Indigenous peoples have fought alongside and for Canada since before the country existed. That history is not widely understood, and it matters now more than ever.
First Nations and the original Canadiens of New France built military and trade alliances from the earliest days of European settlement. Those partnerships were not ceremonial. They were strategic. France’s position in North America depended on Indigenous military support, and the alliances shaped the outcome of every major colonial conflict on the continent.
When Britain conquered New France in 1760, it inherited those relationships. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 recognised Indigenous territorial rights in part because the British understood that their hold on the territory depended on maintaining the alliances the French had built. It was a strategic calculation as much as a legal one, and the constitutional rights framework that governs Canadian resource and infrastructure development today traces directly back to it.
That understanding was tested almost immediately. During the American Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress authorised a full-scale invasion of Quebec in 1775. Benjamin Franklin was sent to Montreal the following year to persuade Canadians to join the American union. The mission failed. Haudenosaunee leaders including Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) fought alongside British forces throughout the war, and without their Indigenous allies, the British would not have held the territory. Canada as a separate country on the North American continent owes its existence, in part, to those alliances.
In the War of 1812, approximately 10,000 First Nations and Métis warriors fought alongside British forces when regulars in Upper Canada were too few to defend the territory alone. The Métis were loyal to the Crown and used their military, fur trade and kinship networks to help organise resistance to the American invasion. The Shawnee chief Tecumseh and his confederacy are widely credited with preventing the American annexation of what is now Ontario. Within a generation, those contributions were largely forgotten by their British and Canadian allies.
In the First World War, more than 4,000 Indigenous Canadians served in the Canadian Expeditionary Force, many from communities that had no obligation to enlist and whose members did not hold Canadian citizenship at the time. They fought at Ypres and Vimy Ridge alongside British and Commonwealth troops. Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian military doctor serving at the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915, wrote “In Flanders Fields,” a poem now read at Remembrance ceremonies on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the Indigenous soldiers who served at Vimy was Lance Corporal Henry Norwest, a Cree and Métis sniper from Fort Saskatchewan, who was awarded the Military Medal for gallantry. He recorded 115 confirmed hits before he was killed in action in 1918.
In the Second World War, First Nations, Inuit and Métis servicemen and women enlisted in large numbers across all branches of the Canadian Armed Forces. Many who volunteered were descendants of those who had fought alongside Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont in 1885. Indigenous soldiers served across every major theatre of the Commonwealth’s war. Nearly 2,000 Canadians fought alongside British and Indian forces in the defence of Hong Kong in 1941, where the garrison fell on Christmas Day after just three weeks of fighting. Indigenous soldiers were among those who landed on Juno Beach on D-Day and fought through to the liberation of the Netherlands. Of the 359 Canadians killed on 6 June 1944, 33 were Indigenous.
Many returned home to find that their military service had brought no change to their legal status under the Indian Act, and Métis veterans were frequently unable to access the benefits afforded to other returning soldiers. The Métis Nation has documented more than 5,000 veterans on the National Métis Veterans Monument at Batoche, Saskatchewan, most of them from the Second World War. Their struggle for recognition and restitution continued for decades.
That service did not end with the world wars. Indigenous Canadians served in the Korean War, NATO deployments and peacekeeping operations around the world. Today, the Canadian Rangers, established in 1947, are a reserve force drawn predominantly from Inuit, First Nations, Métis and other residents of Canada’s Arctic and remote northern communities. They remain the country’s primary military presence across the north, conducting sovereignty patrols, reporting on activity in their territories and supporting Canadian Armed Forces operations.
On 8 November, Canada marks National Indigenous Veterans Day. On 11 November, Canadians observe Remembrance Day. In the United Kingdom, Remembrance Sunday falls on 8 November this year, followed by the two-minute silence on Armistice Day.
The history is clear. Indigenous peoples did not simply contribute to the defence of Canada. They made it possible. From the alliances that held British North America together through two American invasions, to the soldiers who fought at Vimy and Juno Beach and across every theatre of two world wars, to the Rangers who patrol the Arctic today, Indigenous military service is woven into the foundation of the country.
That same foundation now underpins the economic partnership this Forum exists to support. The constitutional rights that trace back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the territorial authority that governs where projects can be built, and the long-term thinking that makes Indigenous Nations such durable equity partners all have their roots in the same history. The people who defended this country are now building its economic future.
Their service deserves recognition. Their sacrifice deserves remembrance.
The View is an editorial by Mark Magnacca, Canadian Indigenous Investment Forum CEO and Co-Chair.