Fonds consists of miscellaneous records relating to the Six Nations lands and claims including Grand River Reserve land documents, photocopy, 1795, 1 page, and transcript, 1824, 1830, 8 pages; correspondence, 1830, 1835, 1846, 8 pages; Report of the Trustees to the Chiefs of the Six Nations, 2 pages; and "National Defense Fund" bond, n.d., 1923, 2 pages.
Six Nations of the Grand River : Six Nations of the Grand River is the only contemporary First Nation that is home to all six of the member nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, whose traditional territory comprises much of present-day New York state as well as lands to its north and west. The Haudenosaunee, "the people of the longhouse," are the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca, and, as of 1722, the Tuscarora. Their traditional system of governance, founded in ancient times by the Great Peacemaker, is one of the oldest and most enduring political confederacies in the world and provided inspiration to the founders of the United States. During the American Revolution, most of the Haudenosaunee fought on the side of the British as per a long diplomatic tradition of alliance and non-interference between their sovereign nations, embodied in agreements like the Two Row Wampum and the Covenant Chain. With the victory of the colonists and the Treaty of Paris of 1783, the British government ceded all of its territory in the colonies, ignoring the Confederacy's sovereignty over its lands. In the turmoil that followed, the experienced Mohawk war chief and diplomat Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) led negotiations with the Crown for due recognition of the alliance and loyalty of the Haudenosaunee. In 1784, the Crown issued the Haldimand Proclamation, providing compensation in the form of a vast tract of land on the banks of the Grand River in present-day southern Ontario. Many members of the Six Nations chose to relocate to the Grand River with Brant. However, the original tract would be eroded considerably over the years through a variety of sales, deals, and revisions, many of them controversial.
