Natives and Settlers Now and Then: Historical Issues abd Current Perspectives on Treaties and Land Claims in Canada

Beginning with the premise that Canada is engaged in the era of treaty implementation, Natives and Settlers discounts the myth of a postcolonial Canada. Informed by a colonial past that remains “refracted” in the current understanding and treatment of Native peoples, this collection reinterprets treaty making, rights, title, and land claims from Aboriginal perspectives. In the spirit of ongoing dialogue, essays by Sharon Venne, Patricia Seed, Harold Cardinal, Frank Tough, and Erin McGregor bring new insights to the interpretations of signed treaties and pre-contact treaty-making processes, examine land claims still under negotiation, and demonstrate the vitality of Aboriginal laws and paradigms in a country new to decolonization and nation building.