Speaker 1: Campsite Media. Hey everyone, we've got another bonus for you.
Speaker 1: We'll be back to Derek's story next week, but right now,
Speaker 1: I want to share a story I came across while
Speaker 1: reporting the series. It's about a handful of Mohawk activists
Speaker 1: back in the nineteen seventies who redefined what sovereignty could
Speaker 1: look like. The battle they fought laid the groundwork for
Speaker 1: the case that Derek is making today. Their story begins
Speaker 1: at a small campground in the Adirondacks. Today, the Adirondacks
Speaker 1: in Essex County, New York are only a day's drive
Speaker 1: from home for half the people in the United States
Speaker 1: and Canada. Reminds me of Switzerland. Moss Lake Camp is
Speaker 1: tucked away at an inlet at Eagle Bay, surrounded on
Speaker 1: all sides by forest and mountain range. It's that part
Speaker 1: of Upper New York State where you can't find any
Speaker 1: cell service and gas stations double as town squares, but
Speaker 1: that's sort of what makes it a perfect getaway for canoeing, fishing,
Speaker 1: and camping. And Scron Lake one of the most beautiful
Speaker 1: of the hundreds of lakes dot the Adirondack landscape. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of Switzerland. From the nine twenties all the
Speaker 1: way through to the nineteen seventies, Moss Lake hosted a
Speaker 1: girl Scout sleepaway camp. Thousands of girls would spend their
Speaker 1: summer breaks riding horses, playing tennis, practicing archery, sailing boats,
Speaker 1: and learning how to fence. Picture a perfect summer break postcard.
Speaker 1: And that was Moss Lake well until Mohawk warriors from
Speaker 1: Gonawaga arrived on winter and told the world that they
Speaker 1: were taking their land back from Campside Media and Dan
Speaker 1: Patrick Productions. This is Running Smoke. I'm Rogi Gola and
Speaker 1: this is our second d tour episode, the Standoff. In
Speaker 1: the course of reporting Running Smoke, I took a lot
Speaker 1: of drives between New York City and Montreal. It's a
Speaker 1: beautiful drive through the cat Skills and Adirondacks, with plenty
Speaker 1: of tiny towns along the way. Before colonists arrived in
Speaker 1: the America's this whole swath of wooded, mountainous land was
Speaker 1: Mohawk territory for the most part. That history has been
Speaker 1: totally wiped off the map, and just about all the
Speaker 1: Mohawk territories and reservations around today are in Canada. But
Speaker 1: on one of those drives, I took a small country
Speaker 1: road lined with abandoned barnes and forest proper middle of nowhere,
Speaker 1: and I ran across the sign that said Gnana Territorial
Speaker 1: High Stakes Bingo and there was a line of cars
Speaker 1: down the road for the smoke shop next door. Now,
Speaker 1: I may be a simple city slicking podcaster, but there
Speaker 1: seemed to be a story here. So I asked around
Speaker 1: to see if there was anyone in Gnange that could
Speaker 1: sit down with me and talk about the history of
Speaker 1: the place. And that's how I was introduced to this
Speaker 1: young man Um. My name is Rio de herne Um.
Speaker 1: I currently live here in the community on Bear Klan
Speaker 1: and I come from the family called Ryalwady told me
Speaker 1: the story of Ganyange actually began in Gnawake, Derek's territory.
Speaker 1: It was back in the late sixties and the community
Speaker 1: was dealing with internal tensions. Mohawk people, the traditional long
Speaker 1: house people there in Gonawaga, were having difficulty being able
Speaker 1: to practice who they are. The traditional culture practiced the
Speaker 1: long house and the laws and everything that um goes
Speaker 1: along with being a traditional Mohawk Indian. Now, a lot
Speaker 1: of Mohawk politics can get boiled down to divide in
Speaker 1: the community between folks who ascribed to an older form
Speaker 1: of Mohawk tradition and folks who split off from that
Speaker 1: back in the eighteen hundreds. It's a million times more
Speaker 1: complex and nuanced than that, of course, but for now,
Speaker 1: that's the divide Gnawaga was dealing with. One large effect
Speaker 1: of that split in the community was the presence of outsiders,
Speaker 1: white people. The offshoot community was happy to intermarry with
Speaker 1: white people and bring them onto the reserve, where as
Speaker 1: the more traditional community wasn't quite on board with that.
