Blazing the trail: Indigenous legal firsts in Canadian history

June is National Indigenous History Month. To celebrate our accomplishments CBC Indigenous is sharing stories highlighting First Nations, Inuit and Métis trailblazers in law, medicine, science, sports — and beyond. 

Perseverance is what comes to mind when Justice Michelle O'Bonsawin reflects on Indigenous peoples and the law.

Perseverance, she says, is the thread uniting Indigenous peoples' struggles to influence Canada's laws, and it's what the first Indigenous judge of the Supreme Court of Canada wants her legacy to be. 

"Perseverance is the key to success," O'Bonsawin tells CBC Indigenous in a sit-down interview in Ottawa.

O'Bonsawin's family name means "pathfinder" in Abenaki, and as the first one down this particular path, she wants to set an example of humility and empathy, as someone connected to her working class and First Nations roots.

Two years into her journey, she's grateful for those who paved the way.

"We've worked very hard to get where we are today and I think that's something quite amazing to be celebrated," she says.

Here are some of those who helped blaze the trail, beginning 160 years before O'Bonsawin's 2022 appointment.

First among firsts was Simcoe Kerr, a Kanien'kehà:ka (Mohawk) traditional chief from Six Nations of the Grand River near Hamilton, Ont.

Kerr was called to the bar in 1862, making him the first verifiably Indigenous person to achieve the feat in Canada, according to University of Calgary assistant professor Brian Calliou.

Kerr was born in 1837 as William John Simcoe Kerr. He was a grandson of famed Kanien'kehà:ka leader Thayendanegea Joseph Brant and a great-grandson of Sir William Johnson, Britain's 18th-century superintendent of Indian affairs.

Prominent women in the family bestowed the hereditary title of Tekarihogen on Kerr when he was an infant, and he also inherited the sprawling Brant estate in Burlington, Ont.

Kerr received power of attorney from the Haudenosaunee, also known as Iroquois, to advance their land claims in 1863, and was officially installed as Tekarihogen soon after. He was also an elected reeve, military captain and third-degree freemason.

At the time, Calliou said, a lawyer was basically a British gentleman — which Kerr wasn't. But he fit the mold of a local elite and Indigenous peoples were still quite powerful at the time.