The Stan Rogers Folk Festival and Chedabucto Bay Folk Society remind visitors that the festival takes place in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi'kmaq. Long before European colonization, the area where the festival occurs was known as Qamso'q, within the larger district of Eskikewa'kik. The Mi'kmaq were party, along with the Wolastoqey and Peskotomuhkati, to the Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1725-1761 with the British Crown, and were the beneficiaries of the protections laid out in the Belcher Proclamation of 1762. These documents, as well as the Royal Proclamation of 1763, preserved their rights to traditional land use and did not encompass the surrender of lands. Rather, the documents established an ongoing relationship between nations.