In Divided Unity: Haudenosaunee Reclamation at Grand River [1 ed.] 9780816533725, 9780816532599

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IN DIVIDED UNITY

CRITICAL ISSUES IN INDIGENOUS STUDIES

Jeffrey P. Shepherd and Myla Vicenti Carpio SERIES EDITORS

ADVISORY BOARD

Hokulani Aikau Jennifer Nez Denetdale Eva Marie Garroutte John Maynard Alejandra Navarro-Smith Gladys Tzul Tzul Keith Camacho Margaret Elizabeth Kovach Vicente Diaz

THERESA MCCARTHY

IN DIVIDED UNITY

Haudenosaunee Reclamation at Grand River

THE UNIVERSllY OF ARIZONA PRESS T U CSO N

The University of Arizona Press www.uapress.arizona.edu

© 2016 The Arizona Board of Regents All rights reserved. Published 2016 Printed in the United States of America 21

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Cover design by Leigh McDonald Cover photos by Tracy Lynn Bomberry, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory Publication of this book is made possible in part by funding from the Julian Park Fund, College of Arts and Sciences, University at Buffalo, and by the proceeds of a permanent endowment created with the assistance of a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, a federal agency. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: McCarthy, Theresa, author. Title: In divided unity: Haudenosaunee reclamation at Grand River / Theresa McCarthy. Other titles: Critical issues in indigenous studies. Description: Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2016.1 Series: Critical issues in indigenous studies 1Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 20150385351 ISBN 9780816532599 (cloth: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Iroquois Indians-Ontario-Claims. 1Iroquois Indians-Land tenure-Ontario. 1 Six Nations-Ontario-Grand River Region-History. Classification: LCC E99.17 .M44 2016 1 DDC 97I.3/3705-dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/ 2015038535 § This paper meets the requirements of ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

For Wendiyo

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations Prologue Introduction Internationalizing Indigenous Activism A Glimpse Through the Language Window Settler Colonial Contexts and Narratives Reclaiming "Tradition" 1

Repressive Authenticities and Haudenosaunee Traditionalism Reconsidered Repressive Authenticities and Authenticities Repressed Authenticity

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37 4I

Project I. Lewis Henry Morgan: Haudenosaunee Traditions of Confederacy Governance and Sociopolitical Organization

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Project 2.]. N. B. Hewitt: Authenticating Iroquois Thought

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Project 3. William Fenton: Authenticating Iroquois Political History

60

Project 4. Authenticating Longhouse Ceremonies: Various Iroquoianists

72

Unpacking the T-word : QgwehQwehneha:' and the Meaning of 'Tradition"

VIII

3

4

CONTENTS

DehodinigohadJhanyo' ("All of Their Thinking Is Different") : Surpassing Colonial Scholarship on Iroquois Factionalism Reverse Factionalisms Constructing Ungovernable Subjects Re-theorizing Factionalism at Grand River Epic Teachings Haudenosaunee Words Haudenosaunee/QgwehQweh Scholarly Theories Community Voices

IIO II3 I28 I3° I3 2 I3 2 I34

Hnyo' hneha' ow~na' nihaw~node : ("White Kind Words and Interpretation") : Academic and Public Responses to Six Nations Direct Action "When All Hell Breaks Loose at Home": Public Education in the Midst of the Kanonhstaton Crisis Haudenosaunee Initiatives Settler Initiatives

5

110

Onondaga Beaver Clan Reclamation: Getting "Our Houses" in Order The Onondaga Beaver Clan and the History of Reclaiming the Council House at Ohsweken Dr'ni:s nisa'sgao'de?: Haudenosaunee Clans, the Reconstruction of Traditional Haudenosaunee Identity, and Nationhood Haudenosaunee Clan Research at Six Nations: Grassroots and Scholarly Interventions Background on Haudenosaunee Clans: Considering Haudenosaunee Languages and Paradigms

148 173 I74 I82

187 I9° 206

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Haudenosaunee Clans: Reinterpreting Contexts of Displacement

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and Relevance

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Defying Colonialism Through the Haudenosaunee Clan System

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Haudenosaunee Women, Ts~'h Niyogwaehod~: , and the Kanonhstaton Reclamation Traditionalist Contours of the Reclamation, Part I: An Interview with Janie Jamieson

226 23I

Traditionalist Contours of the Reclamation, Part 2: All the Women Together

254

CONTENTS

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Haudenosaunee/Ohswekenhr6: non Interventions in Settler Colonialism

Land Political Difference Knowing

276 279 28 7 299

Epilogue: Hypervisible Settler Colonial Terrains and Remembering a Haudenosaunee Future

303

Acknowledgments

3I I

Notes

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Bibliography

359 397

Index

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES 1.

