
>
> The Royal Proclamation was reinforced in western and northern Canadian lands
> by negotiation by the 1870 Order in Council by which the Northwest
> Territories (originally the North-Western Territory, which then included the
> prairies) and Rupert's Land were admitted into Confederation. It again
> recognized aboriginal title and provided that such title could not be
> extinguished except by negotiation with the Crown. However, the precise
> legal meaning of this OIC, and what requirements and limitations it imposes
> on government in settling aboriginal claims, is a matter of some ambiguity.
>
> More recently, Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act (1982) recognizes
> two sources of Native rights.  One is treaty rights, which consist of land
> ownership, harvesting, and limited environmental and wildlife management
> rights. It should be noted that Metis and non-status Indians are included as
> native people in the Constitution Act along with Indians and Inuit.
>
> While recognition of aboriginal rights has a long history in Canada, it is
> only recently that government dealings with these rights has been a process
> which might be termed "reasonable" or "fair and equitable". Initial rounds
> of treaty making in Ontario in the 1820s were essentially land grabs.
> Reserves granted to Indians at the time were small because they were viewed
> as being places of transition into assimilation. The "numbered treaties"
> which were signe