R v Machekequonabe (1897), 28 OR 309, 2 CCC 138, was a decision of the Divisional Court of the Supreme Court of Ontario.
Machekequonabe, the accused, was an Anishinaabe man who shot and killed someone he believed to be a wendigo.[1] In fact, the man was his foster father.[2]
Machekequonabe was convicted of manslaughter at first instance: the trial judge rejected his alleged defences of lack of mens rea and insanity.[3] However, Machekequonabe was acquitted of murder because the Crown was unable to prove that Machekequonabe intended to kill his foster father.[3][1]
On appeal, Chief Justice John Douglas Armour held for the court that Machekequonabe was guilty of manslaughter despite not being aware that the common law existed.[1] Machekequonabe, the only reported case in which an accused person killed an alleged wendigo, became a precedent for the proposition that "Indigenous peoples were bound by colonial law regardless of their religious and cultural beliefs".[4]
References edit
- ^ a b c Erickson, Lesley (2011). Westward Bound: Sex, Violence, the Law, and the Making of a Settler Society. University of British Columbia Press; Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History. pp. 53–54. ISBN 978-0-7748-1858-2. OCLC 727455427.
- ^ Seidman, R. B. (January 1965). "Witch Murder and Mens Rea: A Problem of Society Under Radical Social Change". Modern Law Review. 28 (1): 56n49. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2230.1965.tb01045.x.
- ^ a b Harring, Sidney L. (1992). "'The Liberal Treatment of Indians': Native People in Nineteenth Century Ontario Law". Saskatchewan Law Review. 56: 322–323.
- ^ Evans, Catherine L. (May 10, 2018). "Heart of Ice: Indigenous Defendants and Colonial Law in the Canadian North-West". Law and History Review. 36 (2): 199–234. doi:10.1017/S0738248017000657. ISSN 0738-2480. S2CID 150097905.
External links edit
- R v Machekequonabe (1897), 28 OR 309
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