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Notice
To Trespassers on Indian
Reserves

Provincial Secretary's Office,
Halifax, 1st May, 1837

Whereas, a number of persons, among whom are - Angus McKay, George Munroe, the Widow McKay, Malcolm McLeod, Alexander McDonald, Charles McKenzie, Malcolm McAulay, Alexander McKenzie and Charles McKenzie, under the alleged authority of Tickets of Location, assigning to them lots in the rear or neighbourhood of a tract of Land reserved for the Indians at Wagamatcook, in the County of Cape-Breton, and under a pretended ignorance of the limits of the said tract, have seated themselves on, and are now in the occupation of, Lands comprised within the said reservation, though the lines or bounds of the same, as traced and marked by order of the Government, are clearly discernible; and though these persons might have easily ascertained, (as they ought to have done,) by employing a Surveyor, the exact position of the lots intended for them:
And whereas, His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor is determined to protect the Indians against all persons who shall unjustly and cruelly usurp or interfere with their rightful property, whether situated at Wagamatcook aforesaid, or at Whycocomagh, or any other part of the Island of Cape-Breton.
His Excellency, therefore, is hereby pleased to command all persons to abstain from extending their clearings, or cutting wood of any kind on the said Indian Reserve at Wagamatcook, or on any other Indian Reserve. And NOTICE is hereby given, that, from and after the 1st day of July next, all persons settled on any Indian Reserve, and not having obtained permission to remain thereon, under the Hand and Seal of the Lieutenant-Governor, will be required to quit such Reserve, under penalty of immediate prosecution; that every person whom His Excellency may be pleased to allow to remain on any such Reserve, will be made to pay a rent for the benefit of the Indians—the amount thereof to be fixed by His Excellency, and paid into the hands of such person as His Excellency shall appoint to receive it,—that persons permitted to remain on any Indian Reserve, will not be allowed to continue their improvements, and that to guard against any extension of them, a competent person will be employed to take a list of all persons now settled on every Indian Reserve, and to survey each clearing now made thereon;—His Excellency's intention being, not to sanction their permanent residence on the Lands on which they have intruded, but merely to allow them to occupy the houses which they have built for a certain number of years, (to be specified in His Excellency's License,) in order that they may have time to prepare their own lots, (and which they are hereby directed to cause to be immediately laid out by a Surveyor,) for the reception of their families.
If, after this notice, any person shall dare to settle on any Indian Reserve, or to extend his improvements, or to cut timber, or commit any other act of depredation thereon, such offender will be prosecuted by His Majesty's Attorney General, and punished with the utmost rigour of the Law.

By His Excellency's Command,
Rupert D. George.