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6:01:00 PM EDT
Feeling Quiet
Hearing Robbie Roberson/Peyote Healing Song
CALEDONIA!!!!!
More than 500 Caledonia residents gathered last night to demand an end to the native blockade
Police were ready for trouble but tempers remained in check at the aboriginal standoff in Caledonia last night.
More than 500 residents gathered last night to once again demand an end to the blockade of the community's main street by First Nations protesters.
But dozens of provincial police officers stood between the residents and the blockade to keep the peace.
On Monday night, residents infuriated by the blockade rushed a police line surrounding the barrier.
Some hurled insults and screamed at the aboriginal protesters to leave the area.
The occupation at a half finished housing development began two months ago.
Six Nations protesters say it's their land.
But Canada and Ontario say the property was sold in 1841 to make way for a highway.
See today's Hamilton Spectator for more background on the standoff
Two busloads of Ontario Provincial Police, lined up in front of cruisers, separated the more than 200 locals -- some blowing air horns, others waving Canadian flags -- from an equal number of Six Nations natives who have occupied a subdivision development about 30 kilometres south of Hamilton since Feb. 28.
Businesses were shut down early Friday, and locals began to gather near the blockade about 6 p.m.
Natives claim a 40-hectare property, for which developer Henco Industries has the legal land certificate, was wrongfully taken from them in the 18th century.
Anger between the two groups peaked Monday night with the arrest of two people after Caledonia residents stormed a police barricade.
Days earlier, violence erupted on the disputed land when police raided the site and arrested 16 men. Natives from across the country flocked to the site, lighting tire fires and throwing a van over a bridge.
Woodrow Sparks has lived in Caledonia for 34 years, and wants the army called in to open the road.
"There are two laws in this country: laws for the rich and laws for minorities. We're in between," he said.
Andie Ingram, who owns a home less than one kilometre from the blockade, said he doesn't oppose the natives or their right to protest, but does not agree his rights should be infringed.
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For as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.
From The Declaration of Arbroath 1320.
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