Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Ghosts In The Court: Jonathan Belcher And The Proclamation Of 1762, Eric Adams
Ghosts In The Court: Jonathan Belcher And The Proclamation Of 1762, Eric Adams
Dalhousie Law Journal
History occupies a central place in aboriginal rights litigation. As a result, the circumstances and characters of the distant past play crucial roles in the adjudication of aboriginal treaty, rights and title claims. One such character is Jonathan Belcher. the first chief justice and former lieutenant governor of Nova Scotia. In 1762, Belcher issued a Proclamation reserving the north-eastern coast of Nova Scotia (and what Is now the eastern coast of New Brunswick) for the Mi'kmaq. In R. v Bernard, the accused pleaded a right to log timber on Crown land on the basis of Belcher's Proclamation. This article argues …
Brightening The Covenant Chain: Aboriginal Treaty Meanings In Law And History After Marshall, Mark D. Walters
Brightening The Covenant Chain: Aboriginal Treaty Meanings In Law And History After Marshall, Mark D. Walters
Dalhousie Law Journal
The decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Marshall raises some difficult questions about the interpretation of Crown-Aboriginal treaties, especially treaties dating from the eighteenth century. The Court acknowledged that the treaty context is important to establishing the meaning of treaty texts, and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal perspectives must be considered. As a result, judges must have regard to historical analyses of Crown-Aboriginal relations when interpreting these old treaties. In this article, the author explores some of the complex theoretical problems that such legal-historical analyses create, focusing in particular upon the possibility that lawyers and judges may reach …
Was Amerindian Dispossession Lawful? The Response Of 19th-Century Maritime Intellectuals, D G. Bell
Was Amerindian Dispossession Lawful? The Response Of 19th-Century Maritime Intellectuals, D G. Bell
Dalhousie Law Journal
In the half-century ending about the time of Confederation a dozen writers addressed awkward questions about an earlier generation's dispossession of Maritime Amerindians from land and resources: had it been lawful; if so, how; if not, what should be done? In the main they approached it as an abstract question, divorced from those particulars of local history that would become the focus of late-20th-century investigation. Those who theorized that English tradition made dispossession lawful did so with reference to the doctrine of "discovery" or to the proposition, grounded in Locke and accepted widely in colonial public opinion, thatAmerindian possession of …
Mikmaw Tenure In Atlantic Canada, James [Sákéj] Youngblood Henderson
Mikmaw Tenure In Atlantic Canada, James [Sákéj] Youngblood Henderson
Dalhousie Law Journal
The Supreme Court of Canada has characterized aboriginal title to land as a sui generis legal interest. This essay describes the sui generis interest of Mikmaw tenure in Atlantic Canada from a Mikmaq linguistic perspective. The author argues the prerogative treaties and legislation of the eighteenth century suggest it is a reserved and protected tenure, which in Eurocentric law might be reconceptualized as allodial tenure.