Dear Friend,

Welcome to our weekly Foundational Knowledge where this week we talk about Indigenous Veterans.

When we signed Treaties with the pioneers, we agreed to make room for settlers to come and do agriculture on the land. We agreed to share the land to the depth of a plow and anything above and below that would remain Indigenous.

Through Treaty the Indigenous people moved onto reserve land and certain agreements would be implemented. One of the things was the medicine chest which was to basically give health care to Indigenous people. This spread to everyone in the country and that was because of the ladies within Treaty 6.

Then things took a turn. They implemented a pass system where we could not leave the reserve and were basically locked in to our area. We could not partner with other reserves to create economic development.

Our ceremonies got banned, and we could not gather with more than 3 people within our reserve. We also had to lay down our arms, our guns, our bows and arrows. This meant we could not hunt. Hunting a a major way we took care of our families.

Our children also were taken away from mothers and fathers, and sent to residential schools.

When the world wars were happening. They were drafting individuals to go and fight for our Country. Indigenous people were not required to be part of this draft.

Despite not needing to go fight, Indigenous people in American and Canada make up the highest Per Capita race of people to willingly sign up and go fight for this country.

If an Indigenous person signed up to go to war, they became enfranchised. Meaning they lost their status as an Indigenous person. They also didn't get the same recognition and benefits other veterans got when they returned home.

Yet they willingly went and fought and continued to sign up to fight for this country.

In 1951, the Indigenous veterans came together and fought for our rights. They voiced that we should be able to leave our reserves. We should be able to gather and practice our ceremonies. We should be able to speak our languages.

They fought for all Indigenous people to be .... Indigenous.

In 1951, was when we were freely able to leave our reserves. Freely able to gather and practice our ceremonies, our Powwows, our sweat lodges, our sundances, and more.

We thank our Indigenous veterans for fighting for our way of life.

Today we are decolonizing and learning our ceremonies, songs, and ways again. We are learning to live in two worlds. Our Indigenous way of life and this westernize way of life.

Just one a few things Indigenous veterans have done for us.

Sincerely,