The Specific Claims Tribunal process is quasi‑judicial, meaning that both Canada and the Madawaska Maliseet First Nation will submit expert opinion and evidence concerning the validity of the claim and to determine compensation.

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This background outlines key dates and events in the history of our community as they relate to the claim.

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Maliseets have lived on, utilized, and managed this land since time immemorial, meaning they are not settlers on their own land. There has been a Maliseet village at Madawaska since at least the mid‑1700s. The site also held importance in the late 1700s as the location of the annual Maliseet Grand Council.

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In 1785, a group of Acadian families arrived in Madawaska from Ste. Anne‑des‑Pays‑Bas (present‑day Fredericton area), seeking to relocate following Loyalist resettlement in New Brunswick. Maliseets and Acadians had known one another for many years prior to the Acadians’ arrival at Madawaska. Some of the Acadians who came were fluent in Maliseet, which speaks to the longstanding social relationship between the two groups. It is therefore possible that some of the Acadians and Maliseets present at Madawaska in 1785 knew each other personally.

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In 1787, the Surveyor General of New Brunswick, George Sproule, was instructed to meet the Surveyor General of Quebec at Grand Falls to settle the provincial boundary. The result was the completion of a “boundaries survey.” Sproule disagreed with the proposed boundary location and proceeded north, where he intersected John Frederick Holland (acting on behalf of the Quebec Surveyor General) and Hugh Finlay (Postmaster General of Quebec) at Madawaska on 17 July 1787.

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Sproule’s Boundaries Survey contains a red square next to the Acadian lots. Red was often used on survey maps at that time to denote importance. The notation beside the red lines reads:

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“The Indians require the tract of Land included within the red Lines to be reserved for their use. Except Kelly’s Lot.”

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Various correspondence between the Surveyor General and Crown‑appointed surveyors makes explicit the intent to accommodate the “Indians” in their work. On 3 January 1787, Lord Dorchester, Governor General of The Canadas, wrote to Thomas Carleton, Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick:

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“At the same time that you take proper measures for the defence [sic] and security of the province, good policy requires that the Indians should be treated with civility and kindness. You may at a cheaper rate secure their friendship than repell [sic] their hostilities. Besides the policy of this conduct, common justice requires some attention and some compensation to these people, whose lands we come and occupy.”

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On 6 March 1790, King George III issued an order placing a moratorium on granting land in the British colonies, which remained in effect until 1820. On 12 May 1790, Dorchester wrote to Carleton enclosing the King’s instructions, stating that any pending grants were to be completed.

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On 1 October 1790, the Acadians received a grant for land at Madawaska. The accompanying grant plan described the lots and the “Indian Reserve.” The word “Indian” was crossed out and rewritten below the lot granted to Simon Hébert on the east side of the Madawaska River.

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In 1792, the Maliseet Nation petitioned to receive a grant for land at Madawaska. Scottish settler and local magistrate Thomas Costin (who had been granted Lot 31 at Madawaska) assisted in drafting the petition, which included a specific description of the land requested. In a letter, Costin wrote:

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“…he [Grand Chief Simon Francois Xavier] went down by Athority [sic] from a General Assembly of his Nation to request of His Excellency a space of land for a settlement for the whole of the Nation.”

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In an attached letter, Costin further stated regarding the land described in the petition:

“I imagin that Capt. Sproule hath surveyed.”

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In 1824, Simon Hebert (a settler and entrepreneur) petitioned for 300 acres on the east side of the Madawaska River. On the accompanying sketch, “Indian reserve” is written near and across his lot. Simon Hebert received a grant of 250 acres on 16 May 1825. The accompanying grant plan includes “Indian Reserve” written on both sides of the Madawaska River, abutting M. Hebert’s land.

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In 1841, Moses Perley, Commissioner for Indian Affairs, was instructed to produce a report on all the “Indian Settlements” in New Brunswick. In the summer of 1841, Perley visited the Madawaska reserve and met with Chief Louis Bernard. He wrote:

“...he [Chief Louis Bernard] pointed out to me the former site of their Village, and also the boundaries that were assigned to the Tribe when he was a youth.”

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Louis Bernard was born in 1771 and would have been 16 years old at the time Sproule visited Madawaska in 1787.

In 1844, an Act was passed in New Brunswick entitled “An Act to regulate the management and disposal of Indian reserves in this Province.” The 1844 Act stipulated that on all New Brunswick reserves, 50 acres per adult Indian male was to remain reserved land, while the remainder was to be auctioned. Although the Act was never implemented, a sketch of the Madawaska reserve was completed in 1845 by H.M. Garden. The reserve was divided into eight lots, and the back boundary line was extended.

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In 1860, the New Brunswick government granted settler John Hartt Lot No. 1 on the Madawaska reserve. John Hartt had squatted on the reserve for many years prior to this grant, and the Maliseets at Madawaska had consistently protested his claim to reserve land.

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In a letter dated 23 April 1853, Indian Agent John Emmerson wrote:

“That Mr. Hartt applied to him Bernard repeatedly to dispose of a part of the reserve and to deed it to him. That he [Louis Bernard] constantly refused Mr. Hartt, telling him that the ground was reserved for the use of the Indians and could not be sold. Lewis Bernard and the other Indians residing on the reserve declare that they do not wish the government to dispose of any part of the reserve.”

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In 1861, Chief Louis Bernard traveled to Fredericton and petitioned Lieutenant Governor J.H.T. Manners Sutton regarding Hartt’s grant and the injustices that had taken place at Madawaska over the course of his life. An excerpt from the petition reads:

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“That your petitioner the said Lewy Bernard lives upon the Indian Reserve immediately below the mouth of the Madawaska River on the right side of the River Saint John in the now County of Victoria with his children and grandchildren who are living with him, and some other Indians of the same Tribe also who are living with him upon said Indian Lands as neighbors; and that your Petitioner would also humbly state that he has lived upon the said Indian Reserved Land since he was a young man, his Father living there also before him, and he was himself born there… he has now become old and infirm, he has no mind to seek for any other home and wishes to live and die on the land he has helped to clear and cultivate from his youth and on the lands that his King and Country always reserved for him and the Milicete St. John Tribe of Indians to which he belongs. He cannot bear the sorrowful thought of having to remove from the lands where he has buried his wives and children and grandchildren and his Father and Mother and his Brothers and Sisters and all he holds dear to him, but hopes to be allowed to spend the remainder of his life upon this land that has become so sacred to him on account of all the above‑stated endearing associations, and which the thought of being obliged to lose and remove from would be like a premature death to him… Mr. Rice [Indian Agent] has told him… that the government was to sell his land or this Indian Reserved Land at the Madawaska River near the Little Falls in the month of June this present year 1861. And your Petitioner, not believing it was possible for him to be so ill‑treated by his Governor and his Country as his lands to be sold from under his family and he and his family driven away from his only home, has traveled this long journey from Little Madawaska to Fredericton where his Governor did Fathers reside to talk with them about these lands as set forth in this petition… They would not allow any Agent or any other person to suffer his lands to be sold, dispossessing him and his family, or that they should be driven from their homes which have become so sacred and dear to them. [signed Lewy Bernard and other Indians of the St. John Milicete Tribe]”

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While discussions with government officials continued in the intervening years, the modern history of the claim process resumed in the late 1990s.