John Mohawk Memorial at National Museum of the Indian

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2.

Thinking Caps, by Shelley Niro

3. Modern Day Traditional Teaching, by Graeme MacKay

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4. TeiotiokwaonhdstonIDeyodyogwar;hdhs:dr;h, by Elizabeth Doxtater

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5. Time Travels Through Us, by Shelley Niro 6. Chief Jacob Thomas, the Jake Thomas Learning Center 7. The Great Divide, by Graeme MacKay 8. William Johnson and Arnie General at Ohsweken Council ~~~

9. Six Nations women in Ohsweken Council House, 1959 10.

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12.

Six Nations women on Council House steps, 1970 2007 press conference at Ohsweken Council House Police violence against unarmed Six Nations protestor during

police raid at Douglas Creek Estates 13. Police violence against unarmed Six Nations protestor during police raid at Douglas Creek Estates

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14. Being pepper-sprayed during the police raid at Douglas

Creek Estates

IS. Janie Jamieson at construction site

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ILLUSTRATIONS

16. Caledonia resident's roadblock 17. Six Nations safety barricade across Highway 6 18. Wall of women hold the barricade line 19. Janie Jamieson, Dawn Smith, and Hazel Hill 20. Day I of the Six Nations land reclamation at Douglas Creek Estates, February 28, 2006 21. Six Nations youth at Six Nations land reclamation protest, 2006

265 266 266

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22. Six Nations children participate in the reclamation of the

Ohsweken Council House, 1959 23. Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs show wampum strings, 1959 24. Haudenosaunee Indigenous Knowledge Guardians Recognition Ceremony, 20ro

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MAPS 1.

Six Nations of Grand River lands

Regional map of Six Nations Reserve 3. Street map of Kanonhstaton/Douglas Creek Estates construction site 2.

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XXI11

PROLOGUE

I

N DECEMBER 2005, an open invitation circulated around Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve Territory, in southern Ontario. The letter's signa-

tories, two young Haudenosaunee women named Dawn Smith and Janie

Jamieson, stated, "A grass roots organization of Six Nations Territory members has been formed in order to protect our territories." "Our organization," they clarified, "works independently and holds open community meetings. Our only objectives are land protection and the maintenance oflife for future generations. We firmly believe we must work together as a community in order to sustain our objectives."! The letter alerted community members to the proposed expansions of several townships that border and surround the Six Nations Reserve. Jamieson and Smith had attended nearby meetings of the Haldimand Community Council, which had just approved a massive residential development project that would create 250 new housing units a year for the next twenty years. The areas slated for development, the two women explained, "all lie within the tract of land identified in the Haldimand Treaty of 1784."2 They further maintained that representatives from the county had never approached Six Nations to request permission to purchase the land or renew leases within the tract of Six Nations lands affirmed by the Haldimand Treaty. Smith and Jamieson emphasized that "at no time has Six Nations been compensated for these lands. Not only are they encroaching upon our territories, but they are doing so illegally,

