Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review. 

“Like many stories of origin, the story of peace-making takes place in the teeth of its opposite. Civil life must be carefully built against the dark threat of distrust and violence. Part of the story told in this book is that the ideal of friendship and alliance pictured in the image of linked arms, and its betrayal, is so deeply embedded in Canadians’ collective unconscious that it remains our country’s constitutional – or even better, our constitutive – relationship,” (Coleman 15).

In April 2006, Daniel Coleman went into his office at McMaster University and learned that the campus was providing lodging for police officers who had raised the site of an Indigenous land dispute near Caledonia, Ontario. From here, Coleman’s thought differently about Indigenous issues, which he’d already long supported, and began working closely with Indigenous scholars to understanding the Wampum covenants and seeing if there is a way to repair the relationship with Indigenous peoples and communities and the land itself.

Coleman’s book has a wealth of information. Split up into five parts, Coleman carefully explains to readers the meaning of the Linked Arms shown in the Wampum belt, explains what Wampum is, and what his role is in writing this book. Coleman goes on to carefully explain the history of oral traditions, and the first Wampum agreement, as well as ethical spaces, how betraying the wampum has lead to disturbing and poisoning the land which greatly affects Indigenous communities more than white settler communities, and wonders if the covenant can be repaired at all.

It’s a wonderfully in-depth book, but not one that can be read quickly. Grandfather of the Treaties is a book that needs to be digested slowly in small, bite-sized pieces in order to fully understand the great detail he provides in this book. As such, it took me nearly the entire month of January to finish this book. The tone is very academic in places, which makes sense but can make it a bit hard for readers to follow along with at times which is why it’s important that readers do take their time with the book.

Grandfather of the Treaties is one of the most informative books about Indigenous and settler relationships and does an excellent job detailing the agreement and settler betrayal. While it can be daunting with the academic tone and the massive amount of information, it is definitely worth taking the time to read!

Publication: December 3 2024
Publisher: Wolsak and Wynn
Pages: 372 pages (ARC)
Source: River Streeting Writing
Genre: Non-Fiction, Indigenous, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤⛤⛤
Summary:

When Daniel Coleman went into his office in McMaster University on a beautiful April morning in 2006 he was startled to see over thirty police vehicles parked on campus, and soon discovered that the campus was providing lodging for the officers who had raided the site of an Indigenous land dispute near the town of Caledonia. This discovery changed how Coleman thought about Indigenous issues, which he’d long supported, bringing home that there is no part of life in Canada where you are outside of the broken relationship between the nation of Canada and the Indigenous nations who have lived here since time immemorial. This began Coleman’s journey, working closely with Indigenous scholars, to understand more fully that relationship and to find a way to repair not only it, but our relationship with the land we call home. In Grandfather of the Treaties Coleman introduces the founding Wampum covenants that the earliest European settlers made with the Haudenosaunee nation and shows how returning to these covenants, and the ways they were made, could heal our society.