TRIBE'S DECADES' LONG FIGHT TO REGAIN STOLEN LAND NEARS END
NEW YORK STOLE MOHAWK LAND IN 1796. NOW THE TRIBE IS ABOUT TO WIN THE RIGHT TO BUY IT BACK IN A LANDMARK LEGAL SETTLEMENT. BUT SHOULD IT BUY IT OR SHOULD NEW YORK GIVE IT BACK?
Gated entrance to the autonomous Ganienkeh territory in upstate New York, June 18, 2023. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
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GANIENKEH TERRITORY, JUNE 18-A Native American tribe is getting some of its stolen land back, under a deal authorized by New York's legislature now awaiting the governor's final approval.
The deal allows the St. Regis Mohawk tribe to acquire land to add to its existing reservation, which they call Akwesasne. The autonomous territory straddles the border between America and Canada on the St. Lawrence River about 380 miles north of New York City.
“This is one more step towards final settlement," Tribal Chief Michael Conners said in a June 10 news release. "We hope that we can get all parties to approve."
The land deal was made possible by a precedent-setting 2022 decision by Federal judge Lawrence Kahn. It found that a 1796 treaty purporting to transfer title to all Mohawk land in New York to the State was invalid because Congress never approved it. Since Congress' approval was and is required by federal law, the treaty is void and lacks legal force, Judge Kahn found.
Judge Kahn's decision cast doubt on the legal legitimacy of present-day ownership of every single acre of former Mohawk land in New York—and potentially exposed all of it to the tribe's renewed land claims.
It's a potentially vast area. At the time the 1796 treaty was signed, the Mohawk territory stretched along the Mohawk River in the south from Utica to Albany. From Albany, it extended north roughly along the Hudson River to the western shore of Lake Champlain then north into Canada to Montreal. Its western border ran north from Utica to the St. Lawrence River.
The tribe is settling for free tuition in SUNY colleges and the right to purchase land in a relatively small 13,400-acre area around its current territory in St. Lawrence and Franklin counties.
Map of land that could be added to the St. Regis Mohawk Indian reservation under a tentative deal approved by the state legislature waiting for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s final approval. Photo Credit: Courtesy of the St. Regis Mohawk tribe via its website.
The state also agreed to give the Mohawks $70 million for an island in the St. Lawrence River it seized to build the Robert Moses-Robert H. Saunders Power Dam. It flooded Akwesasne farms.
Chief Beverly Cook said in the tribe's news release "There are a great many benefits from settling, primarily in increasing our land base.”
But one Mohawk who identified himself as a retired steelworker and Traditionalist Akwesasne-roron questioned why the tribe should pay to buy land back that belongs to them: "It's unfair. Why do we have to buy it back?”
When it came to the $70 million, he told The Free Lance "we don't want money, we want land! How long does money last?"
Mohawks and the five-nation Iroquois Confederacy the tribe belonged to inspired American Democracy. Long before digital encryption, Mohawk code talkers helped the United States win World War II by using their language to transmit sensitive military messages via radio. Seven generations and counting have made livings as iron workers in New York City. Mohawks were part of the crews that built and then rebuilt the World Trade Center.
Robert Moses-Robert H. Saunders Power Dam on the St. Lawrence River seized Akwesasne land. Photo Credit: New York Power Authority.
The current phase of the Mohawk's fight to reclaim territory dates back to 1974. That's when, inspired by the radical politics of the 1960s, an armed band seized an abandoned summer camp New York State acquired for addition to its state Forest Preserve. The group issued the Ganienkeh Manifesto explaining their action, sure the "public shall see the justice and the rights of the American Indian people to such a move."
"No deed signed by Joseph Brand," the manifesto argued, "can extinguish the rights of the Mohawk to their own country."
Brand was the British-educated Mohawk who claimed to sign the 1796 treaty on behalf of the entire tribe. He got paid at least £1,450—more than $5 million today.
Brand's a villain straight from central casting. Not only did he sell his own people out, Brand led Loyalist militia and Indian allies against American forces during the colonists' War for Independence. Brand's forces also raided frontier settlements, sometimes killing settlers, Phillip Smith recorded in Legends of the Shawangunk (1887). Gen. George Washington even put a price on Brand's head, to no avail. No one could cash in. Brand was granted land by the British in Canada after the war.
The Mohawk occupation of the summer camp became known as the Moss Lake Stand-Off. It was "the beginning of an effort to not only get back some of the land they say Brand illegally sold," participants told the New York Times, but a fight "to regain a culture and a way of life that were in peril."
