Unify Action - She Started Questioning Land Acknowledgements After This Conversation

00:00:00.000 In this area, there was no permanent Indigenous peoples whatsoever.

00:00:03.740 There was, like, no one here.

00:00:05.000 So, like, the land acknowledgement is basically bogus.

00:00:07.720 When you come to this realization and it's bogus,

00:00:10.640 but, like, this is such a normal thing, it's kind of a norm,

00:00:13.760 and it's kind of discrediting.

00:00:17.240 The peoples that they claim that southwestern Ontario,

00:00:20.980 like, southern Ontario, like, where we are right now,

00:00:22.680 they claim that it was the Hadesanani and Anishinaabe peoples.

00:00:26.880 Is that correct? Am I correct in saying that?

00:00:28.840 I haven't specifically looked at this university.

00:00:34.440 No, like this area, I know that they claim it as Haudenosaunee.

00:00:37.520 Haudenosaunee, yeah.

00:00:38.680 Anyway, so the trouble with that is that Haudenosaunee, I got to say, right?

00:00:45.920 The trouble with that is that they aren't actually from this area at all.

00:00:50.740 They are actually, so they were formerly called the Six Nations or the Iroquois people,

00:00:55.340 and they came from New York State.

00:00:57.120 and in about 1650 they came up here into this area for like hunting trips so they were they

00:01:04.200 were more of a warring tribe the six nations were more warrers and they came across the

00:01:09.520 Atenawaran people I'm saying this wrong I know but they basically they massacred them and took

00:01:15.900 their women and children because their own tribe had been destroyed by smallpox and because the

00:01:19.920 men were like hunters in that particular tribe the six nations their women were mostly affected

00:01:24.020 so they didn't have enough women so they basically they during the beaver wars part of the reason

00:01:28.740 that they didn't like the atan warren because of like the fact that they were selling first like

00:01:33.360 they wanted monopoly on the first but because they destroyed that people there was basically

00:01:37.820 no one here even the hottest in on it i'm saying it wrong even the six nations didn't stay in this

00:01:45.080 land there was like no one here even the ojibwe peoples were not here in this land in hamilton

00:01:50.240 but then what happens with the revolutionary war in the states is that they they are loyalists so

00:01:56.980 they they are granted attractive land here in southern ontario so that wasn't their traditional

00:02:04.180 territory but they were granted it from the british crown and i wouldn't say it's at all just

00:02:09.940 but it wasn't permanently deeded to them so eventually they did they had like the land was

00:02:15.360 sold but they were allowed that land and the land was actually purchased from them but they weren't

00:02:19.940 allowed permanent deeds to that land so in this area there was no permanent indigenous peoples

00:02:26.240 whatsoever so what we're standing on right now is not stolen land okay so like the land

00:02:31.640 acknowledgement is basically bogus and that the Anishinaabe the Ojibwe peoples they weren't in

00:02:37.700 this area as well like they may have come to do hunting like random hunting trips but there was

00:02:42.560 basically no one okay so you think this is just like free land that like it was unoccupied land

00:02:48.000 okay so um now i'm gonna be honest i'm someone who's not very educated like that's something i

00:02:57.020 am aware of which i should work on um but you say that land acknowledgement is bogus especially in

00:03:06.820 this area especially in this area and in toronto but you see it in schools you see it in public

00:03:14.240 places there are like it's posted up and in schools like we have like morning announcements

00:03:19.680 well not here but like you know elementary and high schools we have that they start out their

00:03:24.220 announcements with that and then over here as well we start off our any events with land of

00:03:30.940 acknowledgement so with all this knowledge that you've just presented um how you wonder why

00:03:40.960 they're doing it no how do you feel about it how do you think you can change this just because

00:03:46.660 like when you come to this realization like oh it's not right and it's bogus but like this is

00:03:53.380 such a normal thing it's kind of a norm and like it's kind of discrediting yeah it's it's not an

00:04:03.400 accurate painting of of canadian history for sure and i would say that the majority of canadian

00:04:08.580 territory was not stolen there's like i can give you case after case where the indigenous peoples

00:04:12.960 were given like goods or money in return for the use of their land um so the reason that these

00:04:21.480 land acknowledgments exist it's like virtue signaling they want like the university admin

00:04:26.940 and different places like all these companies they want they want to look like they're in

00:04:31.540 on this sort of this this regret for being here which in some cases yes we we did not treat the

