Grandfather of the Treaties: Finding Our Future Through the Wampum Covenant
Daniel Coleman
March 25, 2025
380 pages | ISBN 978-1-998408-09-2
For decades Daniel Coleman has worked closely with many Indigenous scholars to understand the land he calls home and the complex and painful histories between Indigenous and European nations that have formed Canada. In Grandfather of the Treaties, he has drawn on this experience to craft an extensive study of the wampum covenants that underpin our nations, one that takes readers from wampum’s first emergence among Indigenous nations to how these covenants can help us shape a better future for all. In this wide-ranging book Coleman seeks to fill a deep hole in most Canadians’ knowledge of how our nation was formed. As we relearn our history, we can recommit to our earliest promises, which were meant to last “as long as the sun shines upon this earth, as long as the water still flows and as long as the grass grows green at a certain time of the year.”
Reviews
Grandfather of the Treaties: Finding Our Future Through the Wampum Covenant by Daniel Coleman (Ken Wilson, The Miramichi Reader, 22/03/2025)
"The Land Back movement isn’t just about returning land to First Nations, although that’s important, he contends; it’s also about seeing the land itself as a living, agential treaty partner to whom we have obligations, something we can learn from our Indigenous treaty partners. In this time of climate crisis and ecological peril, that’s a vital lesson, one we desperately need to take seriously. Reading The Grandfather of the Treaties is a way to begin that work."
Book Review: Grandfather of the Treaties by Daniel Coleman (Sarah O'Connor, Sarah O'Connor, 03/02/2025)
"Does an excellent job detailing the agreement and settler betrayal. While it can be daunting with the academic tone and the massive amount of information, it is definitely worth taking the time to read!"
Interviews
Daniel on CHCH Morning Live (Annette Hamm, CHCH Morning Live, 27/02/2025)
Daniel and Bonnie Freeman explain a bit of the importance of the wampum agreements on CHCH Morning Live.
Articles
Under the Cover: “No neutral place” – writing Grandfather of the Treaties (All Lit Up, 30/01/2025)
Daniel Coleman shares how his work on the Two Row Research Partnership – an ongoing investigation into the history and relevance of protocols for Indigenous-settler relations – led to the publication of his new book.
Read an Excerpt from Grandfather of the Treaties by Daniel Coleman (Open Book, 14/01/2025)
Daniel shares an excerpt from Grandfather of the Treaties.
54 works of Canadian nonfiction to check out this fall (CBC Books, 29/08/2024)
Daniel's book is included in this roundup of great Canadian memoirs, biographies, sports books and more coming out this fall.
Most Anticipated: Our Fall 2024 Nonfiction Preview (49th Shelf, 01/08/2024)
Daniel's book makes this great list.
About the Author
Daniel Coleman is a recently retired English professor who is grateful to live in the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe in Hamilton, Ontario. He taught in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University. He has studied and written about Canadian Literature, whiteness, the literatures of Indigeneity and diaspora, the cultural politics of reading, and wampum, the form of literacy-ceremony-communication-law that was invented by the people who inhabited the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence–Hudson River Watershed before Europeans arrived on Turtle Island.
Daniel has long been fascinated by the poetic power of narrative arts to generate a sense of place and community, critical social engagement and mindfulness, and especially wonder. Although he has committed considerable effort to learning in and from the natural world, he is still a bookish person who loves the learning that is essential to writing. He has published numerous academic and creative non-fiction books as an author and as an editor. His books include Masculine Migrations (1998), The Scent of Eucalyptus (2003), White Civility (2006; winner of the Raymond Klibansky Prize), In Bed with the Word (2009) and Yardwork: A Biography of an Urban Place (2017, shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize).