SIX NATIONS – Veterans Day is a day in which those who fought and those who died while defending the British Crown are remembered. In more recent years Canada has represented itself in international conflict but there was a time when brave indigenous warriors fought in a war not of their making, but the outcome of which would impact them greatly.
At Six Nations of the Grand River Territory, the warriors representing Six Nations and New Credit soldier warriors are celebrated earlier than Canada celebrates theirs.
But in the early years of the creation of occupied Canada and the U.S., the dependence on indigenous warriors to fight for their cause spawned a renewal of the Two Row Wampum agreement that called for the Haudenosaunee and the British Crown to stand as allies against the American rebels.
Without the backing of Haudenosaunee, Shawnee, and other indigenous peoples, Britain would not have stopped the rebel American forces from overtaking all of what is now Canada. Britain was weak and over-extended when “manifest-destiny” brought the fledgling American war machine to the edge of the boarder established between what is now Canada and the U.S.
This is an important page in the true history of North America, which is overlooked or removed from most History textbooks.
Century long irritations and injustices were only exacerbated under Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government but Justin Trudeau’s Liberal leadership holds out much more hope for Indigenous peoples than has become common.
The following is a partial list of important Indigenous allies of the British Crown who deserve a place in the making of a new world, which non-natives should know about.
