Kahnawà:ke: Factionalism, Traditionalism, and Nationalism in a Mohawk Community

by Gerald F. Reid

Overview

Today Kahnawà:ke ("at the rapids") is a community of approximately seventy-two hundred Mohawks, located on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River near Montreal. One of the largest Mohawk communities, it is known in the modern era for its activism-a traditionalist, energetic impulse with a long history. Kahnawà:ke examines the development of traditionalism and nationalism in this Kanien'keká:ka (Mohawk) community from 1870 to 1940.

The core of Kahnawà:ke's cultural and political revitalization involved efforts to revive and refashion the community's traditional political institutions, reforge ties to and identification with the Iroquois Confederacy, and reestablish the traditional longhouse within the community. Gerald F. Reid interprets these developments as the result of the community's efforts to deal with internal ecological, economic, and political pressures and the external pressures for assimilation, particularly as they stemmed from Canadian Indian policy. Factionalism was a consequence of these pressures and an important ingredient in the development of traditionalist and nationalist responses within the community. These responses within Kahnawà:ke also contributed to and were supported by similar processes of revitalization in other Iroquois communities.

Drawing on primary documents and numerous oral histories, Kahnawà:ke provides a detailed ethnohistory of a major Kanien'keká:ka community at a turbulent and transformative time in its history and the history of the Iroquois Confederacy. It not only makes an important contribution to the understanding of this vital but little studied community but also sheds new light on recent Iroquois history and Native political and cultural revitalization.

Gerald F. Reid is an associate professor of anthropology and sociology at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803222557
Publisher:	Nebraska Paperback
Publication date:	09/01/2007
Series:	The Iroquoians and Their World
Pages:	235
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Gerald F. Reid is an associate professor of anthropology and sociology at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut.

Read an Excerpt

Kahnawà:ke

Factionalism, Traditionalism, and Nationalism in a Mohawk Community

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By Gerald F. Reid

University of Nebraska Press

Copyright © 2004 University of Nebraska Press
All right reserved.

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Chapter One

"At the Rapids"

Historical Overview of Kahnawà:ke to the Late Nineteenth Century

Rotinonhsiónni and Kanien'kehá:ka in the Seventeenth Century

In the sixteenth century the territories of the Rotinonhsiónni stretched across present-day upper New York State from the Hudson River west to the Genesee River. Protecting the eastern flank of the Longhouse nations were the Kanien'kehá:ka, or Mohawks, the Keepers of the Eastern Door. To their west were the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas, the Keepers of the Western Door. The organization of these five nations into a confederacy with its Central Fire at Onondaga predates European contact and influence. Based on the clan system of the five nations and the principle of decision making by consensus, the Confederacy was a segmentary network of relations that joined households into villages, villages into nations, and the five nations into a potentially strong but potentially fragile political alliance. According to Rotinonhsiónni tradition, the Confederacy was organized through the efforts of Deganawida, "the Peacemaker," to bring an end to the feuding and strife that had long characterized relations between the fivenations. Dennis has argued that the Confederacy was created to bring peace not only to the five nations but to other native nations in the region as well. On the other hand, Brandão has suggested that the alliance was the product of efforts by the five nations to defend themselves and wage war against their common enemies and thus was related as much to war as to peace. Though the date of the founding of the Confederacy has been the subject of much debate, archaeological and historical evidence suggests that the Confederacy of the five nations was completely consolidated by the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century. The population of the Rotinonhsiónni at this time is difficult to estimate, but by the 1630s their numbers exceeded 20,000.

The largest of the five nations was the Kanien'kehá:ka, which numbered about 1,700 in 1580 and grew to nearly twice that size in the early seventeenth century. Owing to natural increase and the integration of large numbers of other native peoples through adoption, by 1634 they totaled more than 7,700 people living in four villages. Early in the sixteenth century the Kanien'kehá:ka controlled and used a large territory extending from the Mohawk River in the south and the Hudson River, Lake George, and Lake Champlain in the east through the Adirondack region north to the St. Lawrence River and west to Lake Oneida. The villages of the Kanien'kehá:ka were along the Mohawk River west of present-day Albany, between Schoharie Creek and East Canada Creek. In the mid-seventeenth century the principal villages were Tionnontoguen, Kanagaro, and Ossernenon, which later became known as Kahnawà:ke.

