History: First Nations Governance and Rights Essay

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From the moment when Europeans first arrived at the American continent and started to claim the lands, a big confrontation appeared. It turned out that the lands European people took were already populated. Native Americans have lived on those territories for centuries, and they did not understand why they had to give their homes to the newcomers.

First Nations people initially did not have many options of reaction to the situation that they suddenly found themselves in. Some bands decided to fight for their territories. The forces were uneven and much more progressive in the skills of battling Europeans had many advantages. Such wars would not last long, and First Nations people had no chance of winning them.

Another way out of the situation was leaving homes and moving to the lands that Europeans still did not occupy. This also could not last long as any territories have limits and boundaries. The tribes that picked this way soon realized that they had nowhere to go. The nations that decided to start an alliance with the new owners of the lands also lost a lot and were limited in many aspects.

An alliance between First Nations people and Europeans, in the beginning, was promising for Native Americans. They gained protection in cases of conflicts with other Native bands. The Crown convinced the people of First Nations that in such alliances their rights would be protected better. From that moment till these days, the relationship between the First Nations and the Crown has been evolving and changing.

It took generations of court cases to make some progress in resolving some of the issues. The arguments between the Crown and Assembly of First Nations are still going on. These days First Nations people are still fighting for their rights, governance, and accountability, the arguments have led to some progress, but mostly the people of First Nations are dissatisfied with their decision-making powers.

After reading about the existing contradictions about the rights of people of First Nations, I learned more about their cultural development and the specifics of their lifestyle and organization. Native Americans truly have a culture that differs a lot from the culture of people that came to America from Europe. Our political organization and our understanding of the world around are completely different.

First Nations people have carried their legacy through generations and have managed to save their culture the way it always was using avoiding interactions with the Crown. I think that forcing our way of living and our social and political structure on the bands of First Nations is unnatural for them. If they have not assimilated much through hundreds of years – it is strange to expect them to adopt our way of living now.

Their differences have to be respected, although I agree that giving strong decision-making powers to the Native Communities would mean favoring a nation based on its ethnicity. This endangers the wholeness of Canada as a country.

To sum up, the aboriginal idea about the obligations and duties of the Crown differs from the idea of the actual government; the range of responsibilities the aboriginal parties expect from the government is wide.

Many issues remain unresolved these days. The government is working hard on achieving protection of multiple rights mutually, but accomplishing this without turning the laws and amendments of the constitution into a blind circle is still very difficult.

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IvyPanda. 2020. "History: First Nations Governance and Rights." March 16, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/history-first-nations-governance-and-rights/.

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