Treaty 45, referred to variously as the Manitoulin Island treaty, the treaty of Manitowaning, or the Bond Head treaty, is a treaty that, by its terms, converted the whole of Manitoulin Island, then in Upper Canada, into a reserve.[1]
Treaty 45 was negotiated in August 1836 between 16 leaders of the Odawa and Ojibwe and Francis Bond Head, as a representative of the British Crown.[2][1][3] An entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia suggests that as opposed to "negotiation", what happened instead was simply that Bond Head "collected the signatures" of these leaders on the treaty document.[4] Bond Head had travelled to Manitoulin Island in part for an annual exchange of presents with his Indigenous counterparts; according to historian Robert J. Surtees, he "took more decisive action" in negotiating the treaty once there.[5]
The English-language document memorializing the treaty is in the collection of Library and Archives Canada.[6]
The treaty's conclusion was memorialized on Manitoulin Island in August 2011.[7]
The term "Manitoulin Island treaty" may also refer to a treaty negotiated in 1862.[6]