Retyped for your information is an article providing some background information on the present situation in Kanesatake. ************************************************************************ The Globe & Mail, July 27, 1990 C O M M E N T A R Y BACKGROUND / Mohawk's land claim at Oka, more than 200 years old, is part of a vast gulf between white and native cultures C a n a d a ' s 3 r d s o l i t u d e "As was the custom of our forefathers we immediately set about making a (wampum) belt, which we now deliver to you, by which our children would see that the land was to be theirs forever, and as was customary with our ancestors. We placed the figure of a dog at each end of the belt to guard our property and to give notice when an enemy approached." by Donald B. Smith These are the words of Chief Aughneeta, on behalf of the Mohawk community called Kanesatake. He was addressing Sir John Johnson, Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, at the village of the Lake of Two Mountains, now known as Oka. The date was Feb. 7, 1787, and Aughneeta was recalling the Indians' arrival at the new Roman Catholic mission station 30 kilometres west of Montreal more than half a century earlier. Few Canadians realize the Mohawks' land claim at Oka is now more than 200 years old. The roots of this particular case lie in the French regime even earlier in the eighteenth century, when the original seigneurial grant was made at the Lake of Two Mountains. The French, like the English, believed in the superiority of European civilization and were determined to convert the aboriginal population to Christianity and eventually assimilate it. In the St. Lawrence valley the French entrusted this task to Roman Catholic religious orders, and the king vested ownership of the Lake of Two Mountains seigneury in the name of the Sulpician order. After the conquest, the English altered some aspects of the French policy. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 recognized the Indian lands must be purchased by the Crown before settlement could proceed. This had to be done with the consent of the band concerned - in other words, treaties had to be negotiated. Unfortunately, the proclamation was not applied in the St. Lawrence valley or Atlantic colonies. So, here is the dilemma. The British, with some hesitation, accepted the Sulpicians' claim at Lake of Two Mountains. The Iroquois at the mission objected, but the Crown formally confirmed the ownership. In contrast, the Mohawks at neighboring Kahnawake had their claim to the Jesuit-run seigneury of Sault. St. Louis recognized. Still, the Iroquois at Kanesatake did not give up. On seven occasions between 1787 and 1851 they publicly protested. To no avail. After Confederation, the new Canadian government turned them down again, arguing that the Sulpicians held sole legal title. In the late 1860's, Chief Joseph Onasakenrat led a revolt. He attended the Sulpician's college in Montreal (a fellow student was a young Metis from Red River named Louis Rile), and immediately after being elected as first chief of the Iroquois, he drafted a petition to the governor- general advancing the Indians' claims. To reinforce their position, many of the Iroquois at the mission left the Catholic Church with Chief Onasakenrat to become Methodists. They built a Methodist church, but the Sulpicians had it dismantled in 1875. Two years later, the Sulpicians' church mysteriously burned down. Chief Onasakenrat and a dozen others were accused of arson. Only after four juries failed to reach a verdict was the case finally dismissed in 1881, the year the chief died. The Iroquois kept up their protest, and eventually their case reached the Privy Council in London, then the final court of appeal in the British Empire. The Privy Council held that the Sulpicians owned the land, which led the Department of Indian Affairs to regard the case as settled. In 1936 the order sold almost all of its remaining lands at Lake of Two Mountains. The historical context of the era must be remembered, as it is now so distant from that of the Canada of the 1990s. Almost without exception in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, non-aboriginal Canadians believed (as did the French and English in the earlier colonial era) in the necessity of eradicating Indian identity and cultures. The Indians were to be fully assimilated into Canadian society, and the reserves eventually eliminated. The Dominion of Canada, which gained exclusive jurisdiction over Indians at Confederation, led the campaign. The assimilationist policy lasted right up to the 1970s, but lately what once seemed impossible has occurred: aboriginal rights have gained legal acceptance. The tenacity of the First Nations not to disappear, and the emergence of a new, multicultural Canada, have led to a different model. Our new constitution and several recent Supreme Court decisions have officially repudiated the old policies of working to absorb the Indian into the dominant society. Aboriginal rights have gained constitutional recognition. Now the public must think long and hard about what must be done. The fact that the Mohawks at Kanesatake have received no real land base despite living in the area for centuries calls out for redress. And few realize that this is just one of hundreds of land claims across the country. For more than a year, The Globe and Mail has called for a royal commission on native affairs, on the lines of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the mid-1960s. This month delegates to a national meeting of Indian chiefs called on Ottawa to do the same, providing half the commission's members are native. Canadians have long described the anglophone and francophone communities as "two solitudes," but the gulf between them is small compared with that separating their world from the native people's. The events at Oka demonstrate just how badly a full-scale investigation is needed and how imperative it is that Canadians become more aware of native culture, history and issues. For example, while preparing for its highly successful 1988 Winter Olympics, Alberta decided to name the main sports complex Nakiska, said to be a native word that means "meeting place." Which it does - in Cree. Unfortunately the location is an important site in an area occupied by the Stoney Indians, who speak an entirely different language. * * * Donald B. Smith teaches Canadian history at the University of Calgary and is the author of From The Land Of Shadows: The Making Of Grey Owl (Western Producer Prairie Books, 1990). ************************************************************************ For more information contact web:car by e-mail or in writing Aboriginal Rights Support Group Committee Against Racism P.O. Box 3085, Station B Calgary, Alberta T2M 4L6