Six Nations Farmer Kris Hill planning for big harvest at Burtch

SIX NATIONS — Ever since 1924, the issue of who was to administrate and oversee the communal land of the Six Nations of the Grand River has been one of the most burning questions generations of Six Nations residents have wrestled with.

The question may be about to be dealt with in a Canadian court of law regarding the Burtch lands, recently returned to Six Nations. For the uninitiated, it would seem a pretty simple thing. But to those who know the history of the Haldimand Tract the many admitted to land swindles, it isn’t so cut-and-dried.

Last week, the Six Nations Elected Council issued a statement warning local farmer Kris Hill, to remove herself from the 250 farmable acres of the Burtch Land.

And here’s the rub. Kris Hill has a lease agreement with the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council allowing her to plant there. The Elected Council and the traditional council have locked horns over who has the right and authority to decide who is to plant, or for that matter, who could occupy the Burtch Lands now that it has been given back to the people of Six Nations.

At play here is the fact that this particular piece of land has been under a 999-year lease since it was promised to Henry Gates soon after arriving here with the Brant contingent in 1784, and became one of the founders of Mount Pleasant.

Gates was a good friend and Loyalist known to have been taken under the arm of Brant following the Revolutionary War.

That lease was verified by Catherine Brant, Joseph’s widow, after Captain Brant died in 1807. The Catherine Brant affidavit was drafted at the Mohawk Village, on March 20th, 1835, and reads:.

“I, Catherine Brant, widow of the late Captain Joseph Brant on the Grand River Indian Territory of Lands, do hereby certify that Henry Gates, received of and from the said late Captain Joseph Brant certain lands on the said Grand River Territory near Mount Pleasant line, as for a compensation or remuneration for and on account of the services of him, the said Henry Gates, as a drummer since and during the late war between the United States of America and Great Britain.”

But the transaction was not registered since Joseph Brant had died before the paper work could be done. When Gates wanted to sublease part of the original huge tract to his new son-in-law, Charles Burtch, Gates pushed to have that promised 999-year lease certified by Six Nations, which it was with the blessing of the Chiefs.

In June of 1835, Gates confirmed in a letter to Lieutenant Governor Sir Francis that Brant expressed a desire and made a promise to Gates of 200 acres of land in consideration of his service to the Crown and to Brant’s Mohawks.

William Hepburn was the Acting Trustee for the Six Nations Indians at the time and it was his interpretation of what the Six Nations wanted that arbitrarily changed an existing lease into a land patent, which he said the Chiefs wanted. There is no record to indicate that in fact, the Chiefs wanted Brant’s Lease to be turned into a Patent as soon as possible. Six Nations Chiefs has denied it endorsed the Patenting of this and other Brant Leases.

It is important to note that this was long before the elected government was imposed in 1924.

Back to today.

“Band Council and a numbered company (the one they set up to receive the Burtch land) served me with papers explaining they were applying for a motion to seek an injunction to get me off of the property,” Hill explained. “It is my understanding that they took the land from the government and that it was done through that corporation and that the land is to be held in trust by the corporation for the people of Six Nations.”

But according to the letter to Hill from Band Council, if she did not comply, she would be charged with trespassing.

Hill’s argument is not only based on an interpretation of old agreements and leases, but rather on much more modern promises and on common logic.

“The Confederacy negotiated for transfer of the land when they got the Peterson promise in 2006 where the Burtch land was to be returned (to Six Nations) under the same manner it was held in the Haldimand (Proclamation),” Hill said, while working with a number of supporters in the field. “That’s pretty straight forward. “

It is her understanding that the land in fact was returned to the people of Six Nations through the traditional Haudenosaunee governing body and registered under the Confederacy’s own land registry.

“They (the Confederacy) have been managing the land for the past 10 years, in terms of who is on the land and who was doing what,” Hill says.

She says she is prepared to fight any charge that may be levied upon her in court if she has to.

Hill sees the present situation as the Elected Council overstepping its authority, as spelled out under the Indian Act.

“They do not have the authority to come after a community member and take them off land that is communally owned,” she says.

The confederacy first gave Hill and her ex-husband the right to plant, but since then, they have broken up creating a question of whether the lease partnership was also dissolved at that time, making it invalid. However says she has received a second lease in her name only to override the first one.

Hill and her crops remain at the Burtch site, which she intends to harvest later this summer.

“The way I was brought up and the way most of our people believe is that when you plant something, you don’t just leave it uncared for to die,” she says.

SNEC is putting out surveys to the community to get feedback on what to do with the communally held land.

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