Posts: Oka crisis
2/27/2019 4:52 PM by sylvia.paul
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-publicized 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 permission 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.
[1]
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
On July 11, the
mayor asked the
Sûreté du Québec
to intervene on, citing Mohawk
criminal activity around the barricade. The Mohawk people, in accordance with
the Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy, asked the women, the caretakers
of the land and "
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