Indigenous Solidarity An (Un)Settler's Place

As a non-native Caledonia resident, how did you get involved in supporting Six Nations? Have you ever been involved before as a political activist?

No, I have never been an activist, it’s just the way I was raised. I feel that as human beings this is something that we should be doing. We shouldn’t be looking at the people from Six Nations any differently because of their race. It’s no different than helping a neighbour, helping somebody that has a flat tire; you stop on the road as a neighbourly person. It reminds me of the time when a person’s house in Caledonia blew up in a gas explosion, and we all got together to organize different events to raise money for them. We didn’t ask if they had insurance, or whose fault it was, we just immediately dropped everything to help them in any way we could. That’s the same spirit that got me started with Six Nations. I knew that they needed assistance and I just assisted as much as I could.

What did you start doing when you first got involved with the site?

Well, in March I drove by and I saw them on the land, and so I started searching on the Internet to find a phone number to call somebody at Six Nations and ask how I could help. That was really one of the biggest challenges, just trying to find a key contact person. I started emailing anyone I could find saying that I was a Caledonia resident and wanted to help the supporters that are on the site. After I was directed to contact Janie Jamison, I called her and she told me what was needed. I would go out and get some of the things and drop them off, then we would touch base again after another few days. It got to the point where sometimes I’d be heading home, and I’d just pick up a few large pizzas for them when I knew there was a large crowd, and then I would go on my way.

Was this before the OPP raided the site on April 20?

Long before the OPP raid, yes.

How would you compare the actions of Six Nations people to the non-native protesters in Caledonia who have opposed them?

I don’t think you can even compare them. You always have to look at something in the big picture. If you look at the last 200 years in this area, the people of Six Nations have been dealt an injustice. It is absolutely appalling that we can live in a house like this in Caledonia in a neighbourhood with all the amenities and it would literally only take me 30 minutes to walk to a house that does not have running water. There’s something wrong with that. Six Nations has lived with that for 200 years. Since I moved here in 1999 there’s not one native person that’s come up to me and said “I see you’ve had something that we haven’t.”

They have been treated like second-class people, which is totally appalling. When you look at the kinds of things that they’ve had to put up with day in and day out, you can understand why they’re frustrated. When they first took the land, they were there calmly, having to put up with the odd thing from Caledonia residents going by. When they were invaded by the OPP, their families were put at risk. They were arrested without justification and yet they calmly put up with it. They put the barricades up because they had to protect themselves, and yet we reacted in such a negative way. Look how quickly we reacted when they had not reacted to us in that way in the past 200 years. When you understand the things that they have had to put up with and the way that we have reacted, I don’t think that you can compare them at all.

What have been some of the responses from people in Caledonia to the reclamation?

Myself and another person from our group spent a few days going around to the homes on Thistlemore and Braemar roads. We basically focused on the houses that backed right onto the reclamation site, and we got a lot of positive responses. Everybody that we talked to said that everything had been quiet for the last month, other than a few small things here and there. When we asked if people had their homes damaged they told us no, that they were not threatened or told to leave. When we asked if some of the rumours were true (we heard that flags were being shot at), a lot of the residents just shook their heads and laughed.

And what are some of the more negative attitudes you’ve seen displayed against Six Nations?

We’ve had one person that said they were from the Army and they felt that they could take care of it themselves had the OPP not been around. But mainly we’ve heard a lot of positive stuff. There was an incident on a Sunday night when I was swarmed by angry residents. These were definitely very negative people. They were out of control and there was no way of dealing with them. So I can understand why some of the people we’ve met were hesitant to talk because if they have neighbors like that next-door they’re not going to want to speak out.

Could you talk a little bit about the group that you’re a part of? How did it come to be and what was the group’s purpose?

It started when I began attending the Friday night rallies of Caledonians against the blockade. I was just going just to talk to people on the Caledonia side and ask them about their thoughts and just give them a different spin on things by talking about what it would be like to see things from the perspective of Six Nations. And out of that I met Tom from Toronto and Tim and Lise from Brantford and we got together and started a group because we were all on the same page and we wanted to do something to make a positive impact.

What are the group’s goals?

We’re looking at education and communication between people from Six Nations and Caledonia. We’re also looking at getting information out to the media, talking to people to find out what their thoughts are, and educating them so that they’re aware of the issues. We put ads in the papers for quite a few weeks and we’ve had very positive feedback from that. We’ve had one or two negative comments, but they weren’t threatening. And we’re getting supportive e-mails from as far away as Korea.

Can you talk a little bit about who some of the different groups are that are a part of this coalition, and where different people are coming from?

We have members from unions such as Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), and the Steelworkers, as well as people that have joined us from Brantford, Brampton, Toronto, Hamilton, Caledonia Hagersville, and Cayuga.

What’s the relationship of this group to Six Nations?

It’s very positive. The relationship has really developed since the group started. We have quite a few people in our group that are from Six Nations. At first they felt very awkward coming to Caledonia (where we meet on a weekly basis); they were fearful at first, but over time we’ve been able to build trust and start some great friendships.

How would you contrast your group to the Caledonia Citizens Alliance (CCA)?

Like night and day! We stand for completely different things. I’ve had discussions with the leaders of the CCA and we know that we are on opposite sides of the fence, and that we will probably remain on opposite sides of the fence. They come from a business standpoint and we come from a very humanistic perspective. We think that this is a question of justice and human rights. We’re taking seriously the injustices that have been done to Six Nations, while for the CCA it’s a money issue.

We’ve seen the way that the CCA has acted; there have been incidences of racism during meetings, there have been radical comments made by some CCA members who want to do damage to people at the site or want to find the homes of people in Caledonia who are raising funds for Six Nations. That’s totally uncalled for and it breeds hate. With our group, we’re about peace, trying to get the message out, and trying to foster communication between the two sides. We’re also demanding that the government return the land to Six Nations so that no future development takes place on the land. We stand behind the land claim, not only on the reclamation site but on the entire Haldimand tract.

Are you ever afraid that, as a Caledonia resident, people from Six Nations are going to kick you out of your house or take away the land that you bought?

It has never once entered my mind. Ironically, last year I was talking to somebody about possibly purchasing a lot over on the Douglas Creek Estates to build a house. My realtor’s health wasn’t very good so I was supposed to connect up with him in March but of course by March we knew where we stood with the reclamation. Even that didn’t affect me. It’s one of those things where if that door shuts in your life you don’t try to put your head though it and bang against the wall, you just find another door that opens up.

Do you see the tensions and hatred being overcome in the future ?

That’s hard to say. There is an anti-Six Nations group being organized whose members are filled with hate, and that is very concerning. However, if the right people can get at that group and dissipate it that will help. But I think that Six Nations has gone way out of their way time and time again. We asked for the barricades to come down and they took them down. Six Nations are constantly doing things out of good faith. What are non-native Caledonians doing? Businesses have been hurt in Caledonia, but who’s getting the money right now? I do not see any money going to Six Nations, yet those people have given up their lives, their families, their jobs. Some of them are giving up houses in order to stand up for something that they shouldn’t even have to stand up for because it should have been theirs in the first place.

It’s not the people of Six Nations that are destroying our town, it’s the people of Caledonia that are doing that. We have to look at ourselves in the mirror at the end of the day and be happy with what we’ve done. I can’t see how the people of the CCA and the people going against Six Nations with baseball bats can be happy when they look at themselves in the mirror. We have to know deep inside ourselves that we’ve done everything possible in order to promote peace and to be positive. If you’re negative then all you’re going to do is bring more destruction on this town.