“We knew that unless we did this, unless we moved to preserve our way of life, our traditions would be lost forever,” Kakwirakeron, a former ironworker-turned-spokesman, said.
In other words, they wanted to inspire Indians to be Indians.
Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall was among the Mohawks at Moss Lake. He edited the Akwesasne newspaper, Akwesasne Notes, wrote the Mohawk Warrior's Handbook and composed the 10 Mohawk Commandments. Karoniaktajeh was also an artist who designed the Mohawk Warrior Society flag.
Mohawk Warrior Society Flag by Louis Karoniaktajeh Hall via artist website.
The Moss Lake Stand-Off lasted for a year-and-a-half before then-Secretary-of-State Mario Cuomo negotiated a peaceful end. In return for leaving the camp, the group was given about 5,000-acres surrounding a lake in Clinton County. They call it Ganienkeh. Its grown in size since then, and survives to this day.
Less than three years after that stand-off ended, the federal Government thought it was a good idea to encircle Akwesasne with a fence in 1980.
Mohawks who stopped it were arrested by their own tribal police force. More Mohawks surrounded the police station and demanded the force disband. When they refused, the tribe disbanded the force themselves: by taking their guns and sacking the station. Secret indictments and another armed stand-off followed. Instead of a fence, New York State Police encircled Akwesasne.
The siege lasted 13 months. It was chronicled by Peter Matthiessen for the Washington Post. As the author of The Snow Leopard and co-founder of The Paris Review observed, the Mohawk had good reason to take action: "any such fence delimiting the reservation symbolically weakened Mohawk claims to their ancient territories."
The tribe took its land claims to court via a federal lawsuit in 1982. Like the Ganienkeh Manifesto, the lawsuit alleged the 1796 treaty signed by Brand was a sham. New York, in essence, paid Brand off to let it steal the land. While the lawsuit s-l-o-w-l-y wound its way through court, over four decades, Mohawks made millions from gambling under an agreement brokered by then-Gov. Mario Cuomo in 1993.
They used the money to fund other innovative investments and property acquisitions.
Current entrance to Akwesasne territory on NYS Route 37 near what is now Hogansburg, New York. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.
The tribe reached a preliminary agreement to settle its lawsuit with New York State and St. Lawrence County, one of the counties Akwesasne territory occupies, in 2014. But the other county standing to lose land to Akwesasne in the deal, Franklin, refused to sign on. Judge Kahn's 2022 decision evidently changed the county's mind. It finally agreed to the deal June 5.
Unlike most court settlements, this agreement requires the approval of the legislature and the governor through enactment of a law specifically allowing it. Lawmakers passed a bill approving the deal June 10, according to a news release by Sen. Dan Stec (R,C-Queensbury).
"We are one step closer to a final resolution and I’m optimistic this long standing issue will finally be settled in the near future,” Stec said.
The Free Lance asked Gov. Kathy Hochul's press office whether she'll sign the bill into law. It did not respond.
Tribal Chief Ronald LaFrance cautioned in the tribe's June 10 news release that there were still "a few items that we need to iron out." He added "we expect to get those done very soon. This has been a very long journey that appears to be near an end.”
The outstanding issues include taxes, fire coverage, ambulance service and road maintenance, North Country Now reported. Schools also appear to be an issue.
The retired steelworker and Traditionalist Akwesasne-roron told The Free Lance that chiefs are not empowered to make a decision as monumental as settling the land claims on their own per Mohawk tradition.
"That's a big thing," he said. "That has to come from the People."
Meanwhile, 45 miles away on Ganienkeh territory, Wakathahionni said "our elders always told us about the 9 million acres we got swindled out of."Then, referring back to the founding of Ganienkeh after 1974's Moss Lake Stand-Off, "this was always just a start to build upon."
When it comes to the proposed land deal, "By rights, we shouldn't have to buy it back." Wakathahionni acknowledged, though, life wasn't "perfect. If we have to buy it, we'll buy it."
But a homeowner in a town covered by the tentative deal, Fort Covington, told The Free Lance she wasn't selling.
"We own our home and I'm not giving it up," Tammy Wing said.
That was true, she flat-matter-of-fact added, even though "they don't want no white people on the rez, at all."
Michael, Wing's husband, was resigned. If their house was added to Akwesasne, he said, they'd have to move.
"If the Native wants your house, they get it. You're gone," he said.
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A farm in Fort Covington, New York on the edge of land that could be added to the St. Regis Mohawk Indian reservation under a tentative deal approved by the state legislature. Photo Credit: JB Nicholas.