Six Miles Deep

Jus Soli Collision (Birth on Six Miles Deep)

Home » Lexicon » Jus Soli Collision (Birth on Six Miles Deep)

Jus soli (“right of the soil”) is the principle that a person’s citizenship is determined by the place of their birth. Canada is a jus soli country: with narrow exceptions (such as children of certain foreign diplomats), a child born on Canadian territory is a Canadian citizen at birth.

The Haldimand Proclamation introduces a disturbing twist. It sets apart the Grand River tract as a “safe and comfortable retreat” for the Mohawk Nation and their posterity, and for “such others… as wish to settle in their quarter,” to be enjoyed “forever.” In the Six Miles Deep reading, that language has an extraterritorial flavour: the Tract is not meant to function as ordinary provincial soil, but as a protected Mohawk refuge under the Crown’s protection.

This raises a sharp question: what does jus soli mean on land that was already granted as a perpetual refuge for another nation?

The “jus soli collision” describes this clash. On paper, a child born in Brantford or Caledonia today is a straightforward Canadian citizen. On the deeper constitutional plane, that birth takes place on land that was pledged as Mohawk territory “forever,” and that some argue is extraterritorial to provincial jurisdiction. At minimum, this creates a dual reality:

in Canadian administrative law: straightforward birthright citizenship,
in Haldimand’s own logic: a person born here is, in some sense, born inside a Mohawk refuge that Canada uses without ever having squared its obligations to Mohawk posterity.

The Six Miles Deep framework does not deny that Canada currently treats these people as citizens. Instead, it uses the jus soli collision to highlight a constitutional tension: Canada hands out citizenship on land whose foundational grant and promised jurisdiction it has never honestly accounted for. That unresolved tension is part of the leverage and part of the problem.

298 words

Sign up to the Newsletter!
Get the latest articles and news delivered to your mailbox.

“Ignorance may explain how we got here. It doesn’t erase the duty once people are put on notice.”
B. Doolittle UE

Categories

About Benjamin Doolittle U.E.

Benjamin Doolittle UE is a Lower Mohawk of Grand River and a direct descendant of the Mohawk Loyalist leadership that secured the Haldimand Tract. In his capacity as Secretary-General for the Mohawk Nation of Grand River, he works to uphold the hereditary rights and responsibilities carried by his line. Through his matrilineal line, he descends from Esther Springstead (Shatekariwate), a clanmother married to Captain David Hill, U.E.L.

Matrilineal line: Tracey → Beverly → Mabel → Bertha → Lydia → Esther → Ellen (daughter of Isaac Brant) → Mary → Esther Springstead (Shatekariwate)

This makes Benjamin a sixth-great-grandson of Joseph Brant U.E.L. (Thayendanegea) and Isaac Brant of Canajoharie, one of the three named Mohawk villages carried into the Grand River settlement. Band Council has certified that he holds 100% Mohawk blood quantum under their rolls, reflecting both his hereditary standing and his rootedness in the community.

In his role as Secretary-General, Benjamin’s work with Six Miles Deep focuses on recovering and enforcing the original Crown-recognized framework for Mohawk title along the Grand River — not as a generic “aboriginal rights” claim, but as a specific hereditary interest grounded in Loyalist service, the Haldimand Proclamation, and the subsequent Crown instruments that confirmed it.

Beyond Six Miles Deep, Benjamin has founded and developed several initiatives to strengthen Mohawk continuity and stewardship, including Grand Back, the Bluebelt conservation concept, Mohawk University, and the Kanien’kehà:ka Language Development Institute. Together, these projects aim to restore land-based governance, protect the Grand River watershed, and support language and cultural renewal for Mohawk posterity.

Earlier in his career, Benjamin operated a community photo studio for several years, specializing in weddings, newborn, and family portraits across the Grand River region. He later helped launch the Indigenous newspaper Two Row Times, supporting its development as a platform for Onkwehonwe voices and treaty-based perspectives.

Benjamin is also an independent music producer, releasing work under the name One Way Current, published by Corn Press Publications. Through his music and writing, he explores Mohawk history, land, and spiritual continuity in contemporary forms that speak to both youth and elders.

He is a member of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada, the Royal Heraldry Society of Canada, and the Monarchist League of Canada. These associations reflect his conviction that Crown honour, hereditary recognition, and proper heraldic and historical process are essential to resolving the long-ignored duties owed to Mohawk posterity on the Grand River.

Benjamin maintains an active working relationship with ministers, local officials, and church representatives, regularly greeting dignitaries and visitors at the Mohawk Chapel and using those encounters to remind them of the Crown’s ongoing duties to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

Benjamin is also a survivor of the Indian Day School system, an experience that informs his understanding of how imposed systems of education, identity, and governance have tried to overwrite Mohawk continuity while leaving the underlying treaties and Crown obligations intact. His lived experience sits alongside his archival research, legal studies, and community work, grounding Six Miles Deep in both documentation and reality on the ground.

Through Six Miles Deep and related projects, Benjamin works to:

re-establish lawful recognition of Mohawk hereditary rights along the Haldimand Tract clarify the distinction between band-council trust structures and the underlying Mohawk title educate institutions, governments, and the broader public about the continuing force of Crown promises to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River

His goal is not simply to revisit history, but to restore living jurisdiction, stewardship, and continuity for Mohawk posterity, “six miles deep” on both sides of the Grand River, in a way that honours both the ancestors who secured the land and the children who will inherit it.

listen to BLOODLINE

“Bloodline” follows the Haldimand Proclamation from its original promise to the present fight to have it honoured. The track moves through Crown grants, broken commitments, and the legal and political road back to enforcement, asking listeners to hear the Proclamation not as a relic of the past, but as a living obligation that still binds the Crown to the Mohawk Nation of Grand River.

Artist: One Way Current
Writer: Benjamin Doolittle UE
Producer: One Way Current
Publisher: Corn Press Publications
Affiliation: Six Miles Deep / Mohawk Nation of Grand River