MNN: Mohawks have Nothing to Negotiate! Renters have to pay

MNN.  June 8, 2011.   Kahnawake is a Mohawk community on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River across from Montreal.  This tract is part of the greater Rotino’shonni:onwe/Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy territory, which is the unsurrendered eastern half of Onowaregeh, Great Turtle Island.  

In 1680 French King Louis XIV illegally gave 45 thousand acres of our land to the Jesuits to turn us into Catholics.  They named Kahnawake, our home, the Seigneury of Sault St. Louis.  

The account, not the title to our land, needs settling.  Canada and Quebec’s demand to settle is an admission of our position that the land is ours and always will be.  

Kahnawake Is a Kanienkehaka and Ongwehonwe issue.  None of Great Turtle Island is for sale.  

After the French and Indian disputes, the French sued for peace and a return of their prisoners that we held.  The Peace of Montreal in 1701 brought peace between the French and the Iroquois and 39 of our Indian allies who signed onto the treaty.  This treaty remains active.  

Then the Jesuits illegally gave away two-thirds of Kahnawake to their settlers.  Only 13,000 acres was left for us.    

We always lodged complaints against the Jesuits, Governors and the French King.  In 1754 Governor Duquesne came to Kahnawake to confirm that the Jesuits had no right to give away our land.   In 1762 after the French and British stopped fighting with each other, British General Gage also affirmed that the Mohawks own Kahnawake.  He appointed a receiver to collect the rent.  Some rent was paid.  

In 1854 Quebec illegally passed a law abolishing the seigneury land system and our interest to Kahnawake.  In 1935 another illegal law abolished the rents payable to us.  

Today Kahnawake includes eight immigrant communities:  LaPrairie, Candiac, Delson, Saint Catherine, Saint-Constant and Chateauguay; parts of Lachine and Lasalle on the island of Montreal.  Also included is the St. Lawrence River bed. 

There’s nothing to negotiate.  Canada and Quebec have no jurisdiction.  Canada wants to offer us a few dollars.  They know that Rotino’shonni:onwe can’t be tricked into giving up our birthright. 

The band councils have no right to settle anything, especially land issues.  They speak for the Canadian government, which says:  “if we don’t settle, this land will remain in dispute”.  

Title to our territories did not begin when the Europeans arrived.  The land was and must be governed by the applicable law, the Kaianerekowa, our constitution. 

Our land cannot remain under colonial fraud. The women inherently hold it on behalf of the future generations. Canada is always trying to legitimize their occupation of our land, which we never relinquished since the beginning of time.

  

Those settlers who do not want to live under Kaianerehkowa can chose to leave.  We certainly will not force death and violence on them they did to us.     

Canada should honourably sit with us and take responsibility for their people’s actions.  Indigenous people should be compensated fairly.  

Recently Prime Minister Harper apologized to some of those native people who were put into residential schools to be abused and killed.  In our culture, an apology means taking responsibility.  Words cannot fix the wrongs.  You must make it right.    All settlers have to make things right.  They came here to benefit from our land and resources, while the owners suffer. 

This is a Kaianerehowa/Great Law issue, which involves all Indigenous people.  

MNN Mohawk Nation News Kahentinetha2@yahoo.com  For more news, books, to donate to help pay legal fees and to sign up for MNN newsletters go towww.mohawknationnews.com  More stories at MNN Category “Kahnawake”.  Address:  Box 991, Kahnawake [Quebec, Canada] J0L 1B0 

Store:  Indigenous authors – Kahnawake books – Mohawk Warriors Three – Warriors Hand Book – Rebuilding the Iroquois Confederacy.

 


 

 

 

SULLIED SULPICIENS RESCUED BY “PRAYING MOHAWK”

SULLIED SULPICIENS RESCUED BY “PRAYING MOHAWK” MNN. May 6, 2007. Recently MNN criticized the 350th anniversary of the invasion of “gentlemen of St. Sulpice’s” onto our land back in the 1600’s. The same day our story went out, the Gazette reporter, Al Hustak, emailed to complain that he’d received “an avalanche of complaints” from all over the world. His editor said he had not received a single letter.

The Sulpicians claimed they were given the island of Montreal by the French child king. It was theft and lies and the age before videotapes. Though none of our letters were published, Andrew Delisle Sr., a former colonial band council chief of Kahnawake, got his condoning article published by the Gazette.

Delisle starts out good by saying, “No Mohawks will applaud the Sulpician, Oblate or Jesuit history”. They were in fact realtors of our land “and became rich on the backs of native people”. He wants us to look at the theft and destruction of our lands, our way of life and culture and our almost extinction as facts of history not to be contested by us but archived. He seems to want us to forget it because he made out like a bandit. He calls us a “powerless” people at their mercy so we can have “the pleasure of their company”. Mr. Delisle, do you have the nerve to say this to our faces, not through the white media.

Remember that all of the lands from Tianitiotiakon [Montreal], around the Great Lakes watershed, down to New York State and Vermont are Six Nations land that we never surrendered. Delisle concentrates on the Jesuits and their theft of what is now called the “Seigneury of Sault St. Louis” which is Kahnawake.

