Alfred Diabo Jacob Kanahaus Manuel Arthur Manuel Johnson etc

• The arrogant thought of the newcomers

  Turtle island was a "new world" whose history began only when they arrived on the shores
• Indigenous view

  The land is sacred and the land provides us with everything that we need to survive
• Newcomers' belief


  The land was meant to be conquered and exploited
• If the indigenous worldview was respected instead of being viewed as a "pagan" practice

  The environments of today would be much healthier
• This was their greatest weakness when it came to the newcomers

  It gave them power
• Reconciliation


  The invitation from Canada to share in the spoils of our nations' subjugation and dispossession. "A tainted gift and a false promise"
• Reconciling with colonialism cannot heal the wounds the colonizers have wrought on indigenous existence
• White society has forced indigenous peoples into the situation of being refugees and trespassers in their own homelands and they are prevented from maintaining the physical, spiritual, and cultural relationships necessary for their continuation as nations
• Reconciliation is recolonization because it is allowing the colonizer to hold on to his attitudes and mentality, and does not challenge his behavior toward the land
• Reconciliation is recolonization because it is telling indigenous children that the problem of history is fixed
• There is no way to decolonize from within the reconciliation paradigm
• The way to fight colonization is by reculturing yourself and by recentering yourself in your homeland
• Without a return of land to our nations and comprehensive financial support for indigenous youth to reclaim, rename, and reoccupy their homelands, to do what they need to do to ensure their own and coming generations' survival as real people, reconciliation is recolonization
• Colonialism


  Has three components: dispossession, dependence, and oppression
• Indigenous land was stolen from underneath them. The next step was to ensure that they were made entirely dependent on the interlopers so they could control every aspect of indigenous life and ensure indigenous people were not able to rise up
• Indigenous poverty is not a by-product of domination but an essential element of it
• Welfare cheques played an important pacification role. It meant indigenous peoples spent less time on their land and it allowed white men to bring in all sorts of new laws forbidding indigenous peoples from hunting and fishing
• Indigenous poverty is not an accident, it is intentional and systematic
• The Canadian system has evolved so that today indigenous poverty and misery are actually administered by indigenous peoples themselves. This system is called "self-government", self-government as designed by the Canadian government is a system where indigenous peoples administer their own poverty
• Colonialism leads to complete and utter dependence on welfare cheques
• The Indian Act


  The foundation of Canadian colonization of indigenous peoples
• The interpretation section of the Indian act provided key definitions of "Indians"
• The Indian Act was the original termination plan adopted by the Canadian parliament to break up indigenous nations into bands, setting Indian reserves apart, keeping a registry of Indians until assimilation is complete as individual Indians and Indian bands respectively become a collection of Canadian citizens living within municipalities without any legal distinctions from the general Canadian population
• Elimination of indigenous nations as distinct political and social entities was the ultimate objective of Indian affairs policy
• In 1969, 100 years after the Indian act, Pierre Trudeau and his minister of Indian affairs believed assimilation of Indians had largely been completed and introduced a white paper on Indian policy to argue that special Indian rights were a problem and equality under the law was the solution
• The white paper's objectives: eliminate Indian status, dissolve the department of Indian affairs within 5 years, abolish the Indian act and remove section 91.24 of the BNA act, convert reserve land to private property that can be sold by the band or its members, transfer responsibility for Indian affairs from the federal government to the provinces, appoint a commissioner to gradually terminate treaties
• Indigenous peoples revolted against the white paper
• Another tactic for control and management of Indians used by Ottawa bureaucrats and politicians was to change the terms and conditions for funding of Aboriginal Representative Organizations (AROs) into two-part funding: 1) basic core and 2) project funding
• First Nations organizations are funded by Ottawa. This is why you never see leaders of these organizations facilitating protests. Ottawa controls and manages the chiefs, leaders, and executives through control of organizational funding
• The Indian Act empowers INAC to rule over Indigenous peoples. The Assembly of First Nations has to align its own policies and structure with the INAC objectives and operations in order to get the funding it needs to exist. INAC then funds the AFN to carry out its program objectives and to administer the services it wants administered. And the grassroots Indigenous people are left powerless and voiceless within this closed system of governance
• The Power of Storytelling

  Humans create stories, fictions, to shape and understand their social world. These stories, whether about religion, monarchy, or sovereignty, play a crucial role in governing societies and are subject to change over time
• Historical Shifts


  The text discusses historical shifts in societal structures, from hunter-gatherer communities to agricultural societies and, later, the impact of European colonization on Indigenous peoples. It emphasizes how stories and narratives have been used to legitimize authority throughout history
• Alternative Colonization Story


  The author presents an alternative perspective on colonization, challenging the traditional narrative of victimhood for Indigenous peoples. The text suggests that Indigenous cultures played a significant role in shaping and influencing European societies
• Thanksgiving Narrative


  The author critiques the traditional Thanksgiving narrative, asserting that it misrepresents the relationship between Pilgrims and Indigenous peoples, suggesting that the latter played a more active role in helping the former
• Sovereignty as a Construct

  The text deconstructs the concept of sovereignty, arguing that it is a made-up story with significant consequences
• Personal Connection to the Land


  The author shares a personal connection to the land, emphasizing the cyclical nature of life and death and how their Indigenous identity is intertwined with the Earth