Akwesasne facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Akwesasne Ahkwesáhsne  (Mohawk)
Mohawk Territory
Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne
Road sign in Akwesasne
Flag
Map of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne
Akwesasne Location in New York Show map of New York Akwesasne Location in Ontario Show map of Ontario Akwesasne Location in Quebec Show map of Quebec Akwesasne Location in the United States Show map of the United States Akwesasne Location in Canada Show map of Canada
Permanently Settled	1754
Area
• Land	85.89 km2 (33.16 sq mi)
Population
• Total	14,000
Demonym(s)	Akwesasro꞉non
Time zone	UTC−5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC−4 (EDT)
Postal code span/ZIP Code	H0M 1A0 & H0M 0A1, 13655, K6H 5R7
Area codes	518, 613, 343
Website	https://www.srmt-nsn.gov

The Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne (/ˌækwəˈsæsneɪ/ AK-wə-SAS-neh; French: Nation Mohawk à Akwesasne; Mohawk: Ahkwesáhsne) is a Mohawk Nation (Kanienʼkehá:ka) territory that straddles the intersection of international (United States and Canada) borders and provincial (Ontario and Quebec) boundaries on both banks of the St. Lawrence River. Although divided by an international border, the residents consider themselves to be one community. They maintain separate police forces due to jurisdictional issues and national laws.

The community was founded in the mid-18th century by Mohawk families from Kahnawake (also known as Caughnawaga), a Catholic Mohawk village that developed south of Montreal along the St. Lawrence River. Today Akwesasne has a total of 12,000 residents, with the largest population and land area of any Kanienʼkehá:ka community. From its development in the mid-eighteenth century, Akwesasne was considered one of the Seven Nations of Canada. It is one of several Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk), meaning "people of the flint" in Mohawk, territories within present-day Canada; others are Kahnawake, Wahta, Tyendinaga, Kanesatake, and the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation (which includes several subdivisions of Mohawk, the other five nations of the Iroquois League, and some other Native American tribes), founded after the American Revolutionary War.

With settlement of the border between Canada and the United States in the early 19th century, a larger portion of the territory was defined as being within the United States. The portion in New York state is known as the federally recognized St. Regis Mohawk Reservation. The portion in Ontario is referred to as Akwesasne Reserve No. 59 (Mohawk: Kawehnò:ke), and the portions in Quebec as Akwesasne Reserve No. 15 [fr] (Mohawk: Kaná:takon & Tsi Snaíhne).

The name Akwesasne in Mohawk means "Land Where the Partridge Drums", referring to the rich wildlife in the area.

Geography

Akwesasne territory incorporates part of the St. Lawrence River, the mouths of the Raquette and St. Regis rivers, and a number of islands in these three rivers. The eastern border of the southern portion is formed by the St. Regis River. The territory is divided between north–south by the Canada–United States border. The northern portion is further divided by the Canadian provincial boundary between Ontario to the west and Quebec to the east.

The Three Nations Crossing connects Kawehno:ke (Cornwall Island, Ontario) to the City of Cornwall in the north and Rooseveltown, New York in the south.

Because of the St. Lawrence River to the north, New York State, United States, to the south, and the absence of a road link to the rest of Quebec, to the east, the Quebec portion of the Akwesasne reserve is a practical exclave claimed by Canada. To travel by land from Tsi Snaihne (Snye or Chenail, Quebec) or Kana:takon (Saint Regis, Quebec) to elsewhere in Canada, one must drive through New York State. In Canada, the territory within Ontario is called the Akwesasne 59 Indian Reserve, and the territory within Quebec is called the Akwesasne Indian Reserve.

In the U.S. state of New York, the territory of Akwesasne coincides with what is called the federally recognized St. Regis Mohawk Reservation. This portion of Akwesasne is bisected by New York State Route 37. This major state highway in the North Country of New York, extends for 127.4 mi (205.0 km) on an east–west axis.

History

Beginning about 1000 AD, nomadic indigenous people around the Great Lakes began adopting the cultivation of maize. By the 14th century, Iroquoian-speaking peoples, later called the St. Lawrence Iroquoians, had created fortified villages along the fertile valley of what is now called the St. Lawrence River. Among their villages were Stadacona and Hochelaga, visited in 1535-1536 by French explorer Jacques Cartier. While they shared certain culture with other Iroquoian groups, they were a distinctly separate people and spoke a branch of Iroquoian called Laurentian. But by the time Samuel de Champlain explored the same area 75 years later in the early 1600s, the villages had disappeared.