Speaker 1: There was maybe over a thousand um French people living
Speaker 1: in the community of Gonawaga at the time, and you know,
Speaker 1: the community was growing, and the long House people were saying, like,
Speaker 1: you know, why are so many people, Why are so
Speaker 1: many white people within our territory. You know, all our
Speaker 1: all of our all of our lands have been taken
Speaker 1: away from us, and we live on this little posted
Speaker 1: postage stamp size of of land. And yet they still
Speaker 1: they still want more, they still want to take that
Speaker 1: from us. You know, it was an issue that has
Speaker 1: divided the community for generations, and it is still immensely
Speaker 1: controversial in modern gotwage politics. But back in the seventies
Speaker 1: that question was amplified by the burgeoning Native rights movement
Speaker 1: sweeping across North America from Wounded Knee. The occupation of
Speaker 1: Wounded Knee ended yesterday on the Fifteen of the occupants
Speaker 1: were arrested. The others were allowed to go. Breathe in
Speaker 1: to Marlon Brando and Saggy Little's protests at the OSCARS
Speaker 1: accepted the award for Marlon Brando and the Gut Brother
Speaker 1: This Jock Little Feather. Hello, my name is Sashin Little Feather.
Speaker 1: I'm APACHE and I'm president of the National Native American
Speaker 1: Affirmative Image Committee. I'm representing Marlon Brando this evening. The
Speaker 1: reasons for this being are the treatment of American Indians
Speaker 1: today by the film industry excuse me and on television
Speaker 1: and movie reruns, and also with recent happenings at Wounded
Speaker 1: me the March on Washington, and the occupation of Alcatraz,
Speaker 1: and so many more acts of defiance against an oppressive
Speaker 1: system that had robbed Native Americans of their rights, dignity,
Speaker 1: and ancestral lands. Doug George Canndio, a Mohawk journalist and historian,
Speaker 1: was around when these things were all happening at that time.
Speaker 1: Gonalaga was influenced by this, and they decided that they're
Speaker 1: going to create something called a Warrior Society. The warriors
Speaker 1: were a remnant of old Mohawk tradition and represented a
Speaker 1: sort of Night's code for what a man should be
Speaker 1: and how he should serve as community. It was a
Speaker 1: revival of Mohawk pride. They're more protectors than anything else.
Speaker 1: The name they use for warriors, let's calla gheta at
Speaker 1: its root um refers to them providing, you know, that's
Speaker 1: what they do. The elders need more wood for their fireplace,
Speaker 1: the warriors will provide that. The garden needs tending. The
Speaker 1: warriors can help. The protest needs to be organized. The
Speaker 1: warriors got you. Warrior society needs symbols, It needs, you know,
Speaker 1: things that they can show. And so Louis Hall Duchy,
Speaker 1: who was an incredible artist and a great student of history, decides, well,
Speaker 1: how do we do this? You know what symbols can
Speaker 1: I come up with that that can we can use
Speaker 1: that define us as a group that's willing to to
Speaker 1: actually take a physical stand and fight. The flag featuring
Speaker 1: a long haired man over a sunburst against a red
Speaker 1: background became the symbol for resistance. It's the same flag
Speaker 1: depicted on Derek White's car. The formation of the Mohawk
Speaker 1: Warriors added fuel to the fire, and tensions in Gottawaga
Speaker 1: boiled over on October fifte and so basically the Mohawk Uh,
Speaker 1: the traditional traditional Mohawk people and all the other groups
Speaker 1: kind of clashed. The traditional community of Gonawaga had issued
Speaker 1: a notice for all outside people to leave the reserve,
Speaker 1: and October fifteen was supposed to be the deadline. Of course,
Speaker 1: things didn't pan out that way, and Mohawk Warriors staged
Speaker 1: a protest that quickly turned violent. Newspapers at the time
Speaker 1: called it the Siege at the Long House. So there
Speaker 1: was a lot of fighting going on and it came
Speaker 1: to the point where after one night it became very
Speaker 1: very violent. There was like it was like kind of
Speaker 1: like riots and um like police cars were being flipped
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. The Montreal Star reported that supposed
Speaker 1: outsiders were threatened, even though they lived in Gottawaga for generations.
