MNN. June 28, 2024. Everyone in the world knows that we onkwehonwe are turtle island. The colonists took up residence, and stole the land, forests, waters, resources from the natural people placed here by kasastensera kowa saoiera, creation. What they are doing to us is not fair, just or reasonable. They know we can never give up our mother earth. The kanienkehaka of akwesasne are carrying out their duties according to the kaianerekowa, the great peace.
Land Back at Barnhart
Contextualizing the Re-occupation of Barnhart Island in Shared Legacies of Struggle
By Jennifer Lee
Views expressed in this opinion editorial do not represent those of any of the eight individuals arrested at Barnhart Island.
On May 21, 2024, a group of eight Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) community members from Akwesasne were arrested at Niionenhiasekowa:ne (Barnhart Island). Certain individuals among the “Akwesasne 8” had originally gone to Barnhart to exercise their right to build a hunting and gathering shelter on their own territory, in part to protest an ongoing land claim settlement that threatens to hand over Kanien’kehá:ka title to this island, among other traditionally held territories, to New York State. The settlement is being negotiated between New York entities and three Akwesasne government councils.1 Presently, the settlement negotiations would require the extinguishment of Mohawk title to Barnhart Island, which would be effectuated through an act of Congress.2 By asserting their right to the land, the Akwesasne 8 have sent a clear message to both negotiating parties. Barnhart Island, like all other territories illegally stolen and swindled from their community, is not for sale—particularly not by collaborationist band and tribal council entities that purport to represent the full community but that were in fact historically imposed upon it at gunpoint.
READ THE STORY:
https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/online/land-back-at-barnhart/#easy-footnote-15-16285
By Marina Johnson-Zafiris
“[This] is not a story of triumphs of engineering over nature, nor is it a story of masterpiece on international diplomacy, nor even a story about change. It is rather a story about the intimate relationship that the Mohawks of Akwesasne had with the environment in which they lived from time immemorial and how change was forced upon them, through really no choice of their own. It is the story of how the forces of outside government and corporate America seemingly conspired to break the identity of the Mohawk in a manner that no residential school had ever successfully accomplished—by changing the environment in which Mohawk survived . . .” (Elders Study, 1995)
READ THE BACKGROUND TO THIS ISSUE:
https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/online/akwesasne-and-the-history-of-hydropower/
Our minds and hearts are chained to that island for thousands of years. There is nothing that can break that chain, as Joe Cocker sings to our intruders:
Baby let, let me be
‘Cause you don’t care
well, please
Set me freeUnchain my heart
Baby let me go
Unchain my heart
‘Cause you don’t love me no moreEvery time I call you on the phone
Some fella tells me that you’re not at home
Unchain my heart
Set me freeUnchain my heart
Baby let me be
Unchain my heart
‘Cause you don’t care about meYou’ve got me sewed up like a pillow case
But you let my love go to waste
Unchain my heart
Set me freeI’m under your spell
Like a man in a trance baby
Oh but you know darn well
That I don’t stand a chanceUnchain my heart
Let me go my way
Unchain my heart
You worry me night and day
Why lead me through a life of misery
When you don’t care a bag of beans for me
Unchain my heart oh please
Set me free
Alright
I’m under your spell
Just like a man in a trance, baby
But you know darn well
That I don’t stand a chance
Please unchain my heart
Let me go my way
Unchain my heart
You worry me night and day
Why lead me through a life of misery
When you don’t care a bag of beans for me
Unchain my heart
Please set me free
Oh set me free
Oh woman why don’t you do that for me
You don’t care
Won’t you let me go
If you don’t love me no more
Like a man in a trance
Let me go
I’m under your spell
Like a man in a trance
Oh but you know darn well
That I don’t stand a chance no
Oh
You don’t care
Please set me free