00:04:38.000 indigenous peoples as equals for sure and that is a lot on our history but we didn't steal the land

00:04:42.660 from them in the majority of cases so i i don't they're not being intellectually honest about

00:04:49.920 history and the most of it is just it's just virtue signaling at this point because they want

00:04:57.460 to look like they're the pious individuals it's now become mainstream that if you don't acknowledge

00:05:01.820 this then then you're like you're not a good person right and they want to look like they're

00:05:08.380 good so it's this it's dishonesty but in the name of looking good but it's really it's like

00:05:15.820 it's basically a lie living a lie in some extent so i would love more intellectual honesty um

00:05:23.540 especially like the gta huron everywhere that land was purchased i can tell you that it was

00:05:29.240 because i've done the research okay so we it was not stolen like purchased land is not stolen

00:05:34.900 the only blot that i the biggest blot that i see with our whoa you got that okay the biggest blot

00:05:43.820 in canadian history is the fact that we treated the indigenous peoples as more miners we still

00:05:47.540 treated them as humans but as like miners under the law so they couldn't permanently hold property

00:05:52.300 that's my biggest that's that's the biggest blot i think in our history but we didn't steal all the

00:05:58.880 land for sure so if you were to have a project of fixing this in like our school our public school

00:06:07.020 systems and even in a secondary institution education institution such as McMaster

00:06:13.060 how would you go about it because I know I don't know if we still have the indigenous

00:06:20.780 studies department okay I think I heard something about like maybe them kind of reducing it okay

00:06:28.860 because of education budget cuts and stuff yeah but how would you go about it talking to professors

00:06:35.240 of those type of courses yeah i don't know it it would honestly it's just become so mainstream now

00:06:43.080 like i said they feel good when they do it because they know they're being accepted

00:06:46.800 um it would basically be going against the flow yeah which is there's probably a lot of professors

00:06:56.140 who just wouldn't do that because like they don't want to be seen as bad people i mean i understand

00:07:03.520 what you mean because it's just like an institutional thing like a lot of professors

00:07:09.340 here like even with the genocide that we have been talking about here uh israel and palestine

00:07:17.860 um obviously professors have their own opinions because they are people themselves they have their

00:07:23.800 own sides but no one's gonna put themselves in a spotlight and be like yeah this is the side i

00:07:30.100 support and then get attacked by everyone yeah right and some professors can get pressured

00:07:37.360 into saying yes i support this side 100 so yeah i completely understand yeah what you're saying

00:07:45.040 and like kind of going against the norm is like where you get looked at stared at yes um

00:07:51.700 but again like i said i am not very like knowledgeable about indigenous history and

00:07:59.440 that's on me part of it is because i'm an immigrant but the other part is um i don't

00:08:07.180 think a lot of people talk about it i just know yeah but i just know in a lot of places like land

00:08:13.940 of acknowledgement is a very common thing and seeing that we are not on stolen land i think

00:08:20.420 was such a bold statement to see considering like that's what i know yeah so yeah you definitely

00:08:28.980 caught my eye yeah yeah well it's a conversation that needs to be had for sure yeah yeah i i think

00:08:35.540 it would be interesting to see how you would go about it especially i would love secondary

00:08:41.220 institutions um yeah i i cannot i neither disagree or agree with what you're saying but just because

00:08:50.380 i just don't have yeah no problem yeah but i would encourage you to like there are a lot of

00:08:55.700 like i think with how much the world is changing and then also seeing this i think if there's no

00:09:02.700 harm in educating yourself even more so yeah i think the problem is also the fact that there's

00:09:09.460 so much like bogus information too there's like reality obviously and then there's also like that

00:09:16.980 mix of crap yeah so like it's also kind of tough to pick apart what is right and what is wrong

00:09:23.840 yeah i know what i do for my own research is i actually go back to the original sources

00:09:27.520 so i'll find like the the eyewitness accounts of pioneers in the day yeah and i'll read through

00:09:32.740 okay like how did they experience how did like like the pioneer days how they experienced their

00:09:37.980 interactions with the indigenous peoples and different things like that and I find that a lot

00:09:42.000 more trustworthy so that's kind of where I'm coming from that's kind of where I came across

00:09:46.940 all this information why I wanted to talk about it yeah yeah for sure

Unify Action - May 11, 2026

She Started Questioning Land Acknowledgements After This Conversation

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