Treaty rights

Treaty rights are certain rights that were reserved by indigenous peoples when they signed treaties with settler societies in the wake of European colonization. This applies to the rights of Alaska Natives and Native Americans in the United States and First Nations in Canada, as well as to a smaller number of Inuit and Metis in Canada who have entered into treaties.

Treaty rights are not the only rights claimed by indigenous peoples. Indigenous people claim inherent rights to self-determination, which implies that they be recognized as rights-bearing groups (called "tribes", "bands", or "nations" depending on the place and time) capable of self-determination and cultural survival. Once the state recognizes that there is another body corporate with legal personality capable of making binding agreements on behalf of its members, then negotiations can begin for mutual exchange and aid: a treaty. The earliest of these agreements, between colonial powers such the French, British, and the Dutch and various indigenous peoples of the Atlantic coastal regions had the character of military alliances, as between peers. Later treaties, however, were generally about the cession of land from weakened Aboriginal peoples to expanding settler states. By the Royal Proclamation of 1763 the British Crown (i.e. the state) declared that individual British subjects could not buy land from native nations; only the Crown could obtain land from native nations through treaty, which it could then redistribute to individuals. This principle, which was adopted by both Canada and the United States upon gaining independence from Britain, became the legal impetus for all subsequent treaties in North America.

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