Degiya'göh Resources | Mohawk Land Claims Deal Bad for All Native Nations, by Doug George-Kanentiio

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Mohawk Land Claims Deal Bad for All Native Nations
© by Doug George-Kanentiio

he May 13th "memorandum of understanding" signed between a faction of the Akwesasne Mohawks and New York State officials is a bad deal not only for the Iroquois as a whole but for all Native nations.

The "deal" was designed to exchange a casino in the Catskills for Aboriginal Mohawk territory along the St. Lawrence River but included only one of the three Native governing agencies within Akwesasne.

The other two were, by design and duplicity, ignored in the negotiations leading to the signing contrary to the State's previous land claims policy.

"No one bothered to ask the Mohawks if they agreed to be cut in two just as the Mohawks were not consulted when Canada and the U.S. imposed colonial agencies upon the residents of Akwesasne in a deliberate attempt to prevent the Mohawk from asserting its treaty rights."

Akwesasne is unique among Aboriginal communities since its 28,000 acres are evenly divided in half along the international border between Canada and the U.S.

The decision to place an artificial boundary through the heart of Akwesasne was made by officials in Washington and London after the signing of the 1783 Treaty of Paris which concluded the American Revolution and acknowledged the 45th parallel as the northern limits to the U.S. along the St. Lawrence.

No one bothered to ask the Mohawks if they agreed to be cut in two just as the Mohawks were not consulted when Canada and the U.S. imposed colonial agencies upon the residents of Akwesasne in a deliberate attempt to prevent the Mohawk from asserting its treaty rights.

The result has been decades of internal animosity as the U.S.-created, and financed, St. Regis Tribal Council asserts administrative control over the "American" side of Akwesasne while the Canadian-created Mohawk Council of Akwesasne (formerly the St. Regis Band Council) stakes its dubious jurisdictional claims on the "Canadian" side.

But the third Mohawk government, the Mohawk Nation Council of Chiefs, maintains it is the only true Aboriginal governing entity since it can trace its origins to the formation of the Iroquois Confederacy over 900 years ago.

Naturally, New York has a deep interest in keeping the Mohawks at odds. It has seized upon the land claims as a way of extinguishing the Mohawk's Aboriginal rights to over 9,000,000 acres of territory in the eastern part of the State while at the same time concluding, to its benefit, the smaller claims for 15,000 acres taken after the reservation had been established in 1796.

Those 15,000 acres might not seem like a lot but it does include Barnhart Island in the St. Lawrence, one of the most valuable pieces of real estate outside of Manhattan. The island includes the massive St. Lawrence Power Dam and attendant hydroelectric lines which generates much of the lectricity for northern New York and beyond.

Also within the claims are manufacturing plants of the Aluminum Company of American (ALCOA) and General Motors along with a Wal-Mart store and parts of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

A conservative estimate would put the value of the land in the hundreds of millions of dollars so, naturally, New York wanted a deal which would not only exempt the above industries from paying the Mohawks a nickel but would have them cede their land for a casino to be located 300 miles south of Akwesasne.

Since the State would fix a 25 percent tax to the casino's slot machine revenues, the Mohawks would be paying for whatever dollars New York would "give" to the Mohawks as part of the settlement.

Not only was the deal bad for the above reasons but it failed to protect the Mohawks' tax exemption status or their hunting and fishing rights. It would have also required the various businesses operating at Akwesasne to reach price parity with surrounding retailers which, in effect, would have eliminated any economic advantage the Mohawks currently enjoy.

The very guts of Akwesasne economy would have been riped out.

New York Governor George Pataki, currently suffering through a series of major political defeats, desperately wanted some kind of good news to come out of Albany and he thought this was it.

"I knew that if we did not specifically cite certain rights, the State and the U.S. would assume they had been surrendered. If we wanted to be tax exempt we had to make that point, just as we had to have written down our hunting and fishing rights."

But by selecting to negotiate only with the St. Regis Tribal Council Pataki made a huge mistake. When tribal elections were held on June 8th those Native officials who favored the settlement were soundly defeated by voters angry at the concessions they had made.

As a former member of the Mohawk Nation's negotiating team, I had come to a series of conclusions which caused New York to successfully seek my exclusion.

I felt then, as I do now, that these conditions had to be met before any serious discussions could proceed.

I knew out bargaining stance would be greatly enhanced if we included delegates from all members of the Six Nations, since whatever we decided upon would set precedent for their claims. We had no right, I beleived, to place their claims in jeopardy by going it alone.

I knew that if we did not specifically cite certain rights, the State and the U.S. would assume they had been surrendered. If we wanted to be tax exempt we had to make that point, just as we had to have written down our hunting and fishing rights.

Any Aboriginal right not mentioned would be forfeited and eventually bring harm to other Native nations far from New York, since other states would be monitoring our actions and use similar tactics in the land claims process whether it was in Oklahoma, California or Wisconsin.

I also knew that after a deal had been reached and tendered to the U.S. Congress, Governor Pataki could ask the federal government to deduct all expenditures New York had spent on the Mohawks for the past 150 years. Anything left over would go into a fund to be administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the "benefit" of Akwesasne.

We had to make sure New York did not pull a fast one by insisting all settlement dollars go directly to us, free and clear.

In terms of jurisdiction I took a very hard line: no State interference in any territory returned to us under any circumstances. This position was not cited in the May 13th agreement, thereby insuring all additional lands could well be subject to State rules.

By failing to move in concert the St. Regis Tribal Council was highly vulnerable. Over the past few years it has come under the heavy influence of casino gambling advocates who see Aboriginal sovereignty not as a collective obligation to promote ecological harmony but as a way to make a quick buck and damn the consequences.

So when Gov. Pataki waved the casino lure in front of them they bit hard.

For these people the earth is a commodity to be sold, parceled, torn apart and polluted. They may be Mohawk by genetics but have the values of Dick Cheney.

Our sacred mother earth for a casino: we have been warning Native leaders for the past generation this will come to pass.

It almost did among the Mohawks.

Reprinted with permission.