2-888-013 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mica Bay, on Lake Superior, [Ontario, Canada], 1850. '...the principal mining establishment on the British side of the Lake Superior...has excited a good deal of attention of late from the Indians taking forcible possession of it...The Quebec Mining Company will resume operations in spring next; and, as it is said they have a most valuable mine, it is to be hoped that the exports of copper...will soon equal that from the American [side] which this year exceeds in value one million sterling'. The mining operations were in breach of a negotiated treaty, and contrary to the 1763 Royal Proclamation's statements on Indigenous land and resource rights. In 1849, a group of First Nations and Métis people attacked Quebec Mining Company sites at Mica Bay, with the goal of forcing the Company off the land. The government later began to negotiate treaty agreements with Indigenous communities. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.