Rexton, New Brunswick – Treaty scholar Suzanne Patles, herself named personally in yesterday's SWN Resources Canada's 'injunction' against the blockade on highway 134, has brought out a little-known document from 1778. The document, found amongst the shelves of the New Brunswick Archives and Museum, amounts to an original eviction notice, served by an assembled contingent of Malicete and Mickmack (colonial spelling) chiefs and representatives to the colonial British forces at the mouth of the St. John River.
The Maliseet and Mi'kmaq First Nations, united under the Wabanaki confederacy and pre-colonial treaties of peace and friendship, traditionally occupy a territory that ranges throughout Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Northern Quebec, and south into Maine.
Unlike SWN Resources Canada's supposed injunction against the anti-shale gas activists, which, under orders from issuing Justice Rideout, is apparently not making affidavits available at the Courthouse in Moncton for viewing until Monday, the 1778 document is available for all to see at the New Brunswick Archives and Museum.
Patles suggests that the document is an ideal way to take Maritime corporate empire, J.D Irving Limited, to task, not only for it's role in housing SWN's seismic testing equipment in the currently-blockaded compound, but also for the massive amounts of environmental desecration it has caused across New Brunswick.
“The warning has been there, obviously, for a couple of hundred years,” says Patles. “So now it's time for us to send forth a legal document that says our ancestors have given your ancestors notice to vacate the premise because it belongs to us. And now there's a corporate entity that's poisoning the whole area. It's contaminated, really it's criminal what they've done to the area. And this corporation, Irving, owns everything in this province. There's no media that isn't owned by them, and there's no newspaper that isn't owned by them. They practically own the whole province and they muzzle and oppress each member of their province.”
“This is an Irving property,” said Patles, addressing the gathered crowd of anti-shale activists gathered around the fenced-in compound along highway 134, behind her. “It's a so-called property, but it's our land. But they're helping [SWN Resoures Canada] out. So if [Irving is] aiding this, and they're running everything in this province, why don't we serve notice to Irving?”
The 1778 eviction notice reads as follows:
'To John Allen and his associates at Machias – The Chiefs and Great Men of the Malecite and Mickmack Indians hereby give the notice that their eyes are now opened and they see clearly that thou hast endeavoured to blind them to serve thy wicked purposes against thy Lawfull Sovereign, King George, our forgiving and affectionate Father.
We have this day settled all misunderstandings that thou didst occasion between us and King George's men...
The Chiefs, Sechems and young men belonging to the River St. Johns only considered the nature of this Great War between America and Old England, they are unanimous, that America is right and Old England is wrong.
The River on which you are with your Soldiers belongs from most Ancient times to our ancestors, consequently is ours now and which we are bound to keep for our posterity.
You know we are Americans, that this is our Native Country. You know the King of England with his evil councillors has been trying to take away the Lands and Libertys of our country, but God, the King of Heaven, Our King fights for us and says America shall be free, it is so now in spite of all Old England and his comrades can do.
The great men of Old England in this Country told us, that the Americans would not let us enjoy our religion, this is false, not true, for America allows everybody to pray to God as they please, you know Old England never would allow that, but says you must all pray like the King and the great men at his Court. We believe America now is right, we find all true they told us, for our Old Father, the King of France takes their part. He is their friend, he has taken the sword and will defend them. Americans is our Friends, our Brothers and Countrymen. What they do we do, what they say we say – for we are all one and the same family.
Now as the King of England has no business, nor never had any on this River. We desire you to go away with your men in peace and to take all those men who has been fighting and talking against America. If you don't go directly you must take care of your men, and all your English subjects on this River for if any or all of you are killed, it is not our faults, for we give you warning time enough to escape.
Adieu forever,
Machias, August 11th, 1778'
“I'm bringing it out today, because I'm sick of it,” says Patles of the document. “This eviction notice, made by our chiefs in 1778, tells the British to leave the mouth of the Saint John River, where Irving property is today. So if we told the British to get away from the Saint John, what's to stop Irving? He's only a corporate entity.”
