The more I read about the history of the Six Nations and the Nanfan Treaty, the greater my appreciation for how neatly the natives of old pulled the wool over the eyes of the encroaching Europeans.
More than 300 year later, we're still living with the ramifications of that sleight of hand.
That point hit home again this week with news that Chris Bentley, the Ontario attorney general and minister of aboriginal affairs, has concluded that the Nanfan Treaty of 1701, which gave the Iroquois permanent hunting rights in southwest Ontario, legally applies to Hamilton Conservation Authority lands.
The HCA has been soliciting authoritative opinions on that matter following its controversial decision of a year and half ago to temporarily close Iroquoia Heights for safety reasons because of illegal bow hunting.
At first, natives questioned at the popular hiking and biking trail claimed to be conducting an environmental survey.
But a Six Nations spokesperson later invoked Nanfan as a justification for hunting there.
To avoid conflict, HCA quickly hunkered down with Haudenosaunee representatives to jaw about a potential hunting agreement while simultaneously investigating the validity of their claim.
No doubt Bentley's statement will help pave the way for a permanent pact which, happily enough, may have the added bonus of controlling an overpopulation of deer.
However, history, like life, will have its little joke. The Nanfan treaty is not only founded on a questionable premise, it's a remarkable piece of double-dealing.
In 1701, when chiefs of the Five Nations (later six) Iroquois Confederacy signed the treaty named after New York governor Sir John Nanfan, they neither occupied nor controlled the land they deeded to the English in exchange for perpetual hunting rights.
True, in the 1650s the Iroquois — whose traditional homelands were south of Lake Ontario in present-day New York State — had invaded the north shore and displaced the indigenous tribes.
But by the late 1690s, the Mississaugas, a branch of the Ojibwa, had in turn thrown the Iroquois back across the Great Lakes.
In fact, in 1700 the Iroquois formally surrendered the north shore to the Ojibwa, who were allies of New France.
A year later, they brazenly gave away the same land again, this time to the English through the Nanfan Treaty.
The Six Nations only returned to southern Ontario some 80 years later when, having lost their homelands for backing the losing side in the American Revolution, the British purchased the Haldimand Tract for them by way of compensation.
Who did the British buy the Grand River land from? Why, the Ojibwa-Mississaugas, of course.
Obviously, this is a quick sketch of a complex period of European conflicts and native wars for control of beaver furs and trade routes.
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But Bentley's federal counterpart seems to have accepted that it was the Ojibwa not the Iroquois who controlled the lands in Ontario covered by the Nanfan Treaty.
Certainly that's the historical background included in the 2003 Indian Claims Commission report dealing with the GTA land claim by the Mississaugas of the New Credit. Last year, the federal government put that claim to bed with a $145 million settlement.
Bogus though the Nanfan Treaty's underpinning may be, a deal is still a deal, even if it's a pig in a poke. The Constitutional Act of 1982 recognizes aboriginal and treaty rights and that includes Nanfan.
Meanwhile, the dusty old
document keeps surfacing in
Native protesters and representatives cited the treaty during negotiations with the City of Hamilton over stewardship of the Red Hill Valley Parkway.
At one point, the treaty became the basis of a lawsuit against the city with the plaintiffs asserting the whole expressway project violated native rights. The suit was withdrawn before it could be tested in court.
And, thanks to Nanfan, the city has also committed to consult with Six Nations about cultural and archeological matters associated with the so-called aerotropolis project.
It's amusing to imagine that once upon a time, sitting around their campfires, the Iroquois must have had a good laugh at the expense of both the Ojibwa and the English. That laughter is still echoing down the ages.
Andrew Dreschel's commentary appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. firstname.lastname@example.org 905-526-3495.