Book review: Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty-Making in Canada
Reviewed by Karl Hele
Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty-Making in Canada is a general overview of treaty-making from the 17th to the 21st centuries in Canada. Miller deftly illustrates how treaty-making originated from within Indigenous custom and practice to modern treaty processes dominated by European custom and practice.
Miller begins his treaty-making examination by discussing Indigenous traditions and practices; specifically, the importance of ceremony and relationship in establishing good relations. From this basis, Compact, Contract, Covenant follows the evolution of treaty-making from Indigenous dominance and instance on ceremony and relationships to one of Euro-Canadian dominance and insistence on documentary form. Simply, according to Miller, the land treaties as they evolved from the 1780s to the 1920s to increasingly meeting Canadian needs were “artifacts of a deteriorating relationship … because Native people were little valued by newcomers”(301). He also notes that the governments of Canada did not consciously set out to violate treaties, instead it was a series of circumstances that led to their non-fulfillment. According to Miller, “non-Native governments did not honour their treaty relationship because they no longer valued the people with whom they had made them, and those populations were now small, weak, and lacking political tools to resist”(301-2). Miller, however, does note that this has been slowly changing since the Calder Decision in 1973. Although the governments of Canada still hold many of the cards while generally refusing to define or support Aboriginal and treaty rights, the courts are forcing change by defining rights and by First Nations who are demanding an equal place within Canada.
As is the nature of broad-sweeping texts, Miller’s work at times leaves the reader disappointed. For instance, the pre-confederation treaty chapters are at times confusing, too summary, and neglect some treaties. These incomplete feeling chapters stand in contrast to the more detailed chapters on the Western treaties. Additionally, the discussion about treaties during the French regime (c.1608 to 1760/3) as well as the Maritime Peace and Friendship treaties (1720s to 1750s) were underdeveloped in favour of an in-depth examinations of Iroquois-English relations. I believe Miller included the Haudenosaunee treaties, specifically the Two Row Wampum and Covenant Chain, because of their extension to and conceptual inclusion in British-Canadian treaty practices post-1760. Regardless, this leaves the treaty-making traditions and practices in New France underdeveloped and appearing somewhat ‘irrelevant’ to Canada’s treaty-making overall.
Finally, I found that Miller at times did not always draw the threads established at the beginning of the text throughout the work consistently. While some of the holes in the text are tied to the broad nature of a survey text, others are linked to the nature of the sources and available published materials, as well as general Canadian narratives of the overriding importance of the Haudenosaunee and Western treaties to the history of the collective past.
Overall, if you are looking for a good general exploration of treaty-making in Canada, Miller’s Compact, Contract, Covenant is a decent survey of treaty-making within Canada, albeit the only one. It covers the basics by establishing the context or backgrounds leading up to treaty-making as well as the processes and outcomes. It offers both Indigenous and settler perspectives on treaty, albeit you may find the background information is heavily slanted toward settler history and events – which logically follows the narrative that settlers only sought treaty when it suited them, particularly after 1763. Simply, Compact, Contract, Covenant is a place to start learning about treaties across Canada, but it should not be your final destination.
R. Miller, Compact, Contract, Covenant: Aboriginal Treaty-Making in Canada. University of Toronto Press, 2009.
ISBN: 9780802095152