Historical Document 5: Murray Treaty (1760)

Source: Dépôt d’un écrit sous seing privé portant certificat de la part du général Murray, 5 septembre 1760, BANQ, Fonds Cour supérieure. District judiciaire de Québec. Greffes de notaires (CN301),Barthélémy Faribault, fils (S99),D2498, p. 5.

Source: James Murray to Hurons of Lorette, 5 Septembre 1760, Centre de référence de l’Amérique française, Faribault, no. 256. Permission pending

These two documents represent the same treaty. The handwritten document was part of Barthélémy Faribault’s notarial records and were eventually submitted into the provincial archives. The typed document was made by Faribault’s son, Georges-Barthelemi, and was included as part of his papers in the Quebec Seminary archives. Other copies were known to have existed in the past. In the late 1820s, Etienne Ondiaraete, a Huron-Wendat chief and Elder claimed that the document was kept in the community’s council house and referred to during political deliberations with the crown. Likewise, a copy was kept in James Murray’s papers. Considered by the Huron-Wendat as a treaty from this time onwards, the Supreme Court of Canada confirmed this interpretation in R. v. Sioui in 1990.