Historians theorize that the stronger Mohawk from the South waged war against the St. Lawrence Iroquoians to get control of the fur trade and hunting along the river valley. By 1600, the Mohawk used the valley for hunting grounds and as a path for war parties.

In the early 17th century, some Christian Iroquois (primarily Mohawk, but also some Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca) migrated from present-day New York to Kahnawake (formerly known as Caughnawaga, after their village along the Mohawk River), a Catholic mission village established by French Jesuits south of Montreal. Kahnawake is a Kanienʼkehá꞉ka (Mohawk) word meaning "at the rapids". Here, additional First Nations joined the community, converting to Roman Catholicism; the Mohawk dominated in number. During the colonial years, this community participated in the fur trade. Some men regularly traveled to Albany, New York for better prices from the English and Dutch than the French were willing to give.

In addition, warriors and families became involved in raiding and the traffic in captives during Queen Anne's War in the early 1700s between France and England. French and First Nations allies, including the Abenaki, would bring captives back to Kahnawake from New England settlements, often to be ransomed. Younger English children and women were sometimes adopted by Mohawk families and assimilated into the tribe.

Due to exhaustion of land at Kahnawake and problems with traders' rum at the village, in the mid-1750s about 30 families migrated upriver about 20 leagues to set up a new community. Among the leaders were brothers and chiefs John and Zachariah Tarbell. Father Pierre-Robert-Jean-Baptiste Billiard accompanied the migrants as their priest. French officials supported the move, paying for a sawmill at the new mission. With tensions rising prior to the Seven Years' War (also known in North America as the French and Indian War), the French wanted to keep the Mohawk as allies, and away from English influence.

The Tarbell brothers were born to English colonists in Groton, Massachusetts. They had been taken captive as children in 1707 along with their older sister Sarah, then 14, during Queen Anne's War. John and Zachariah were 12 and 8, respectively. The three children were taken by the French and Abenaki raiders some 300 miles to Montreal. They all became Catholic and were renamed. Sarah/Marguerite was redeemed by a French couple and entered the Congregation of Notre Dame, a teaching order founded in Montreal by French women in 1653. Adopted by Mohawk families in Kahnawake, the two boys became thoroughly assimilated: learning the language and ways, and being given Mohawk names. They later each married daughters of chiefs and reared their children as Mohawk. They each became chiefs, and some of their sons also became chiefs. They were examples of the multi-cultural community of the Mohawk, who absorbed numerous captives into their tribe.

Starting in 1755, French-Canadian Jesuit priests founded the St. Regis Mission at Akwesasne. The Tarbell brothers were listed among the founding chiefs, representing numerous clans as of 1759, in papers of Loran Kanonsase Pyke, the patriarch of Akwesasne's Pyke family.

The Jesuits first built a log and bark church at the mission, then a more formal log church. In 1795 the Mohawk completed construction of a stone church, which still stands. Named after the French priest St. Jean-François Regis, the mission was the source of the French name of the adjacent Saint Regis River, an island in the St. Lawrence River, and the nearby village. The church was long a landmark to ships on the river approaching the rapids. In New York, the name was later adopted to apply to the Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation. The villagers have since renamed their community Kana꞉takon ("the village", in Mohawk).

After victory in the Seven Years' War, the British took over Canada and New France east of the Mississippi River. They allowed the Kanienʼkehá꞉ka to continue to have Catholic priests at their mission. The Jesuits helped preserve Mohawk culture, translating the Bible and liturgy into Mohawk. They observed Mohawk customs, for instance, refusing to marry individuals who belonged to the same clan. Through the 18th and 19th centuries, they maintained parish registers that recorded the Mohawk names of individuals for life events, even when the people had taken European names as well.

At the time of the American Revolutionary War, the Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca and Cayuga were allied with the British against the rebel American colonists. Forced to cede most of their remaining lands in New York to the new government after the colonists' victory, many of the Iroquois people migrated to Canada, where many settled at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. Some Mohawk joined the growing community at Akwesasne. Under the Jay Treaty, the Iroquois retained rights to cross the newly established borders between Canada and the United States in order to maintain their trade and tribal ties. In 1806, Catholic Cayuga, Oneida and Onondaga from Ogdensburg, New York joined the St. Regis band.