XIV

PROLOGUE

according to both our laws and theirs." The two women then requested that community members sign a form letter to help stop the proposed expansions and encroachments on Six Nations territory. Offering to pick up the signed form letters themselves, Smith and Jamieson concluded the letter by graciously telling community members, "We would be honored to have you attend" a potluck meal and meeting they would be hosting later that week. 3 I open this book with a reflection on Smith and Jamieson's letter because it touches on the many realities of the reclamation movement that these young women reignited over a decade ago. This Haudenosaunee movement to reclaim lands and sovereignty in Grand River territory continues even now, and it will continue to shape Six Nations' future. Smith and Jamieson's letter also provides insight into the themes foregrounded in this work: the relationship of knowledge to the material conditions of life for Indigenous people in settler states; the significance of grassroots action to the broader goals of Haudenosaunee resurgence; and the ways in which-despite enduring excruciating colonial realities of violence and loss-Haudenosaunee women of today continue to uphold their responsibilities to Creation. To further understand these themes, they must be contextualized within the longer-term history of which they are a part, a history that has also informed the reclamation activities from 2006 to the present day. When Smith and Jamieson's letter about massive regional development plans circulated in December 2005, both women were already deeply involved in efforts to raise awareness about land encroachment closer to home. The construction of a 132-acre estate home subdivision, Douglas Creek Estates, on the outskirts of Caledonia, Ontario-which is right at Six Nations' doorstep-had begun. Smith and Jamieson led peaceful protests, a public education campaign, and the eventual shutdown and permanent occupation of the construction site, located at the edge of the current Six Nations Reserve's southeastern boundary, which garnered national attention. From the beginning of their efforts, both women understood that the subdivision was only the tip of the iceberg. As plans for much larger development projects on contested and unceded lands proceeded without any Six Nations community engagement, Smith and Jamieson worked first to draw attention to Six Nations land rights within the HaldimandlGrand River Tract. According to the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784, British Crown official Sir Fredrick Haldimand pledged to "His Majesty's Faithful Allies" that lands "six miles deep" on either side of the Grand River-from its mouth to its

PROLOGUE

XV

source-were for the Six Nations and "their posterity to enjoy forever."4 Notably, the Grand River is the largest river in southwestern Ontario, running a length of 300 kilometers (186 miles) . The Grand River, or Haldimand, Tract refers to this twelve-mile swath, which spans the entire length of the river-almost one million acres ofland. Following British defeat in the American Revolution, the well-known Mohawk military leader Joseph Brant (Tyendinaga) was appointed by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council, and he brokered the new permanent settlement at Grand River with Haldimand. The British had promised to replace lost lands when courting the alliance of the Six Nations in the war effort. After the war, there was no going home: the Sullivan Campaign from 1779 to 1780 destroyed nearly all the villages of the Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas in the Haudenosaunee's homeland territories (the area that became New York State), and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 surrendered Mohawk lands to the United States. 5 Brant is said to have been drawn to the willowlined banks of the Grand River, especially the way in which the trees come right to the water's edge, as this reminded him of the Mohawk Valley.6 The Haldimand Proclamation is often viewed by Six Nations as a "treaty," given the nation-to-nation basis of the agreement and its stipulation that the Six Nations were "allies" and not subjects of the British Crown. The proclamation also represents the Crown's legal pledge to honor and uphold Six Nations land rights. Six Nations had already upheld their end of the agreement, sacrificing over six million acres of their homelands to their alliance with the British. Other treaties are also significant to the place-based and political contours of the Six Nations reclamation struggle. Prior to Haldimand and Brant's interactions, the Grand River Tract lands were not unknown to the Haudenosaunee, and Haudenosaunee land rights in the territory were not unknown to the British. These lands were part of the "Beaver Hunting Grounds," an area of 800 by 400 miles, covering much of present-day southern Ontario. These "Beaver Hunting Grounds" were acknowledged in the 1701 Nanfan Treaty, through which the British ensured the Haudenosaunee use of these lands in perpetuity.7 Going further back to the seventeenth century, the Two Row Wampum and the Silver Covenant Chain Treaties established the political parameters of mutual recognition of sovereignty and the relationships of coexistence with European settlers on the basis of peace and friendship. These early treaties drew upon the same principles that united the Haudenosaunee into a Confederacy-under the terms of the Gaya'shni'gowa', the Great Law of Peace-thousands of years ago. The original Five Nations Confederacy

