Covenant Chain
The Covenant Chain is a Haudenosaunee–British diplomatic metaphor describing a relationship that must be regularly polished through council and good faith. Each agreement, wampum, or major promise is a link […]
The Six Miles Deep Lexicon is the key to reading our work on the Haldimand Tract, Mohawk Loyalist posterity, and the Crown Honour Superfecta. This is not a generic legal glossary. It gathers the specific words, phrases, and concepts that keep showing up in the Haldimand story: everything from “posterity forever” and “ascertain upon oath” to band councils, fiduciary duty, and structural pretendianism. Each entry is written in plain language so readers, researchers, and community members can follow the arguments without having to be lawyers or historians. The goal is simple: when a term appears in our articles, court materials, or community documents, this lexicon gives it a clear, consistent meaning rooted in the original documents and living Mohawk law. As new research and cases emerge, this lexicon will grow. Treat it as a living reference for anyone trying to navigate the overlapping worlds of Crown honour, Mohawk nationhood, and the law along the Grand River.
The Covenant Chain is a Haudenosaunee–British diplomatic metaphor describing a relationship that must be regularly polished through council and good faith. Each agreement, wampum, or major promise is a link […]
Criminal negligence in Canadian law means doing something (or failing to do something) that shows a wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of others. It is normally […]
A crisis of standing happens when the people a legal instrument was written for cannot easily appear in court as those people. Mohawk Loyalist descendants named or implied in Haldimand […]
Crown acquiescence is the Crown’s long-term pattern of allowing others to act as if they own or control something, without formally asserting or defending its own obligations and understandings. If […]
“Crown in right of Canada” is the federal Crown. “Crown in right of Ontario” is the provincial Crown. They are distinct legal persons, even though both act in the name […]
Crown Plus is shorthand for the layered legal reality on the Grand River: Indigenous law and nationhood, Crown proclamations and honours, Loyalist hereditary status, and modern Canadian statutes all interacting […]
Crown Plus White Paper is a detailed written document that gathers history, law, evidence, and proposed solutions for the Haldimand Tract in one place. Unlike a short opinion piece or […]
Crown-in-Parliament is the formal name for the law-making authority in a Westminster system: the Crown (the King or Queen) acting together with the House of Commons and the Senate. When […]
Cultural amnesia is the collective forgetting that happens when a society stops teaching, talking about, or recording key parts of its own history. Over time, those events and promises become […]
Declaratory relief is a type of court order where the judge does not necessarily award money or issue an injunction, but instead formally declares what the law is or how […]
The “dice test of posterity” is your analogy for how multiple conditions have to line up for some rights. Imagine several dice, each representing a different factor: Mohawk national identity, […]
The undivided Crown is the historic imperial Crown that made commitments across the British Empire, including promises to the Mohawk Nation. The divided Crown refers to the way that same […]
The doctrine of dedication in common law explains how private land can become a public road: the owner shows an intention to dedicate the land for public passage, and the […]
A Document Bundle (Core Four) treats the four key late-18th-century Crown texts as a single package: the Haldimand Pledge of 1779, the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784, Lord Dorchester’s Mark of […]
Dorchester’s Mark of Honour is the 1789 Council minute where Lord Dorchester proposed a visible recognition for families who “adhered to the unity of the Empire and joined the Royal […]
Entail (in English law) and tailzie (in Scottish law) were systems of hereditary landholding designed to keep estates within a family line by restricting the ability to sell, divide, or […]
An errant oath-taker is someone who has sworn an oath—such as an oath of office, allegiance, or citizenship—but then acts in ways that contradict the duties that oath implies. The […]
Estoppel is a set of doctrines that stop a person or institution from denying a representation they previously made when others have relied on it. In promissory estoppel, a party […]
An evidentiary bundle is a carefully organized collection of documents and exhibits assembled for use in court, negotiations, or commission hearings. Instead of handing decision-makers a scattered pile of evidence, […]
Exclusive use and enjoyment describes a strong form of land right where a defined group has the authority to live on, use, and benefit from land to the exclusion of […]
Extraterritorial Mohawk lands are those parts of the Haldimand Tract where, in practice and in principle, Mohawk law and Crown obligations operate ahead of or alongside provincial and municipal regimes. […]
Extrinsic title refers to labels and rights imposed on land from the outside—Crown patents, municipal lot numbers, land registry entries, and statutory definitions that treat land as part of a […]
A fiduciary duty arises when one party undertakes to act in the best interests of another in a relationship of trust, confidence, and vulnerability. The fiduciary must be loyal, avoid […]
A forensic audit of unjust enrichments is a detailed, evidence-based examination of who has profited from Haldimand lands and by how much, in circumstances where those profits may lack legal […]