"In the nineteenth century many Canadians took pride in what they regarded as this country's liberal treatment of Indians. In this thorough reinvestigation of Canadian legal history, Sidney L. Harring sets the record straight, showing how Canada has continually denied aboriginal peoples even the most basic civil rights."--BOOK JACKET. "Drawing on scores of nineteenth-century legal cases, Harring reveals that colonial and early Canadian judges were largely ignorant of British policy concerning Indians and their lands. He also provides an account of the remarkable tenacity of First Nations in continuing their own legal traditions despite obstruction by the settler society that came to dominate them."--Jacket.