Historiographical Paper:The Historical Documentation of the 1760-61 Mi’kmaq Treaties

There is often the belief that the Indians or aboriginal peoples were mistreated or confused about how the treaties that stated their rights and freedoms worked. Hollywood and the media will often play the sympathetic role towards the Natives, which is thoroughly backed up in William Wicken’s Mi’kmaq Treaties on Trial: History, Land and Donald Marshall Junior. The argument of Stephen Patterson in his article Indian-White Relations in Nova Scotia, 1749-61: A Study in Political Interaction, is not as strongly supported due to his inability to acknowledge the earlier treaties, British treaty system and the history of oral tradition among the Mi’kmaq.
William and Stephen have very similar articles but there is one defining difference among them, William draws his knowledge from the oral tradition of the Mi’kmaq where as Stephen draws his knowledge from the written texts left by the British settlers. Also William argues the rights and responsibility Mi’kmaq peoples of today ar...