Some of Mr. Delisle’s comments need clarification. “The Jesuits during their tenure at Kahnawake (1667-1782) until their expulsion from North America and their return in the 1900s, did more than minister to the souls of Mohawks”. Yeah! They tried to kill us all off. They were ostracized worldwide. Then they came back to try to finish the job. The Sulpicians and the French lobbied to get rid of the Jesuits so they could take over our land themselves. Today in Quebec Catholicism is going down the tubes. The Sulpicians are dying out. Their mission to convert us was a dismal failure. Our land has to be returned to us. There’s no getting out of that.

Delisle states, “They managed to sell, concede and give parcels of Mohawk lands to habitants, contrary to the specific conditions of the Seigneury of Sault St. Louis grants..” These weren’t “grants”. How could the French king give away what belonged to us and was never surrendered? It was “theft”.

Delisle states that in 1843 “Father Marcoux of Kahnawake assisted the Sulpicians to raise funds for the building of the towers of the Notre Dame Basilica” in Montreal. “Just before Christmas 1842 he brought four Mohawk “headmen” to Montreal [You can bet they were carefully selected and not by the people of Kahnawake]. They were declared as public officials who could sign public documents” [On whose behalf? Were they dumb Indians picked to sign for them?] Then Marcoux brought them to Albany to get a perpetual annuity interest from New York State starting in 1796. Marcoux got over L4000 for “commutation of interest”. The French and Americans always conspired together to scam us. This sounds a lot like the illegal “7 Nations of Canada” robbery set up by the Christianized natives under the direction of these Christian orders. Only true Indigenous nationals can make any kind of deals on land with colonial foreigners.

Mr. Delisle knew about this when he was Indian Act chief at Kahnawake. Why didn’t he tell us about it and go after that money? Maybe he didn’t want it for the whole community but just for certain individuals and families who have been fraudulently passing themselves off as the illegitimate “7 Nation of Canada” beneficiaries. Did he have access to the archives? Is he feeling guilty now? What did he know? When did he know it?

Delisle states that, “The money was subsequently returned but not to Mohawks of Kahnawake and disappeared following a protracted court fight”.. How did he know this? What was the end result of the “protracted court fight”? The Sulpicians and their co-conspirators must have taken the money. Did the lawyers get paid off too? We need some answers here.

Delisle says, “We won’t find any balanced ledgers”. Because there are “private” and “cooked” ledgers. “If the books are in the red, then the native people are owed plenty..” They are in the red! The Sulpicians have “blue chip” stock portfolios in excess of hundreds of millions or more.

Delisle states, “Some of what is owed [to us] has to be at a minimum an acknowledgement of the costs born by the native people”. The cost was genocide and no dollar value can be put on that. We will take back what they took from us, including all liquid assets. They can go home with what they brought here. In fact we might even supply them with an airplane ticket. First they have to return their plunder.

Delisle says, “If the books are in the black, then they can … consider all their marvelous works and achievements”. What marvelous achievements? Genocide, theft and destruction of the environment! Andrew, stop pumping them up!

Delisle states, “Mohawks .. admire peaceful ways and seek to reconcile with those who have injured us and those we have injured”. Speak for yourself! This is the “Catholic” way of turning the other cheek. The cheek we’re going to turn isn’t on our face.

Delisle goes on, “We love our lands and we welcome our neighbors to visit us”. Andrew Delisle, are we supposed to be perennial tourist attractions selling beadwork in front of the Catholic church for as long as we exist? You appear to erroneously accept that they own our land when in fact they are squatters.

Delisle says, “In recent times, some of our best friends have been Jesuits, and they recognized those very traits I have described”. Andrew, you’ve been praying too long! The rest of us are no longer Catholicized.

Delisle states, “They wanted only what was best for us and defended us in public and saw to our spiritual needs”. Yuk! They destroyed the natural world that we had a connection to. In the course of killing our culture they inspired more than one suicide. They sold off our land and timber. Our timber was used and our people were enslaved to build the Notre Dame Basilica. We can’t even see the remnants of these huge trees unless we pay an entrance fee like a common tourist. Whenever we resisted them, they sent the police to our homes, organized to deport us to Wahta in Miskoka where half of our people died, and have done nothing but attack us for resisting their oppression.

Delisle says, “They were not politicians or real estate agents”!!! Are you blind? They “brokered” our land and got commissions. Otherwise, how would they have gotten those huge stock portfolios?

Delisle says, “They recognized the injury their order had rendered to us and kept their vision on what the future could bring to rectify the wrongs”. Hey! If they recognize their greed, we are owed big time. And they’d leave!

Delisle finishes, “What we would do if we had all the resources that are now with the clergy and their business partners”. Andrew Delisle, don’t try to calm us down by telling us it is in the past and we can’t do anything about it. We are still here.

Readers, MNN has a photo of Andrew Delisle with the Pope. Write and it will be sent. This article has been sent to: Robert Gagne & Jacques d’Arcy info@basiliquenddn.org; Yoland Tremblay cimetiere@cimetierenddn.org; Monique Tremblay cnd@cnd-n.com; Mayor Gerald Tremblay 514-872-3101 and J.C. Turcotte infos@diocesemontreal.org [Tell them to return Montreal island and beyond to us].

Kahentinetha Horn

MNN Mohawk Nation News

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