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The Oka Crisis was a land dispute between the Mohawk nation and the town of Oka, Quebec which began on March 11, 1990, and lasted until September 26, 1990. It resulted in three deaths, and would be the first of a number of well-publicised violent conflicts between Indigenous people and the Canadian Government in the late 20th century.
The crisis developed from a dispute between the town of Oka and the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. For 260 years, the Mohawk nation had been pursuing a land claim which included a burial ground and a sacred grove of pine trees near Kanesatake, which is one of the oldest hand-planted stands in North America, created by the Mohawks' ancestors. This brought them into conflict with the town of Oka, which was developing plans to expand a golf course onto the disputed land. In 1717, the governor of New France granted the lands encompassing the cemetery and the pines to a Catholic seminary to hold the land in trust for the Mohawk nation. The Church expanded this agreement to grant themselves sole ownership of the land, and proceeded to sell off the Mohawk peoples' land and timber. In 1868, one year after Confederation, the chief of the Oka Mohawk people, Joseph Onasakenrat, wrote a letter to the Church condemning them for illegally holding their land and demanding its return. The petition was ignored. In 1869, Onasakenrat returned with a small armed force of Mohawks and gave the missionaries eight days to return the land. The missionaries called in the police, who imprisoned the Mohawks. In 1936, the seminary sold the remaining territory and vacated the area. These sales were also protested vociferously by the Mohawks, but the protests produced no results.* In 1961, a nine-hole golf course, le Club de golf d'Oka, was built on land claimed by the Mohawk People, who launched a legal protest against construction. Yet, by the time the case was heard, much of the land had already been cleared and construction had begun on a parking lot and golf greens adjacent to the Mohawk cemetery. In 1977, the band filed an official land claim with the federal Office of Native Claims regarding the land. The claim was accepted for filing, and funds were provided for additional research of the claim. Nine years later, the claim was finally rejected for failing to meet key criteria. * Immediate causes The mayor of Oka, Jean Ouellette, announced in 1989 that the remainder of the pines would be cleared to expand the members-only golf club's course to eighteen holes. Sixty luxury condominiums were also planned to be built in a section of the pines. The town of Oka stood to make money from the expansion and Mayor Ouellette was a member of the private club that stood to benefit most. However, none of these plans were made in consultation with the Mohawks. As a protest against a court decision which allowed the golf course construction to proceed, some members of the Mohawk community erected a barricade blocking access to the area in question. Mayor Ouellette demanded compliance with the court order, but the protestors refused. Quebec's Minister for Native Affairs John Ciaccia wrote a letter of support for the natives, stating that "these people have seen their lands disappear without having been consulted or compensated, and that, in my opinion, is unfair and unjust, especially over a golf course." Crisis
Resolution On August 29, at the Mercier Bridge blockade, the Mohawks negotiated an end to their protest with Lieutenant Colonel Robin Gagnon, 'Van Doo' commander responsible for monitoring the blockades along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River west of Montreal. This resulted in the siege of the Kahnawake reserve being resolved. The Mohawks at Oka felt betrayed at the loss of their most effective bargaining chip, for once traffic was flowing again on the Mercier Bridge, the Quebec government rejected all further negotiations. On September 25, the final engagement of the crisis took place when a Mohawk warrior walked around the perimeter with a long stick, setting off the flares the army had set up to warn them of any escapes from the area. The army turned a hose on the man, but the hose lacked enough pressure to disperse a crowd. The Mohawks taunted the soldiers and then started throwing water balloons at them. By September 26 the Mohawks had had enough. They dismantled their guns and threw them in a fire, ceremonially burned tobacco and then walked out of the pines and back to the reservation. Many were detained by the Canadian Forces and arrested by the SQ. The Oka Crisis lasted seventy-eight days and resulted in the death of SQ Corporal Marcel Lemay. Two other deaths have also been indirectly attributed to the crisis: Joe Armstrong, a seventy-one-year-old World War II veteran who had died of a stress-induced heart attack after a confrontation with an angry Quebecois crowd; and an elderly Quebecois man who died after being exposed to tear gas on July 11. The golf-course expansion, which had originally triggered the situation, was cancelled. The Oka Crisis eventually precipitated the development of Canada's First Nations Policing Policy. Repercussions International response to the Oka Crisis was harsh. The International Federation of Human Rights has criticized the tactics of both the SQ and the Canadian Army. Amnesty International raised allegations of torture and abuses following the final arrest of six of the Mohawk people, and added Canada to its list of human rights violators. Mayor of Oka, Jean Ouellette was reelected in a landslide victory in 1991 and said of the crisis, "If I had to do it all again, I would," citing his responsibilities as mayor. A few years after the crisis, the Mohawks of Kahnawake established the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and started issuing "licences" to gambling operators who host their Internet gaming websites on their reserve. Both the Canadian and Quebec governments dispute the legality of this operation, but have not risked taking further action. The websites hosted by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission are the only gambling sites that have operated in North America without legal action being taken against them. Legacy Canadian filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin has made several documentaries about the Oka Crisis, including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance (1993) and Rocks at Whiskey Trench (2000). Another documentary by Alex MacLeod, called Acts of Defiance, also came out in 1993. All of these documentaries were produced by Canada's National Film Board. Micheal Baxendale and Craig MacLaine have written a book on the crisis, This Land Is Our Land: The Mohawk Revolt at Oka. Geoffrey York and Loreen Pindera's People of the Pines: The people and the Legacy of Oka (1991) is considered the definitive text on the subject. Gerald R. Alfred, a Kahnawake Mohawk who was part of the band council during the crisis, and who later went on to become a professor of Political Science, wrote Heeding the Voices of our Ancestors: Kahnawake Mohawk Politics and the Rise of Native Nationalism (1995), based on his dissertation. Robin Philpot has also written a book about the way the crisis was used as a political tool for English Canada, following the failed Meech Lake Accord: Oka: dernier alibi du Canada anglais (1991) Canadian punk band Propagandhi recorded a song about the Oka Crisis for their 1998 release Where Quantity Is Job #1. The song was entitled "I Would Very Much Like to See What Happened in Oka in 1990 Happen Everywhere", and, as the title would indicate, praised the actions of the Mohawk people. See also | ||||||||||
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