University of Windsor observing Treaties Recognition Week

Treaties Recognition Week is being observed across the province this week with the expectation that Ontario students and residents learn more about Indigenous treaty rights and relationships with the provincial government.

In Windsor, York University professor Alan Corbiere is delivering a presentation at the University of Windsor's Leddy Library. Corbiere's presentation, called Back to Basics: the Anishinaabe Understanding of the Covenant Chain and the 1764 Treaty of Niagara, will be about the treaty signed by Indigenous settlers and the British Empire as well as other treaties.

"The language around treaties and deeds and everything can become confusing, which is why I think it's really important to have Corbiere here," said Jaimie Kechego, the Indigenous curriculum and pedagogy project co-ordinator for the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL). "So when we have these questions, he's able to clear them up for us."

The presentation will be delivered on Friday. Registration is open to the public and can be completed at the CTL website. The program is between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Kechego said everyone should learn about treaties because they affect everyone, not just Indigenous people.

"I think a lot of people don't realize that they are treaty people," she said. "When we hear treaty, we automatically think of Indigenous peoples in that area. Sometimes we don't even think of that."

The Leddy Library provides access to two replica wampum belts for faculty and staff to use in their teaching, the Two Row wampum belt used in 1613 to mark the agreement of Turtle Island and the Dish with One Spoon used in 1701 during the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.

Wampum belts are used to record history, represent a community and its leaders and are used as a teaching tool, according to the Library.

The University of Windsor is also partnering with Art Windsor-Essex by screening two films by Shelley Niro, a Mohawk filmmaker, at the art gallery. Kat Pasquach, the Aboriginal outreach and retention coordinator at the Aboriginal Education Centre (AEC), said the films, which will be screened next Thursday from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., will focus on treaty relationships and wampum belts.

I think a lot of people don't realize that they are treaty people. When we hear treaty, we automatically think of Indigenous peoples in that area.- Jaimie Kechego, the Indigenous Curriculum and Pedagogy Project Coordinator for the Centre for Teaching and Learning

"The conversation around the films that we're going to be showing really demonstrates how the relationships and treaties have evolved in this region, in particular, because we're a border town," Pasquach said. "The way that indigenous communities acknowledge the border is a much different relationship than the other general populations. Before Confederation, there were no borders, so families and whole communities had to choose on which side of the border they wanted to live."

"Recognizing our rights on both sides of the border is an important piece of the education that happens at this time of year when we look into treaty treaties specific to this region."

Pasquach said that collaborations between the AEC and non-Indigenous allies is crucial to their goal of educating the wider public.

"Seeing collective responsibilities from Indigenous and non-Indigenous people about learning and coming together to do programming is a really important part of the project that we've taken on this week," she said.