City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Publications and Research CUNY School of Law 1993 The Liberal Treatment of Indians: Native People in Nineteenth Century Ontario Law Sidney Harring CUNY School of Law How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cl_pubs/302 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact:
[email protected] "THE LIBERAL TREATMENT OF INDIANS": NATIVE PEOPLE IN NINETEENTH CENTURY ONTARIO LAW SIDNEY L. HARRING* Canada's tortured relationship with its First Nations can be studied on many levels in virtually every area of human interaction. In the past twenty years, an impressive body of literature has set out to do just that, producing hundreds of scholarly works that recast Canada's relationship to Native people in a new way. Native people themselves, quite independently of scholars, have also recast the relationship of their own nations with Canada. This resurgence of Native politics has led to armed stand-offs, the creation of Nunavut, an Inuit territory within Canada, the demise of the Meech Lake Accord and local assertions of Native rights on a wide variety of fronts.' This political and cultural resurgence also has a legal dimension, as the First Nations have used the courts to redefine their relationship with the Canadian nation-state. Canadian courts have been notoriously unreceptive to Native legal The research and editorial assistance of Kathryn Swedlow, a third year student at CUNY Law School and a technical editor, is gratefully acknowledged.