indigenous treaties
First Nations compacts
Indigenous treaties are formal agreements between Indigenous peoples and colonial or national governments, typically addressing land rights, sovereignty, resource access, and self-governance.
These documents range from historic nation-to-nation agreements the Treaty of Waitangi to modern land claims settlements.
Treaty rights often remain legally binding and politically contested, with Indigenous communities invoking them to assert sovereignty and challenge government actions: The pipeline violates treaty obligations.
- land claimsAssertions of property ownership
- wampumIndigenous American bead currency
- tribal sovereigntyIndigenous peoples' governmental independence
- sovereign nationsSelf-ruling states with autonomy
- self-determinationControl over one's fate
colonization · constitutional law · legal precedents · oral histories · reconciliation efforts · hunting grounds · sacred sites · medicine wheel · sacred pipe · reservation systems · traditional knowledge · First Nations · broken promises · reparations · intergenerational trauma · pipe · annuities · ceremony
indigenous treatiesconquest
Defeating and seizing control
dispossession · Indian Removal Act · land seizure · ethnic cleansing · Trail of Tears