Blackfoot legal traditions, treaty-making, and non-territorial forms of settler jurisdiction? Niitsitapi oral histories of Treaty 7

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4475640
AutoresMichael Fabris (0009-0004-7304-3455, University of British Columbia, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen43
Número6
Páginas1012-1034
Fecha de publicación2025-01-23
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEnvironment and Planning D Society and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0263-7758 • E-ISSN: 1472-3433
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02637758241307556
PMID41246796
OpenAlexW4406768584
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas22

In this article, I discuss Blackfoot oral histories of Treaty 7, an agreement the Blackfoot confederacy entered into with the Canadian government and two other Indigenous nations in September of 1877. Drawing from critical legal and legal geographic studies, I deploy jurisdiction as an analytical concept, exploring the ways jurisdiction can give concrete form to Indigenous understandings of treaty as a means of 'sharing' the land with settlers. I argue that, for the Blackfoot Confederacy members that participated in the making of Treaty 7, this agreement did not represent the surrender of land or extinguishment of Blackfoot legal traditions, but the continuation of Blackfoot jurisdiction across the confederacy's traditional territories. I also discuss Northwest Mounted Police (NWMP) Lieutenant-Colonel MacLeod's positive relationship with Blackfoot confederacy members. I contend this relationship with MacLeod and the NWMP contributed to a Blackfoot understanding of Canadian law as governing relations between people. Thus, through entering into Treaty 7 with Crown representatives, the Blackfoot Confederacy representatives were recognizing Canadian jurisdiction as a non-territorial form of authority governing the conduct of settlers, a form of recognition that is far different from agreeing to surrender land title and accepting Crown sovereignty

Indigenous · Jurisdiction · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · Surrender · Treaty · Treaty of Waitangi · Canadian Identity and History · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies · Ecology