Speaker 1: Homes were set on fire and cops fired tear gas,
Speaker 1: and once the dust settled, the traditional Mohawk people decided,
Speaker 1: you know, there has to be a better way. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to fight their their own people. So instead
Speaker 1: of going back out to cause any more heartache, they
Speaker 1: went to the Long House and they start having meetings.
Speaker 1: They start having meetings what are we gonna do? Like,
Speaker 1: how are we gonna approach this? Where are we gonna go?
Speaker 1: So they decided that they needed their own place. So
Speaker 1: some of the older people that were still alive at
Speaker 1: that time basically said that, you know, we have all
Speaker 1: of this land outside of this this community Gonawaga. We
Speaker 1: have this land. We have to go back to it.
Speaker 1: So the people decided, well, why don't we just do that,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. Yeah. They asked my brother and
Speaker 1: a cousin of mine. Um, they were just teenagers to
Speaker 1: enter this girl scult camp that they had found in
Speaker 1: the western at run Ducks. And they went into the
Speaker 1: camp and it had been, um a former girl scult camp,
Speaker 1: and the girl scults left it and they went in.
Speaker 1: The camp had actually been built in nineteen thirties as
Speaker 1: a camp for Native boys and girls, a summer camp.
Speaker 1: Here's how a booklet from one described the spot. Have
Speaker 1: you ever dreamed of the spot? Far? From the madding crowd,
Speaker 1: an ideal spot in the wilderness, away from the din
Speaker 1: and dirt and the noise of the city and the
Speaker 1: company with congenial friends. Wouldn't you like to know of
Speaker 1: a spot so near that it's easily reached, so well
Speaker 1: equipped that you can be as comfortable as at home,
Speaker 1: and yet wild, beautiful and unspoiled. The traditionalists now had
Speaker 1: a location to build their own community, but they were
Speaker 1: wary of being stymied, not just by law enforcement but
Speaker 1: their own community, so they kept the location a secret.
Speaker 1: They didn't want anybody else to know, so everybody else
Speaker 1: in the community of ghana Wage who was involved um
Speaker 1: didn't know the location, and that was for security reasons.
Speaker 1: They didn't want any policing agencies or anybody to get
Speaker 1: win of this, just in case they would attempt to
Speaker 1: stop them from from moving. They let out just enough
Speaker 1: false information that the location was going to be in Vermont,
Speaker 1: so it was a diversion. So in yeah, May thirteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three is when they ultimately decided to make
Speaker 1: the move. So they had gathered at the two oh
Speaker 1: seven long house in ghana Wage and they got all
Speaker 1: the people there they packed up everything. Some people just
Speaker 1: packed up whatever they could fit in their vehicle and
Speaker 1: left everything behind house Ferner sure, everything just what they
Speaker 1: could fit, and then they took off. Nobody knew this location,
Speaker 1: but they just kept driving. The border between New York
Speaker 1: State and Vermont. There was state police and different policing
Speaker 1: agencies kind of set up along the border just to
Speaker 1: catch anybody trying to come in, like any any any
Speaker 1: Indians trying to come into the States. So while everybody
Speaker 1: was looking over here, the rest of the traditional people
Speaker 1: were moving in the opposite direction. They arrived about five
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and it was raining. They just
Speaker 1: arrived and they set up and they just slept in
Speaker 1: there in their vehicles that night. In the morning when
Speaker 1: they all woke up and they started exploring some of
Speaker 1: the cabins and the the recreation hall I believe it
Speaker 1: was was still was still there um and it was
Speaker 1: scheduled to be torn down maybe a week later, and
Speaker 1: it just you know, so they got lucky there and
Speaker 1: they just went in and they occupied it. It seems
Speaker 1: like a great fine, but they realized very quickly for
Speaker 1: the first winter that this was not place where mawks
Speaker 1: actually lived. They hunted, but it was too cold for
Speaker 1: them to grow gardens, you know, to grow the things
Speaker 1: they needed to sustain their lives. It's great for hunting
Speaker 1: hulk or moose or whatever it was, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: a place for mawks would established permanent villages. Hence the
Speaker 1: whole summer camp thing. Winter camp just didn't work there.
