Oswegatchie-Mohawks and the Relocation to Kansas

By Doug George-Kanentiio.

Akwesasne has a long history of inclusion from the relocation of the Massachusetts born Tarbell brothers in the 1750's to the current population which includes Natives from many nations: Navajo, Onondaga, Anishinaabe, and many others.

The area has long sustained a Native presence for many thousands of years. The Mohawks took advantage of the natural beauty and its wealth of natural resources from the vast forests of pine, oak and maple to the best fishing grounds in the northeast part of the continent.

Given its strategic location it was also of key military, political and economic importance with its inhabitants taking part in the fur trade and serving as heavily recruited fighters from the mid-18th century to both world wars.

Unfortunately, Akwesasne was also targeted by Britain and the US for the imposition of artificial separation when, after the American Revolution, it was dissected when the border was drawn through the middle of the territory.

The community of Oswegatchie was in a similar situation. Its territory was, like Akwesasne, located astride the St. Lawrence River. Composed of Onondaga, Cayuga and Oneida people, most of whom were Catholic, they were part of the Seven Nations of Canada, an alliance of Native Catholic entities located along the St. Lawrence or its tributary the Ottawa River. They were, besides the Oswegatchie; the Hurons of Lorette, the Abenakis of Odanak, the Mohawks of Kahnawake, the Algonquins-Nipissings-Mohawks of Kanesatake (Oka).

The Oswegatchie’s were cheated of their lands with the blatant theft of the Macomb purchase of 1791 to the decision by the British to take their territory and allocate it to their veterans of the Revolution. These "loyalists" tracts have never been endorsed by the Oswegatchies and this massive theft followed in the tracks of the mysterious "Crawford Purchase" which took Akwesasne's land north of the St. Lawrence from the Quebec border to the west of Cornwall without any cession or compensation. In fact, there is no existing document or record of any kind affirming that purchase.

After the Revolution the US initiated a plan to remove Native people from their lands by force or fraud. US President Thomas Jefferson was an advocate for this scheme when, in 1808, he designated an area now part of the state of Arkansas as a place to relocated Natives from the east.

But in 1806 New York State conducted its own forcible relocation when it removed, in clear violation of the 1790 Federal Non-Intercourse Act, the Oswegatchies from their homes, then located at the outlet of the Oswegatchie River and nearby Fort LaPresentation in what is now Ogdensburg, NY. As with the area north of the St. Lawrence the Oswegatchies neither approved of the land cession nor have received any compensation for their losses.

Many of the refugees were given lands and support at Akwesasne. They brought the Deer, Snipe and Beaver clans with them and in response expanded the then existing nine-member governing council to twelve.

It is this council, adhering to traditional customs and procedures, which signed leases with non-Natives for areas such as Dundee and Barnhart Island. These leases were rental agreements meant to provide an income for the community and were never cessions of territory.

In the current negotiations about lost territory the Oswegatchies have been ignored which is suspect given that their descendants have a powerful claim to the islands west of Akwesasne and the lands astride the St. Lawrence including the 1,000 islands.

President Jefferson's plan were gradually imposed on Native nations. Moving west as a group began with the Cherokees and then the Oneidas followed by many others: the Shawnee, Lenape, Seneca-Cayugas of Ohio, the Choctaws, Seminoles, Creeks among the larger displace people.

New York wanted to initiate its own evictions. Not satisfied to cheat, steal and expropriate Native territory throughout the Confederacy its agents sought to enter "treaties" with various factions even as the State knew it was breaking federal law and violating the US Constitution itself.

For Akwesasne these "treaties" were highly controversial beginning with the Seven Nations "treaty of 1796 and continuing for another 50 years. An attempt by the State to rid itself of Mohawks, along with all other Iroquois, altogether was expressed in the second Treaty of Buffalo Creek in 1838. Land was purchased by the US in Kansas and the Mohawks on the US side of Akwesasne were expected to move there.

10,000 acres in Bourbon County, Kansas was designated a reservation for the "New York " Iroquois including the Mohawks with another 1,824,000 acres in "fee simple" lands adjacent to the Osage. At the center of this was the infamous Ogden Land Company, the same entity which stole Barnhart Island form the Mohawks and millions of acres from the Senecas and Oneidas.

As was usual with the Ogden Company there were accusations of bribery and the free use of alcohol to get individuals to sign the deal. Only a revision of the Buffalo Creek treaty in 1842 enabled the Senecas to retain Cattaraugus and Allegany but they had to buy back Tonawanda.

A special agent was appointed by the US to arrange for the Iroquois to move west. Oral tradition has a story in which some Mohawks did go to Kansas but found the area so drastically different than the northeast that they returned home gave their report with the result that Akwesasronon did not go.

Records verify this. in 1846 only 191 Iroquois went to Kansas, followed by 17 more. Those 17 turned around and went back home. Only 32 received land grants on the proposed reservation and, by the next year, but 7 elected to stay.

The Kansas reservation was sold and in 1900 a fund was created to pay the Iroquois for the purchase amount. This "Kansas money" is now a part of Akwesasne's history. It has also been told that some Mohawks who went to Kansas died either there or along the journey.

The legacy for Akwesasne is one of resistance to the loss of territory. There was opposition to the Seven Nations and Joseph Brant treaties and to the Crawford Purchase. The confinement to a non-sensical "six miles square" area has never sat well with the Mohawk people.

Before any concessions are made in the current negotiations perhaps it is best to recall those courageous ones who refused to abandon their homes and relocated to the plains. They defied the plans of New York State and the US to extinguish the Mohawks as a people with inherent rights to a vast homeland.