Battle of the Cedars

The Battle of the Cedars (French: Les Cèdres) was a series of military confrontations, early in the American Revolutionary War, which involved limited combat. The actions took place between May 19–27, 1776, at and around Les Cèdres, Quebec (located 28 mi (45 km) west of Montreal), in the later stages of the American colonial invasion of Quebec that began in September 1775. No casualties occurred.

Claude de Lorimier, a British Indian agent from Montreal, traveled west to Oswegatchie (Ogdensburg, New York), where there was a fort garrisoned by a company of the 8th Regiment of Foot under the command of British Captain George Forster. De Lorimier proposed recruiting some Indians to launch an attack on Montreal, then held by the American Continental Army, from the west. When Forster agreed, Lorimier went to Akwesasne, where he recruited 100 warriors for battle. The British-allied forces took some American prisoners during the encounters, but these were later freed.

Dundee land claim

In the early 1800s, non-indigenous settlers leased a part of the Akwesnasne reserve located in mainland Quebec, known as Dundee. In 1888, the superintendent of Indian Affairs requested that the band surrender this land. A surrender was given, but the first nation always contested its validity, as it was not their intention to surrender the land. In December 2018, the First Nation of Akwesnasne accepted a specific claim settlement of $240M for the Dundee parcel, 37 years after the claim was first filed with the government of Canada.

20th-century institutions

Kana:takon School, originally called the Saint Regis Village School, was run by the Catholic Sisters of Saint Anne until the 1970s. Today, the mission is still active and includes a rectory, the large stone church dating to 1795, and a cemetery. Parish records show that the Jesuits respected Mohawk traditions, recording their Mohawk names through the 18th and 19th centuries, even after they had also taken European names.

The Roman Catholic parish at Akwesasne falls under three dioceses because of international borders and provincial boundaries: the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall and the Diocese of Valleyfield in Canada, and the Diocese of Ogdensburg in New York.

Following passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the United States federal government encouraged the tribe to adopt a constitution and elected government. The Mohawk chose to retain their traditional system of hereditary chiefs.

In the 1940s, Ernest Benedict founded Akwesasne's first newspaper, Kawehras! ("It Thunders!"). Benedict covered the resistance of many Mohawk to the system of elections imposed by the federal government on the "American" side of Akwesasne; it insisted on representative elections. On May 24, 1948, a vote was held in which "The Six Nations Chiefs", based on historic clans and hereditary office, received 83 votes. "The Elected Chiefs" received only one vote, and "The Seven Nations Chiefs" did not receive any votes. The elected chiefs resigned from office, but the federal government continued to require the tribe to hold elections.

Both the federal government and New York State encouraged the tribe to adopt representative elected government, but they resisted. They were put on the congressional list for termination in the 1950s, as part of a policy assuming that assimilation was best for Native Americans, but Congress did not approve the termination of the St. Regis Reservation.

In 1969, Benedict founded the North American Indian Travelling College (now known as the Native North American Travelling College), which serves as a cultural centre, publishing house, and resource for classes and lectures at Akwesasne and beyond. It operates an art gallery and theatre at Akwesasne.

In the late 1960s, a period of heightened Native American activism, Benedict also started Akwesasne Notes. The newspaper became highly influential and the largest native newspaper in the world. Among its noted features were a series of posters included as centrefolds. A supporter gave the newspaper Edward Curtis photographs, which editors combined with quotes from Native American authors for the popular poster series.

In 1987, the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment was founded in response to environmental concerns, including PCB contamination from industries located along the St. Lawrence River.

In the 1990s, the people of Akwesasne raised money in a variety of ways to fund a renovation of their St. Regis Church. They wrote a history of the church and its priests.

Communities, hamlets and villages

The three main areas:

• Kawehno:ke (Cornwall Island, Ontario)
• Kana:takon (Saint Regis, Quebec)
• Tsi Snaihne (Snye, Quebec or Chenail, Quebec)

Others:

• Raquette Point, New York
• Rooseveltown, New York (disputed)
• Hogansburg, New York
• Frogtown, New York
• Pilon Island, Ontario
• Yellow Island, Quebec
• St. Regis Island, Quebec
• Sugarbush Island, Quebec
• Outlying islands

Surrounding communities

Akwesasne borders the towns of Brasher, New York, Fort Covington, New York and Bombay, New York. Sections of the southeastern portion of Akwesasne are considered by the Town of Bombay to be within the town's jurisdiction but the tribe disputes this. To the west is the Town of Massena, New York. Many islands in the St. Lawrence River are part of Akwesasne. Generally the Akwesasro꞉non are majority English-speaking in daily use.

