A Voice from the Eastern Door
A Voice from the Eastern Door
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This past week I had the opportunity to witness a positive event at Akwesasne, which may well lead to the resolution of the tobacco trade issue. A group of men from the Kanienkehaka Kaianerehkowa Kanonhsesne met with Mohawk Council of Akwesasne Grand Chief Tim Thompson in an atmosphere of mutual respect to discuss the movement of tobacco products across Mohawk territory. All participants were concerned about the incident on May 27 in which the MCA police attempted to effect the arrest of a resident of Kawehnoke as that person was attempting t...
I have had the honour, and duty, of serving the Mohawk Nation Council as one of its land claims negotiators from 1984 to 1991. I took a firm, unyielding stance against the United States-New York State offer to exchange (meaning extinguish) sections of our aboriginal territory at Akwesasne for a few million dollars and a few thousand acres of forest astride the St. Regis River. When commercial gambling became available Governor Mario Cuomo adopted the tactic of offering casinos for land, which was rightfully rejected by the Nation. One of the...
On a recent trip to the southwest I had the opportunity to listen to the concerns of Native people in that region. They, like the Haudenosaunee, are worried about the loss of their indigenous languages, the intrusion of the media on the youth, widespread substances abuses, the overall decline in health for all age groups and the excesses of Indian governments across the continent. Most worrisome for many was the removal of Natives from tribal roles for what many claimed were personal vendettas. They also believed it was an increasingly...
There is a saying that we never quite appreciate what we have until it is gone. That is as true of our friends and relatives as it is of our material possessions. The passing of time compels changes, which means we lose things and people as we journey through life. But it is important to stop, rest, reflect and look back; to remember the trail. From March 28-30 students and faculty from the University of Buffalo organized an event which brought together dozens of community leaders to rec...
Eighty years ago the Haudenosaunee, and particularly the Mohawks, were confronted with a serious threat to our ability to secure a living by practicing the skill of ironworking in the US. The US Immigration authorities were determined to arrest, confine and deport those Iroquois who resided in Canada but worked south of the border. The Americans may have been upset with the Haudenosaunee for its rejection of US citizenship after Congress had enacted the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. The Haudenosaunee leadership realized that by accepting...
March 3, 2008 Last week, in Washington, D.C. I testified before the House Natural Resources Committee at the oversight hearings held on the Department of the Interior’s recently released “guidance” on taking land into trust for tribes and its broad ramifications. The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe gave testimony because we were tremendously affected by the new “guidance” policy that introduced a “commutable distance factor” in determining land into trust applications for off reservation gaming. The Mohawks received a denial on our trust application tha...
The February 22 decision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to place 13,000 acres of land in central New York in“trust” for the Oneida Nation is not a cause for celebration but alarm. If there is one undeniable truth in Iroquois-US relations it is this: the Americans will do what they can to eradicate the Haudenosaunee as a distinct people. Whether this means eclipsing our humanity by portraying us as sub-human savages, forcibly removing us from our ancestral lands or destroying our culture by imposing alien values on our children the process of o...
The past few months have not been good ones for Canada’s relationship with aboriginal people. First, the Conservatives who are in power in Ottawa rejected the United Nations Declaration of Indigenous Rights despite the approval of over 140 other nations. If Canada had endorsed the Declaration it would have pressured the country to respect aboriginal territory and culture while undermining the “doctrine of discovery” as the basis for its current legal relationship with the first nations. Tens of millions of hectares of land stolen Native peopl...
The decision by the US Department of the Interior to reject the St. Regis Tribal Council’s plans for a Monticello casino has provided Akwesasne with an opportunity to reflect on commercial gambling in general and the Tribe’s goals specifically. We should take this time to inquire about Empire Resorts and its financial and administrative status. The company took a huge blow when the Monticello deal was turned down. It was already on shakey fiscal ground which has to call into question whether it was the right partner for the Tribe. Empire did...
For those Akwesasnorons lucky enough to have come of age during the late 1960’s and 70’s our home was the center of aboriginal political action across the continent. The touring group White Roots of Peace and the newspaper Akwesasne Notes inspired thousands of people, Native and non, to get involved in preserving their heritage and promoting indigenous self determination. The Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs was the guiding entity for both Notes and the Roots. From the Nation came powerful speakers, great singers and highly effective com...