Speaker 1: So I heard one story that a woman donated two
Speaker 1: horses to uh Lewis Hall and a couple of years
Speaker 1: later asked how they how the horses treated them, and
Speaker 1: he said they tasted good. Yeah, yeah, you know, things
Speaker 1: are tough. So Moss Lake was cold as hell and
Speaker 1: not the best for growing food, but there were still
Speaker 1: advantages to the location. It was a tiny lake and
Speaker 1: surrounding this lake was essentially like mountains, so it provided
Speaker 1: a good protection, a good fortress for the people at
Speaker 1: the time. Because it was there was a lot of roadblocks.
Speaker 1: The state police where there, and you know, there was
Speaker 1: tension there, you know, every day the people that the
Speaker 1: people didn't know whether the police are gonna come in
Speaker 1: or not or when, so they were on The tensions
Speaker 1: were high for for quite some time, and so from
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three to nineteen seventy seven, um Ganyaga existed
Speaker 1: in Eagle Bay, and throughout those three years there was
Speaker 1: over two hundred negotiations between the State of New York, UM,
Speaker 1: the federal government, and the people of Ganyaga about how
Speaker 1: they're gonna how they're gonna deal with the situation. At first,
Speaker 1: they just wanted to kick the people out of the territory.
Speaker 1: But at the time the people were lucky because the
Speaker 1: world was watching, so it kind of kept them back,
Speaker 1: um from doing anything. So within that time they negotiated
Speaker 1: back and forth, like whose land is it? Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it the State of New York? Is it the
Speaker 1: traditional people? And do you you The white people will say,
Speaker 1: you know, you proved to us that this land belongs
Speaker 1: to you. But the traditional people switched. They said, no,
Speaker 1: this line belongs to us. We've been here since time memorial.
Speaker 1: You proved to us that it belongs to you. And
Speaker 1: so they were never able to prove the land belong
Speaker 1: to them throughout those three years. That's what they tried
Speaker 1: back and forth. They couldn't prove the land was theirs.
Speaker 1: And even though it was never officially publicized, we are
Speaker 1: are legitimate, we are correct that the land belongs to
Speaker 1: us uh and it doesn't belong to the State of
Speaker 1: New York where it does not belong to the federal government.
Speaker 1: That's to me, is incredible that the traditionalists were successful
Speaker 1: in getting the New York government, the American government to
Speaker 1: grant them land rights of any kind, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: just it seems extraordinary given the history. I don't know
Speaker 1: any other examples where something like this has been successful, either,
Speaker 1: do I. I don't know of any other examples right now,
Speaker 1: any situation that anybody else has has been able to
Speaker 1: pull off that similar to what Kanyanga has been able
Speaker 1: to do. Um as with the the United States federal
Speaker 1: government or New York State, it's not it's not that
Speaker 1: they granted us. They were forced to acknowledge and give
Speaker 1: us back our land, so we we just took it back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to your running smoke. Once New York State
Speaker 1: had agreed to return territories to the Mohawks, there's still
Speaker 1: one more step left, actually returning the land. Turns out
Speaker 1: it wasn't a straightforward hand over. The State of New
Speaker 1: York had to figure out how they were going to
Speaker 1: deal with the situation. How are they gonna deal with
Speaker 1: it without having to tell the public. There are people
Speaker 1: that the land doesn't belong to them. Uh So, in
Speaker 1: order to save face, they basically created a trust, a
Speaker 1: Turtle Island Trust is what it's called. And that was
Speaker 1: a nonprofit organization that gang the people of Gunyaga and
Speaker 1: the land can be put into. Uh So, it's not
Speaker 1: taxed and it can't be touched. Part of this deal
Speaker 1: with New York was that they needed a new location.
Speaker 1: Most Lake was great, but completely unsustainable. They needed a
Speaker 1: place that was better for agriculture and year round living.
Speaker 1: They liked the location here, which is originally was called
Speaker 1: Minor Lake. So they moved here in ninety seven. And
Speaker 1: we're just simply moving from one part of our territory
Speaker 1: to the other. All that land, all the the land
Speaker 1: in the Adirondaic Mountains, nine million acres within New York
Speaker 1: State is Mohawk land. We're not relinquishing that. And then
Speaker 1: ever since we've been here, we've been kind of developing slowly.
