Examines the conflict that exists between the Mohawk Warrior Movement and Canada within the context of the Mohawk nation's struggle for national self-determination.

During 1990, a land dispute between the Mohawk territory of Kanehsatake and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada took center stage in the world community, erupting into months of intense and often violent confrontation. Rooted in the historical reality of past injustices, the events of the 1990 Mohawk-Oka conflict epitomized the relationship and struggles which exists between Aboriginal nations, ethnonationalist movements, and the state. By examining the Mohawk-Oka conflict, this book tells a story of struggle and survival during the 1990 invasion by the Quebec provincial police and Canadian army into Mohawk sovereign land. The story is one of an embattled nation's struggle and aboriginal right to determine its political and economic destiny. Through extensive research of archived documents, newspapers, and interviews with leaders and members of the Mohawk Warrior Movement and other central figures in the Mohawk nation, the author demonstrates how politicized ethnicity and ideology can become significant factors in the repertoire of indigenous ethno-nationalist social movements for generating and maintaining social protest.

Mohawk Interruptus is a bold challenge to dominant thinking in the fields of Native studies and anthropology. Combining political theory with ethnographic research among the Mohawks of Kahnawà:ke, a reserve community in what is now southwestern Quebec, Audra Simpson examines their struggles to articulate and maintain political sovereignty through centuries of settler colonialism. The Kahnawà:ke Mohawks are part of the Haudenosaunee or Iroquois Confederacy. Like many Iroquois peoples, they insist on the integrity of Haudenosaunee governance and refuse American or Canadian citizenship. Audra Simpson thinks through this politics of refusal, which stands in stark contrast to the politics of cultural recognition. Tracing the implications of refusal, Simpson argues that one sovereign political order can exist nested within a sovereign state, albeit with enormous tension around issues of jurisdiction and legitimacy. Finally, Simpson critiques anthropologists and political scientists, whom, she argues, have too readily accepted the assumption that the colonial project is complete. Belying that notion, Mohawk Interruptus calls for and demonstrates more robust and evenhanded forms of inquiry into indigenous politics in the teeth of settler governance.

Indigenous traditions can be uplifting, positive, and liberating forces when they are connected to living systems of thought and practice. Problems arise when they are treated as timeless models of unchanging truth that require unwavering deference and unquestioning obedience. Freedom and Indigenous Constitutionalism celebrates the emancipatory potential of Indigenous traditions, considers their value as the basis for good laws and good lives, and critiques the failure of Canadian constitutional traditions to recognize their significance. Demonstrating how Canada’s constitutional structures marginalize Indigenous peoples’ ability to exercise power in the real world, John Borrows uses Ojibwe law, stories, and principles to suggest alternative ways in which Indigenous peoples can work to enhance freedom. Among the stimulating issues he approaches are the democratic potential of civil disobedience, the hazards of applying originalism rather than living tree jurisprudence in the interpretation of Aboriginal and treaty rights, American legislative actions that could also animate Indigenous self-determination in Canada, and the opportunity for Indigenous governmental action to address violence against women.

The first collection of its kind, this anthology by members of the Mohawk Warrior Society uncovers a hidden history and paints a bold portrait of the spectacular experience of Kanien'kehá:ka survival and self-defense. Providing extensive documentation, context, and analysis, the book features foundational writings by prolific visual artist and polemicist Karoniaktajeh Louis Hall (1918–1993)—such as his landmark 1979 pamphlet, The Warrior's Handbook, as well as selections of his pioneering artwork. This book contains new oral history by key figures of the Rotisken'rhakéhte's revival in the 1970s, and tells the story of the Warriors’ famous flag, their armed occupation of Ganienkeh in 1974, and the role of their constitution, the Great Peace, in guiding their commitment to freedom and independence. We hear directly the story of how the Kanien'kehá:ka Longhouse became one the most militant resistance groups in North America, gaining international attention with the Oka Crisis of 1990. This auto-history of the Rotisken'rhakéhte is complemented by a Mohawk history timeline from colonization to the present, a glossary of Mohawk political philosophy, and a new map of Iroquoia in Mohawk language. At last, the Mohawk Warriors can tell their own story with their own voices, and to serve as an example and inspiration for future generations struggling against the environmental, cultural, and social devastation cast upon the modern world.

In the summer of 1990, the Oka Crisis—or the Kanehsatake Resistance—exposed a rupture in the relationships between settlers and Indigenous peoples in Canada. In the wake of the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, the conflict made visible a contemporary Indigenous presence that Canadian society had imagined was on the verge of disappearance. The 78-day standoff also reactivated a long history of Indigenous people’s resistance to colonial policies aimed at assimilation and land appropriation. The land dispute at the core of this conflict raises obvious political and judicial issues, but it is also part of a wider context that incites us to fully consider the ways in which histories are performed, called upon, staged, told, imagined, and interpreted. Stories of Oka: Land, Film, and Literature examines the standoff in relation to film and literary narratives, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous. This new English edition of St-Amand’s interdisciplinary, intercultural, and multi-perspective work offers a framework for thinking through the relationships that both unite and oppose settler societies and Indigenous peoples in Canada.

Landmark work illustrates the history of North American indigenous resistance and the struggle for land rights.