imagine: you are born into a family connected to the divinity of nature. You are the inheritors of the vast realm that has been passed down for generations. Newcomers arrive and they greet you with guns, germs, and steel. You were not equipped for this age of global capitalism. The invasion stripped you of your cultural, social, and material wealth, leaving you with shattered pieces of the beloved life that your people once had. 

 

    ***     How would you feel? ***   

 You may think that this may not have happened to you or any of your friends, but this is sadly not the truth. Waterloo Region is located directly on treaty land and this affects each and every one of us, indigenous or not. The treaty in question is known as the Haldimand Treaty: or in other words the treaty of the stolen land you live on. 

 The Haldimand treaty, also known as the Haldimand Grant, was signed on October 25 1784, when Sir Fredrick Haldimand, who was Governor of Quebec at the time, decided to sign a decree that gave the Six Nations land that would belong to them in response to the appreciation and compensation for their allegiance to the British during the American Revolution. However, since 1784 there have been multiple discrepancies between both the crown and the Six Nations regarding treaty rights and the tract right of ownership. 

    *** Reason Of Significance ***

 

 You may not realize it and may never have known this because society has lied to you. The land on which you are standing today was part of this treaty. Right now you are standing upon stolen land that still and should belong to the Six Nations. The crown and her corporate allies have completely stolen this land. It is also important to know how the Six Nations have tried many times to get their land back and without success. There seems to have been some acknowledgment over the years but all you hear is that you are on Haudenosaunee land. But where you ever told that it was stolen land that it still belongs to the haudenosaunee? That's why you are being told of this.  This grant of land covered roughly 385,000 hectares at the time. The land base of Six Nations today is 18,000 hectares. Six Nations is engaged in an ongoing litigation against the Crowns Canada and Ontario for a general accounting of Six Nations’ lands and money. I am urging public support on this important matter.

 

 

 

                *** history of disputes ***

 

 Shortly after the American Revolution they Haudenosaunee lost much of their ancestral homeland that is still upper New York. Mohawk leader Joseph Brandt as well as some representatives of the Six Nations Confederacy Pressured the British government to give them a laying grant to replace the land that they lost during the American Revolution. This was when the Haldimand Grant was complete. Shortly after the grant was completed the Haudenosaunee and the British crown disagreed over the Proclamation. while the crown still look at the land as their property and that the haudenosaunee where technically leasing the land from the crown; the appointed official that Frederick Haldimand himself appointed named Thayendanegea argued that the land was actually Haudenosaunee land and that selling it to the settlers would actually be an economical importance to the future of the Haudenosaunee. But as time grew on The Crown stole parts of their land without any compensation to the Haudenosaunee. This land stretched 10 kilometers deep on each side of the Grand River that covers much of Southern Ontario. today there are only a small amount of reserves left on this tract. The land was stolen after a dispute madeBy the crown who launched a survey of the land and the results of which was at the land was taken from these people without compensation which went contrary to the original agreement that the Six Nations and the Crown originally agreed upon. This is why we're talking about this today because we are still on their land that 's been stolen and there has been no compensation, there has been no restitution for any of them that was stolen. That is why we are talking about it. 

 

This is why I am calling on all canadians who are able to do so to be able to be able to have the canadian government give the six nations the following

1) restitution for the land to which they stole from them

2) an acknowledgement and apology from the federal government to the six nations for stealing their right to land without consent

3) for reserve size to be expanded to the original 385000 hectares that once promised to six nations in the Haldimand tract

4) for the six nations reserve to get more financial and material resources to be able to be able to improve living conditions on the reserve. 

This would be requested to be done immediately upon approval from the house of commons and senate. 

(Registered in Department of Indian Affairs as X015173D)