XVI

PROLOGUE

(comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca nations) later expanded to include the Tuscarora at the end of the eighteenth century, resulting in the Six Nations Confederacy as we know it today. Reflecting the values outlined by the Gaya'shra'gowa', Six Nations people collectively refer to themselves as Haudenosaunee, translated to mean "they build the house," often interpreted as "the people of the longhouse." This collective designation is much preferred over the misnomer "Iroquois," given by the European colonists. Today the Six Nations community is located on only 4.8 percent (or onesixteenth) of their original Grand River Tract lands. This massive land reduction occurred within only sixty-three years since their arrival at Grand River, and these losses served to consume-rather than to fortifY-Six Nations financial resources and assets. The few areas that the Haudenosaunee agreed to sell to obtain much-needed capital for resettlement generated small down payments, but the balances were never paid in full. Overall, the Confederacy preferred leasing to selling lands. This helped open more areas for farming and also provided resources to support the reestablished Six Nations villages along the Grand. The rapid influx of settlers to the region led to encroachment by squatters, and many tenant farmers stopped paying their rents and wanted to own the farms they occupied. Other tenants simply sold their leased farms to other settlers and kept the profits for themselves. A series of purported land surrenders in the r840s also contributed to the massive reduction of the Six Nations land base. These surrenders are disputed as fraudulent, and they are easily challenged in numerous ways. The so-called r84r General Surrender relinquishes Six Nations rights to the majority of the Grand River Tract lands, including a substantial portion of land on the south side of the Grand River. It bears the signatures of only a small delegation of the Six Nations, none of whom were authorized to surrender land rights by the Confederacy Council. This surrender was immediately contested by the Six Nations governing body and repudiated by its signatories. s Another purported surrender from r844 bears the x-marks of forty-seven signatories. Like all surrenders from this time period, it is highly unlikely that the signatories could have verified these documents written in English. This surrender was also never properly "ratified" by the Privy Council, as was the accepted legal practice at the time. No survey of these newly acquired lands was ever recorded, and many of the transfers from leases to sales began before the purported surrender even took place. 9

PROLOGUE

XVII

Despite the Confederacy Councils' consistent reminders that the Six Nations were allies and not wards of the Crown, the Crown's paternalistic and exploitative approach continued. During this time (the mid-1800s), Six Nations saw no return on the investments that the Crown made on their behalf Six Nations lands and significant money from Six Nations trust accounts were invested in major development projects-like the Grand River Navigation Company and the Weiland Canal-without their engagement and without any return on these investments. Although the new government of Canada was supposed to uphold the trusteeship of the Crown, it instead attempted to reity legally a relationship of Indian wardship through the Indian Act of 1876. Canada's violent deposition of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Council and its imposition of the Indian Act-elected band council system in 1924 continued the government's efforts to subjugate Six Nations. This governmental interference established a political divide with which the community has had to contend to this day. This also meant that Canada no longer had to provide an accounting of Six Nations lands and assets that the Confederacy Council had been long demanding. Moreover, the Indian Act of Canada made it illegal for Indians to engage in land claims research, to have access to the Canadian court system, and to retain legal counsel until the 1970s. But even with access to legal redress in more recent times, the colonial status quo continues to be upheld. Nevertheless, generations of Six Nations citizens from across the community's political spectrum have continued to fight for redress and have successfully researched the theft of their lands and resources.lO Despite the imposition of the Indian Act-elected band council system and Canada's withdrawal of recognition of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy as the governing body of Six Nations, the Confederacy has maintained its sovereignty. The Six Nations reclamation oflands in 2006 began in the face of this history. Instead of providing a precise chronology of specific dates and events, I conceptualize the last decade as a series of overlapping and interrelated eras related to reclamation, negotiations, and resurgence, which can each be best understood by pivoting backward and forward in time. The reclamation era began with the small-scale potlucks, protests, and the public education campaign of Jamieson and Smith's "Six Nations Land Claims Awareness Committee."The most volatile period was from February 28, 2006, when the construction site was permanently shut down, through April 20, 2006, which saw the erection of several barricades following a violent police raid. The final highway barricades

XVIII

came down in June

2006;