Speaker 1: Younge was founded on principles of true traditional Mohawk life, hunting, fishing,
Speaker 1: and farming for your own food, real self sufficiency and
Speaker 1: respect for the land. It was regarded by many mohawks,
Speaker 1: is one of the few places where real mohawk life
Speaker 1: could actually still be practiced. It was a place of
Speaker 1: such purity that it even served as a drug and
Speaker 1: alcohol rehab location for natives from around the country. But
Speaker 1: even a community built on such strong principal tenants has
Speaker 1: to make compromises somewhere just to survive in the modern world. So, um,
Speaker 1: when we first got here, we didn't have very many
Speaker 1: We didn't have you know, essentially, we didn't have any anything.
Speaker 1: We're pretty poor, nom, no money whatnot. So a lot
Speaker 1: of people would kind of give us donations food, um, clothing.
Speaker 1: So with these donations, um, sometimes we would get other
Speaker 1: things like beads or sometimes that women would buy beads
Speaker 1: and and sewing thread and which they started making craft
Speaker 1: And so with they started making crafts and selling it.
Speaker 1: They made the money from the crafts, and that's what
Speaker 1: they put towards the cigarettes. And so they would buy
Speaker 1: like one case of cigarettes at a time, and they
Speaker 1: would travel back and forth from Guanyanga to Akwazasne getting
Speaker 1: the one case of cigarettes today, so they would sell that.
Speaker 1: Then they would take that money and go buy another
Speaker 1: case and next you know, it was like two cases,
Speaker 1: then it was three, and so on and so forth,
Speaker 1: until you know, we were getting many, many cases of
Speaker 1: cigarettes and that's how our cigarette business started. One of
Speaker 1: the first things that was built here was the Bengal
Speaker 1: Holl to help generate some income so we can start
Speaker 1: moving forward with the projects that we needed to get
Speaker 1: done or what the projects that we felt most important
Speaker 1: portant to us. Since then, we've we've developed, UM, we
Speaker 1: have a gas station over here, we have a small
Speaker 1: holistic center, m we have a golf course that's being developed.
Speaker 1: The first nine is pretty well developed. They're they're working
Speaker 1: on the back nine right now. And yeah, and then
Speaker 1: we were once we got enough money, we were able
Speaker 1: to build a school. I think they were altered. There
Speaker 1: could have been alternatives. We didn't need to fixate on tobacco.
Speaker 1: We didn't need it was it was the thing that
Speaker 1: produced a great deal of profit, and it did so
Speaker 1: fairly quickly. The same with the Bengal Hall. And UH.
Speaker 1: The traditional rules UH say that we're not supposed to
Speaker 1: get involved with that commercial activity because it brings harm
Speaker 1: to people. You know, it creates an addiction and it
Speaker 1: exploits people. The weakness. It's based on greed, and the
Speaker 1: same with tobacco, as I mentioned before, because it is
Speaker 1: a sacred thing. There were I think that we're alternatives
Speaker 1: to doing this, but I think people by that time,
Speaker 1: you know, we're geared towards a high profit at that
Speaker 1: minimum effort, and so that's what they that's what they did.
Speaker 1: But forty three years later they're still there. So I
Speaker 1: give him enormous credit. It's not a community where you
Speaker 1: have one or two people that have all the money.
Speaker 1: You know that it's fairly share. It's share or do
Speaker 1: I think fairly equitabilia for whoever loves here. So that's
Speaker 1: that's actually a good example of all thinks these things
Speaker 1: can be done. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next
Speaker 1: week with the final episode of Running Smoke. Running Smokes
Speaker 1: a production of Campsite Media, Dan Patrick Productions, and Workhouse Media.
Speaker 1: The series was written and reported by me Roger Gola.
Speaker 1: Our producers are Leah Papes, Blaine Gerbig, and Julie Dennischet.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Michelle Lands and Emily Martinez. Sound designed
Speaker 1: and original music by Mark McAdam, additional sound and mixing
Speaker 1: by Ewen Lyone from Ewan, additional reporting by Susie McCarthy,
Speaker 1: our executive producers or Dan Patrick, Josh Deano camp said,
Speaker 1: Media Paul Anderson, Nicknella, and Andrew Greenwood for workhouse media,
Speaker 1: fact checking by Mary Matthis and Angelie mccotty, artwork by
Speaker 1: Polly Adams, and additional thanks to Greg Horne Johnny Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Sierra Franco Blue has been Van Brocklyn and Shawn Flynn
Speaker 1: h