Territorial Expansion Flashcards
who signed the first treaties in north america?
indigenous nations signed treaties before European settlers arrived
What were the eras of treaty making in Canada?
-Peace and Friendship
- Surrenders
- Comprehansive
- Break
-Modern
When were the peace and friendship treaties signed?
-The first Peace and Friendship treaties were signed between th ecrown and indigenous people in the 17 and 18th century.
- They empasized friendship since the Bristish saw them selves as being more moral and humane than the spanish
What were the characteristics of early land transfer?
- During the late 1600s and until 1763
-British individuals were required to purchase Indigenous land in order to acquire it
-despite the vast amount of land transferred during this time period, Indigenous people in these regions were left in greater poverty than at the start
Benifits of land transfter to Bristish
- Land was relatively plentiful and selling a plentiful thing in order to trade for things less plentiful may have seemed reasonable
-Land sales could also cement political alliances potentially as a show of good will
-Selective land sales could have allowed indigenous people to mix old and new ways on their terms by integrating settlers into their communities
Drawbacks of land transfter to Bristish
- the value of the land may also have been less to Indigenous people because of the massive ecological change induced by the presence of the settlers and their crops and livestock
- settlers sometimes occupied land without negotiation
- oral evidence at the time that transactions were made after Indigenous owners would given large amounts of alcohol (illigal but not enforced)
- ownership of land likeley had a different mening to the indigenous than the english
- ## SInce land sales were not a thing to indigenous people it was unclear who had the authority to sell with in the community
How did early land sales result in a prisoners dilemma?
If the land were held in common, this was not necessarily a problem for British law by its own application in Britain – if one owner sells, it doesn’t affect the claim of the others However, this was not extended to indigenous peoples in terms of enforcement by British courts
This results is a prisoners dilemma for Indigenous people within and between communities, leading to faster and cheaper sales
Royal Proclamation of 1763
- Issued after the end of the Seven Years War/French-Indian War/Beaver Wars, the British “acquired” territory from the French
-Important recognition of Indigenous property rights
that asserted at all land west of the Appalachian Mountains was “Indian Territory. - Problem was, people wanted to keep going west
- Still a fundamental Constitutional document in Canada.
The following changes were made to land sales
* Only the crown, at a public meeting or assembly of “said
Indians” could purchase land
* Colonial officials could not grant grounds or lands without
royal approval
* The proclamation gave the Crown a monopsony on all
future land purchases
The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act
-In 1790 Congress prohibited the sale of land by Indian nations without the permission of the Federal Government.
-This attempt to “protect” Indigenous rights was largely to avoid unrest after fraudulent transactions.
-The Act was often ignored, and States continued to negotiate land sessions as before
-These “illegal” treaties all but entirely removed Indigenous nations from the eastern seaboard states.
The Marshall Trilogy
- Johnson v M’Intosh (1823) Found land sales by the Federal Government override a direct but earlier purchase from the Indigenous nation. Ruling referred to the “doctrine of discovery” and created a hierarchy of rights
- Cherokee Nation v Georgia, (1831) Marshall wrote that the Cherokee nation was neither a foreign nation of a state, but was a “domestic dependent nation”
- Worcester v Georgia (1832) Georgia law had no force in the sovereign territory of the Cherokee, but the State could force the removal of the Cherokee
This last lead to the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears – a movement of 60,000
people into the lands west of the Mississippi.
When did US Treaty Making End?
-After the civil war, and in the face of a power struggle between the executive and legislative branches of governmen
-Subsequently, it was by executive action and statute that settlements were made
- This caused warfare on the plane s
What was the Peace commission?
Leveraging the experience and contacts of Christian missionaries, President Grant formed a commission to travel the plains and solve “the Indian question”
When did the strategic value of Indigenous Allies decline?
The British and then Canadian authorities sought mainly a way to negotiate land transfers at the lowest possible cost
Treaty making had been in civilian hands since 1830. Canada, as a Dominion, was unable to make Treaties with foreign governments (these were handled by the British)
Treaties withIndigenous nations were an exception.
Numbered Treaties
covered the area between the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains to the Beaufort Sea. Similar to the Robinson Treaties, the so-called Numbered Treaties promised reserve lands, annuities, and the continued right to hunt and fish on unoccupied Crown lands in exchange for Aboriginal title
What was treaty making was replaced by in Canada?
a policy of “assimilation through civilization” while out west, where “land control was the fundamental concern, treaty making was the first order of business and civilization merited little, if any, official attention
