Grandfather of the Treaties: Finding Our Future Through the Wampum Covenant

by Daniel Coleman

Genres: Nonfiction

380 pages, Paperback

Published March 25, 2025

About the author

Daniel Coleman teaches in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. His research covers Canadian Literature, cultural production of categories of privilege, literatures of immigration and diaspora, and the politics of reading. His publications include White Civility (2006) and In Bed with the Word (2009) as well as co-edited scholarly volumes.

Reviews

[Jodie Siu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned so much from this book. Coleman is a white settler, speaking to other settlers, about the centuries- (and millienia-) old systems of peace-making and co-existing exemplified in the Two Row Wampum and the Covenant Chain agreements.

I had no idea of the history of the Two Row Wampum: an agreement between the Haudenosaunee people and the Dutch traders in the 1600s. A wampum is like a beaded belt, and the use of wampum derives from the history and creation stories of the Haudenosaunee. It also echoed European familiarity with beaded Rosaries.

The two rows indicate the the two societies (Indigenous and European) agreed that they were different - one came in boats and the other had canoes - but agreed to a brotherly relationship in which they each travelled the river in parallel. They would not interfere with each other's laws and customs "as long as the sun shines upon this earth, as long as the water still flows and as long as the grass grows green at a certain time of the year." This was all based on the Great Law of Peace and a reference to the natural world in which we all sit.

The other key piece that I took away was the Indigenous emphasis on humans being the younger sibling to the rest of Creation - that we are meant to learn from and live within the natural world, rather than always trying to improve and extract. To believe that the natural world has agency and value in and of itself rather than as to serve humans. This is a very different worldview than the one I'm used to, and holding such a perspective may have gotten us out of our climate-change and environmental woes.

Our Canadian Constitution refers back to a Royal Proclamation of 1734, which is based upon the Two Row Wampum Covenant... which has never been extinguished. Canada, we still owe our obligations to the Two Row agreement. What could this place be like if we followed Indigenous ways?

[Geoff Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Grandfather of the Treaties" is an utterly fascinating, expansive book. I'm feeling some of the same historical vertigo I felt coming away from Lisa Brooks’s "The Common Pot" more than a decade ago. The book reoriented me to the development and ongoing structure of British-Canadian history and law in relation to Indigenous laws and diplomatic protocols, most especially the Two Row Wampum agreement. I especially love the way this book has attuned me to the Linked Arms component of the Two Row—the "sharing the river" aspect. Before reading this book, I was more aware of the two separate vessels emphasis of the tradition. Instead, "Grandfather of the Treaties" is helping make clear to me my own responsibilities and connections to this long history. For that reason alone, the book feels enormously important. I think the book will be deeply encouraging to readers like me, who might be hanging about the edges of these important conversations and friendships but are sometimes unsure how to enter the clearing.

[Not Sarah Connor Writes · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched book that needs to be digested slowly to be fully appreciated.

Read the full review on my blog!