On the Canadian parts of the territory, Akwesasne borders the towns of Cornwall in Ontario and Dundee in Quebec.

Legal system

In 2016, Akwesasne established an independent indigenous legal system and court to deal with non-criminal offenses within the reserve. The 32 new laws cover civil matters handled by an indigenous legal team director of public prosecution, public prosecutor and two justices.

The system does not rely on jail terms but uses restorative justice to bring resolution between the accused and plaintiff. The members of the legal team are not required to have a law degree but are required to complete training and are approved by a review commission.

Education

Akwesasne has five elementary schools on the territory. Three schools are under the direction of the Ahkwesasne Mohawk Board of Education:

• Ahkwesahsne Mohawk School - K-4, K-5, grades 1-8
• Kana:takon School - K-4, K-5, grades 1-5
• Tsi Snaihne School - K-4, K-5, grades 1-8

One school is under the direction of the Salmon River Central School District of New York:

• St. Regis Mohawk School - Pre-K to grade 6

One school is run independently:

• Akwesasne Freedom School - Pre-K to grade 8, featuring Kanienʼkehá immersion to strengthen language and culture on the reserve. With children learning Kanienʼkehá, many parents and other adults are now taking language classes, too. The Akwesasne model of language and cultural revival is being followed by other communities.

Generally, Akwesasnro:non travel off the reservation for secondary education.

Post-secondary education is offered on the reservation through Iohahi:io Akwesasne Education & Training Institute and State University of New York (SUNY) extension programs with the SRMT.

Media

Radio

97.3 CKON-FM is the community radio station. It first went on air on September 29, 1984. CKON is owned and operated by the Akwesasne Communication Society, a community-based non-profit group. It has a country music format, and also has adult contemporary music during evenings, a free format on Fridays, and oldies on Sundays. CKON also broadcasts coverage of home and away games of the Cornwall Colts and Akwesasne Wolves hockey teams, and of the Akwesasne Lightning lacrosse team.

WICY, a radio station in Malone, New York, has an FM transmitter in Akwesasne, 103.5 W278CS.

87.9 FM Karennaon:we transmits at 87.9 MHz on the FM dial. Karennaon:we went on the air on December 21, 2017. It is owned and operated by Equal Skies Media and broadcasts the music and language of the Haudenosaunee confederacy and other first nations. Karennaon:we Radio is a positive resource for the children of the Mohawk community making available the language and culture 24 hours a day. Karennaon:we Radio is not for profit and receives no funding from federal, provincial or tribal governments.

Online and print media

• Akwesasne Notes
• Indian Time Newspaper
• Akwesasne TV

Attractions

• Akwesasne Annual International Pow-wow
• Akwesasne Cultural Center
• Akwesasne Mohawk Casino
• Annual Akwesasne Winter Carnival
• Iohahi:io Akwesasne Education & Training Institute
• Mohawk International Raceway - formerly known as Frogtown International Speedway; a dirt track racing oval and host of outdoor concerts
• Ronathahon:ni Cultural Centre - formerly known as the Native North American Traveling College
• Strawberry Music Festival

Notable Akwesasne

• Mary Kawennatakie Adams (1917–1999), textile artist and basket maker
• Ernest Benedict (1918–2011), educator, activist, and chief of the Mohawk Council
• Louis Bruce (1877–1968), baseball player
• Katsi Cook, midwife, environmentalist, Native American rights activist, and women's health advocate

Doug George-Kanentiio, editor of Akwesasne Notes, author, co-founder Akwesasne Communications Society, Residential School Survivors,Native American Journalists Association, Trustee National Museum of the American Indian

• John Kahionhes Fadden (1938–2022), artist and educator
• Alex Jacobs, artist, poet, and radio host
• Margaret Jacobs, artist
• Kiawentiio, actress and singer-songwriter
• Mary Leaf (1925–2004), basket maker
• Mike Kanentakeron Mitchell, politician
• Brandon Oakes, actor, artist, and dancer
• Levi Oakes (1925–2019), code talker
• Richard Oakes (1942–1972), activist
• Marlana Thompson, beadwork artist, regalia maker, and fashion designer
• Shirley Hill Witt, anthropologist, educator, author, civil rights activist, and former foreign service officer

See also

In Spanish: Akwesasne para niños