The accidental treaties

By Dr. David Shanahan

Treaties are important documents. They deserve careful consideration. However, in a couple of weeks in 1836, one man, without any formal authorization, and in the spur of the moment, made four treaties with various First Nations around Lake Huron/Georgian Bay. He only informed the British Government of the agreements after the treaties were signed. One treaty involved Manitoulin Island and 23,000 islands in Georgian Bay. Another consisted of one and a half million acres on the Bruce Peninsula, while the other two covered a total of 72 square miles—not exactly a minor transaction and one that completely changed the history of the Georgian Bay area.

The man responsible for these treaties was Sir Francis Bond Head, Governor of the Canadas, later described by the British Prime Minister as “such a damned odd fellow.” He was really quite eccentric. In 1836, he travelled to Manitoulin Island where the annual Presents were to be distributed. This was a very symbolic event as the British Crown renewed their commitment to their Indigenous allies; but by 1836, the ties between the two sides had become strained, and the Crown no longer saw the Indigenous people as equals.

Bond Head had decided to visit as many Indian settlements as possible on his journey, and what he saw convinced him that the First Nations were simply doomed to extinction in the face of European expansion. It was not that he was a racist in the normal manner: he developed a great regard for what he saw as the nobility of the Indigenous people and their traditional ways of life. It was just that he considered European influence on that lifestyle to be a corrupting one. Indigenous people, he believed, could never survive in the face of the negative effects of white settlement.

So, this aristocratic Englishman came up with a plan, entirely of his own devising, that he believed would be to the benefit of all. As he canoed through the islands of Georgian Bay, he decided that this was the prefect location for Indigenous people to spend their final decades. If Indigenous people were destined to die out as a race, where better than the islands around Manitoulin for them to carry on their traditional ways until the end came?

On arriving at Manitowaning, he immediately set to work to put his scheme into action. He got permission of the Odawa and Ojibwe inhabitants of the Island to allow any Indigenous person who wished to move and settle on the island. In return, the Crown would recognize the Aboriginal right to the Island. This was the 1836 Manitoulin Treaty. But he then went further. Thousands of people had gathered for the Presents, and Bond Head entered into a treaty with the Saugeen to surrender 1.5 million acres of their land and to remove to Manitoulin. Pleased with his work to date, Bond Head made two more treaties on his return journey to York (Toronto): one with the Huron around Amherstberg, and the other with the Moravians on the Thames. Each group surrendered 36 square miles of territory, and Bond Head urged them, too, to remove permanently to Manitoulin.

The agreement Bond Head made didn’t last long. Just 26 years later, through exploiting divisions on the Island, by misrepresenting what the 1836 Agreement said, and by flagrant use of alcohol, the Crown reversed the Treaty and took over all of Manitoulin, except the Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory and a few reserves.

Bond Head was very pleased with himself. He had “saved” the Indigenous peoples around Lake Huron from the corrupting influence of the Europeans, and he had gained for the Crown a huge tract that could be filled with settlers. When he proudly informed London of his actions, he was amazed to find that he was reprimanded for acting without authority, and that no-one agreed with his scheme for moving the doomed Indigenous people to Manitoulin. The Crown condemned his scheme – but they kept the surrendered land.