This article examines the history of New Brunswick Native policy through the prism of the (mis)management of the Red Bank reserve. Awarded to Chief John Julian in the 1760s the original claim was reduced by the arrival of the Loyalists in the 1780s, and by Julian's descendants in the early nineteenth century who sought to profit personally by renting reserve land to settlers and lumber interests. In doing so they were aided by the lack of a formal Native policy in Fredericton, and the desire of the colonial government to profit from selling reserve land. Hamilton argues that the result was much of the original grant ending up in the hands of white settlers, and the legitimacy of many of the claims on land in the Red Bank reserve becoming confused and open to question.
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