This article examines the case of Peter Paul, a Maliseet (Wolastoqiyik) man convicted of illegally harvesting ash saplings in 1946. Bell argues that this case brought to the forefront the long history of white encroachment on Native land and denial of Native treaty rights. The Paul case, Bell contends, affirmed the governmental policy of Native legal dispossession. With the help of his advisor Edwin Tappan Adney, Paul made the first attempt to argue in a legal context that New Brunswick Natives retained their treaty rights. Bell argues that Paul should have appealed the decision, not because it would have succeeded, but because it would have created a legal precedent.
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