MOHAWK+GRAND RIVER

Gazette No. 8 — Notice of the Covenant Relationship

Be it known and placed on record: That the covenant relationship between the Mohawk Nation and the Crown is a constitutional relationship grounded in the Crown’s own record, preserved by section 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867, and continuing operative at the present date.

I. The Five-Instrument Chain

The Crown covenant relationship with the Mohawk Nation is established by five instruments, each building on and confirming the last:

1. The Haldimand Pledge, 25 May 1779 — the Crown’s promise to the Mohawk chiefs: equivalent lands for the homeland sacrificed.
2. The Haldimand Proclamation, 25 October 1784 — the fulfilment of the pledge. The covenant is made and the Territory set apart.
3. The Dorchester Order-in-Council, 9 November 1789 — the Mark of Honour. The Mohawk Loyalists are recognized as United Empire Loyalists. Their sacrifice is acknowledged at the highest level of Crown administration.
4. The Legislative Council Report, 1791 — “the faith of government is pledged to the Mohawk chiefs.” The Crown’s own legislative record confirms the covenant is binding.
5. The Simcoe Proclamation, 1796 — confirmation of the heritage registry and the territorial commitment.

II. The International Character of the Covenant

The 1897 Settled Accounts Arbitration (Solicitor General Curran QC) confirmed that Crown covenant instruments with First Nations have international character. The Haldimand Proclamation is not a domestic regulatory grant. It is a Crown-to-Nation instrument — a bilateral covenant between the Crown and the Mohawk Nation — made in the context of military service, territorial sacrifice, and the restructuring of the relationship between the British Crown and its Indigenous allies after the American Revolutionary War.

III. The Crown Knowledge Chain

The Crown’s acknowledgment of the Haldimand covenant without resolution spans over 230 years and currently comprises fourteen documented instances. Every Crown officer who has engaged with the Secretariat’s constitutional programme has acknowledged the existence of the covenant without offering substantive resolution. This pattern is part of the constitutional record in the Application for Writ of Mandamus (G63).