The Laws and the Land: Introduction

As the settler state of Canada expanded into Indigenous lands, two traditions clashed in a bruising series of asymmetrical encounters over land use and ownership. One site of conflict was Kahnawà:ke. The Laws and the Land delineates the route from pre-contact and early contact ways of sharing the land to the establishment of Kahnawà:ke within the French seigneurial system, land use under Kahnawà:ke law, and the colonizing push to impose the Indian Act and private property – little short of an invasionspearheaded by bureaucrats. This meticulously-researched book is connected to larger issues of membership in Indigenous nations, communal versus individual property rights, governance, and inequality.