PROLOGUE

still, anti-land claims activists, marches, and rallies

continued to amplifY tensions through the summer and into the fall of that year. These continued through 2007, and they have been ongoing periodically since then. In considering this period, I do not examine in this work in any depth the other land reclamation efforts that occurred in nearby Brantford and HagersvilleY I do acknowledge the potential for more land reclamation work as development on contested Six Nations land continues. The negotiations era began in late March 2006, as the Canadian government initiated talks with Six Nations governing bodies about how to end the occupation of the subdivision site. By mid-April, the elected band council agreed to let the Confederacy lead the negotiations with the federal and provincial governments. Following the police raid, and until early June, the government's main agenda was how to get Six Nations protestors to disengage the barricades. The government's negotiations with the Confederacy proceeded in earnest throughout 2007 and 2008 but effectively ended in 2009 when the Canadian federal government walked away from the table late that year. The band council withdrew its support of the Confederacy's leadership of the negotiations at that time. The era of Haudenosaunee resurgence spans the time period outlined above and continues to the present day. This period incorporates the grassroots efforts of Six Nations people in defending Six Nations land and rights, the subdivision reclamation, the barricade defense, the Haudenosaunee Clanmothers' ongoing support, the Confederacy's Chiefs' efforts to protect the rights and interests of the people during negotiations, the talks and negotiations with the federal and provincial government, the band council's return of the Council House in Ohsweken in January 2007, and the continued post-negotiation efforts of the Confederacy to maintain its leadership role in the protection of Six Nations land rights and resources. Most of these efforts are not new, but have a long genealogy in Six Nations history. The intellectual contributions of the Haudenosaunee came from many people, from the grassroots to the leadership, all working to advance Haudenosaunee rights and sovereignty in the wake of the reclamation struggle. Beyond this prologue, I do not chronicle a conventional historical narrative of the events leading up to and including the reclamation. The historical narrative I have provided to this point is already unconventional because it starts with the contributions of two young Haudenosaunee women. I do not attempt to tell a version of this story in an overarching, authoritative, and

PROLOGUE

XIX

depersonalized way. Indigenous research methodologies encourage us to acknowledge with humility that knowledge is subjective and that a person can only convey what they know. I tell a story of the 2006 reclamation as I have come to know it through the lens of my own personal experiences, the time I invested in supporting this struggle, my relations to and with the Six Nations community, and my academic training. Undoubtedly there are dimensions of this story that I have missed, but I also wanted to take care to fill in the dimensions that have been overlooked or absent in other accounts, especially dimensions that bring Haudenosaunee people to the forefront of the struggle. My research is foregrounded in experiential and enlivened sources, since I saw firsthand how the mainstream media worked to inflame, distort, and sensationalize the conflict. Consequently, I do not rely on media sources to the extent that other narrators of this story do. So much of what was reported does not correlate with the realities I witnessed, and even efforts to analyze these biases are impoverished by lack of experiential engagement. In this book, I speak as a Haudenosaunee citizen and as a member of the Six Nations community, although stating this fact requires some important qualifications. I do not nor have I ever resided within the current boundaries of the Six Nations Reserve territory. I grew up in the border town of Caledonia and on Plank Road, at the corner of Argyle Street and Renfrew, in the house my parents have owned since I was a baby. Looking back, I jokingly refer to my little neighborhood as the Doxtdator "rez," as my family was surrounded on all sides by Doxtdator families from Six Nations, close friends with whom I enjoyed my time growing up. Since the Haudenosaunee are a matrilineal people, I inherit my nation, which is Onondaga, and my clan, which is Beaver, through my mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and on back through time. The Curley family is my extended family at Six NationsY But again, my identity must not be misconstrued in any way to mean that I speak for the community or that I possess any inherent Haudenosaunee cultural expertise, because I do not. Any knowledge or insights that I impart are the result of being helped by many generous teachers from the community or from many years' worth of research and work. My father is non-Native, and for two generations his family has resided in Caledonia, Ontario. Though he is non-Native, my kinship ties to Six Nations extend through him as well, as his sister, my aunt, also married into the community and resides there with her family. My youngest sister,Johanne, also now lives at Six Nations with her family. I acknowledge my kinship relations to Six Nations as a daughter, an auntie, a niece, a sister, a sister-in-law, a cousin,

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and now as a mother myself, once again not to display any kind of authority but to clarity how my ethics and accountability were structured in doing this work. Six Nations was not the place I was raised, though it has always been part of my life. It is the place of my people and it will always be important to me. The story I have chosen to tell about the Six Nations reclamation explores the themes of knowledge production, Haudenosaunee women, and intellectual and political resurgence-a resurgence that I witnessed at the barricades and during the negotiations and that I continue to see today. To me, this is a story about how a people stood their ground against seemingly insurmountable odds and against the relentless, often brutal attempts to force their acquiescence. It is about their adamant refusal to believe that the struggle for the return of their lands was hopeless. It is about the reclamation of spaces that are both physical and political, and thus, it is a story about Haudenosaunee people's responsibilities to each other, to the land, and to the coming faces . Most of all, it is about the reclamation of a place that the Haudenosaunee were never meant to be, and that place is the future.

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