White man's law
Subtitle: native people in nineteenth-century Canadian jurisprudence
By: Sidney L. Harring.
Contributors: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History.
Publisher: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History by University of Toronto Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Toronto; Buffalo
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 434
Copyright date: 1998
Subjects: Indians of North America -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- Canada -- History.; Indians of North America -- Canada -- Government relations.
First sentence: Writing in 1827, Sir George Ramsay, Earl of Dalhousie, governor-in-chief of Canada, was impressed by the strength of the legal traditions of the Indians, and, as a matter of sound policy, he urged that their law be respected.
Description: "In the nineteenth century many Canadians took pride in what they regarded as this country's liberal treatment of Indians. In this thorough reinvestigation of Canadian legal history, Sidney L. Harring sets the record straight, showing how Canada has continually denied aboriginal peoples even the most basic civil rights.".

"Drawing on scores of nineteenth-century legal cases, Harring reveals that colonial and early Canadian judges were largely ignorant of British policy concerning Indians and their lands. He also provides an account of the remarkable tenacity of First Nations in continuing their own legal traditions despite obstruction by the settler society that came to dominate them."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-410) and index.
Table of contents: label: Foreword
pagenum: ix; label: Acknowledgments
pagenum: xi; label: Introduction
pagenum: 3; label: 1
title: 'The Privilege of British Justice': Colonialism and Native Rights
pagenum: 16; label: 2
title: 'A  Condescension Lost on Those People': The Six Nations' Grand River Lands, 1784-1860
pagenum: 35; label: 3
title: 'The Common Law Is Not Part Savage and Part Civilized': Chief Justice John Beverley Robinson and Native Rights
pagenum: 62; label: 4
title: 'The Migration of These Simple People from Equity to Law': Native Rights in Ontario Courts
pagenum: 91; label: 5
title: 'Entirely Independent in Their Villages': Criminal Law and Indians in Upper Canada
pagenum: 109; label: 6
title: 'A More Than Usually Degraded Indian Type': St. Catherine's Milling and Indian Title Cases
pagenum: 125; label: 7
title: 'Canadian Courts Are Open to Enforce Their Contracts': Canadian Law and the Legal Culture of Ontario Indians
pagenum: 148; label: 8
title: 'The Indians Are a Perseverant Race': Indian Law in Quebec and Atlantic Canada
pagenum: 165; label: 9
title: 'Can We Be Free under the Law of Queen Victoria on Top of Our Land?': Indians and the Law in British Columbia
pagenum: 186; label: 10
title: 'The Enforcement of the Extreme Penalty': Canadian Law and the Ojibwa-Cree Spirit World
pagenum: 217; label: 11
title: 'No Recognized Law': Canadian Law and the Prairie Indians
pagenum: 239; label: Conclusion
pagenum: 273; label: Notes
pagenum: 283; label: Illustration Credits
pagenum: 411; label: Index
pagenum: 413