The first Kanien'kehá:ka contact with Europeans was in 1609 when a small contingent of their number encountered and was defeated by a French-Algonquian force under Samuel de Champlain at Ticonderoga. The confrontation defined Kanien'kehá:ka-French relations for the next half century. The Dutch, and later the English, sought to exploit the Kanien'kehá:ka's enmity for the French to curry their favor, establish trade relations, and forge alliances against the French. Trade with the Dutch was sporadic until 1624, when they expanded upriver from New Amsterdam and established an outpost, Fort Orange, on the doorstep of Kanien'kehá:ka territory at the junction of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers. In 1634 a smallpox epidemic swept through the Kanien'kehá:ka villages and in a just a few months wiped out more than half the total population.

During the 1640s continued hostility toward the French and concern about French efforts to establish trading and military ties with their traditional enemies to the north and west led the Kanien'kehá:ka and the Rotinonhsiónni in general into a series of campaigns against French settlements and against the Hurons and other native nations of the Great Lakes region. It has been popular to attribute this pattern of Rotinonhsiónni aggression to economic motives, in particular to an effort to secure, protect, and expand their control over the European fur trade. According to this view, Rotinonhsiónni success in realizing military and economic objectives also provided large numbers of war captives who were adopted and thereby offset the significant and devastating losses of population resulting from epidemics. Brandão, however, casts doubt on this view, which he sees as positing an assimilation of European economic values, and he offers an alternative interpretation that emphasizes the centrality of established Rotinonhsiónni cultural patterns and motives. In essence, he turns the popular view on its head and argues that war against the Hurons and others was both a continuation of a pattern of rivalry and aggression that predates European contact and trade and an effort to deal with the death and loss of population resulting from epidemics and ongoing warfare. Specifically, he suggests that for the Rotinonhsiónni, warfare was a means to obtain captives for adoption to replace recently deceased family members or for use in the torture that was part of the grieving process for those who had experienced such losses. During this period the numbers involved in population loss, capture of prisoners in raids, and adoptions were significant. In his view, Rotinonhsiónni interest in trade and efforts to control trade were motivated less by economic gain and the desire for European trade goods than by the desire to obtain European firearms, keep them from their rivals, and thereby achieve their goals. For the Mohawks, as well as for the other nations, these adoptions had a significant cultural impact. Many of those adopted, the Hurons in particular, had been introduced to Christianity, and their presence opened the door to Catholicism and missionization among the Kanien'kehá:ka. In time this would contribute to division and factionalism within the nation.

In the 1660s the English replaced the Dutch as the main trading partners and military allies of the Kanien'kehá:ka. At the same time, the other nations of the Confederacy initiated peaceful relations and trade ties with the French. A number of factors encouraged the Confederacy to seek a more peaceful and cooperative relationship with France, including political and military setbacks in their relationship with other native nations allied with the English, the uncertainty of political relationships with the English as a result of their conflict with the Dutch, and their desire for increased and more stable access to firearms, ammunition, and other European trade goods. Famine, disease, and Jesuit influence also played a role in the development of a closer alliance with the French. In 1665, over Kanien'kehá:ka objections and despite their continued state of war with the French, the Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas formally allowed the French into Rotinonhsiónni territory. The Confederacy was now split. With the Kanien'kehá:ka politically isolated, the French no longer feared the threat of the combined force of the Confederacy and attacked and destroyed the Kanien'kehá:ka villages on the Mohawk River. As a result, in 1667 the Kanien'kehá:ka sued for peace. At this point they found themselves at the center of a struggle between the French (based in Montreal) and the English (based in Albany, formerly Fort Orange) for their loyalty and support. Gradually they found themselves realigning with the French.

(Continues...)

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Editorial Reviews

“Reid has produced a meticulous political and institutional history of governance in Kahnawà:ke, a Mohawk community south of Montreal. . . . The book represents an impressively thorough example of archives-based historical research.”—M. Harkin, Choice

Choice

“[Reid’s] most significant contribution is outlining how the Kahnawake preserved their traditional values by protesting intrusive federal policies and joining voices with similarly disenchanted groups. For this reason, students of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Native American should read his book.”—Ethnohistory

Ethnohistory

"Contributes substantially to our understanding of this complex society."—J. R. Miller, American Historical Review

American Historical Review - J. R. Miller

“Reid has produced a meticulous political and institutional history of governance in Kahnawà:ke, a Mohawk community south of Montreal. . . . The book represents an impressively thorough example of archives-based historical research.”—M. Harkin, Choice

Choice - M. Harkin

"Contributes substantially to our understanding of this complex society."—J. R. Miller, American Historical Review

— J. R. Miller

American Historical Review