Over 30 years of Indigenous resistance with Mohawk land defender Ellen Gabriel

Thirty-four years ago, Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel was thrust into the spotlight when she was chosen as the spokesperson for the Kanienʼkehá:ka (Mohawk) communities of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke, as they resisted the planned expansion of a golf course on into their sacred lands and burial grounds in southern Quebec and police and military attempted to subdue them by force. 

“You do not call it the Oka Crisis,” Gabriel tells me, of the village near the golf course that media and Canadians generally use to refer to the confrontation. “Oka caused the crisis. It was Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke that were under siege, and were attacked because of the municipality of Oka and the private corporations behind the project.”

In the decades since the 78-day standoff ended, Gabriel has remained a steadfast defender of Indigenous homelands and an advocate for Indigenous Rights and sovereignty, particularly the rights of women. She has spoken at the United Nations and addressed Parliament, and served for more than six years as president of the Quebec Native Women’s Association, drawing connections between the protection of Indigenous lands and the rights, dignity and future of Indigenous nations. 

In a new book, When the Pine Needles Fall, Gabriel and settler historian Sean Carleton chart a course from the events of 1990 to the present, while extending into a generous and expansive vision of the future. The book, which they began writing in 2019, evolved during the pandemic, taking shape as a series of conversations that articulate the urgency and necessity of Indigenous resistance. Centring Gabriel’s own words through dialogue, Carleton writes, was a way to “divest my power and authority as an academic to create space for Ellen’s brilliance … to hold space and amplify Ellen’s voice, while also co-creating through conversation.” 

In a conversation with The Narwhal, Gabriel discussed the intentions behind the book, what’s changed (and what hasn’t) since 1990, and her vision for the future.

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

In the book, you discuss the biased and incomplete media coverage during the 1990 crisis in Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke. How can media do a better job of covering acts of Indigenous resistance and Indigenous land rights?

Learn about Canada’s real genocidal history. That’s one of the frustrations that I had, and that many of my community members had about the media, is that sometimes they had no clue. You know, there was the assumption that we didn’t exist anymore, that everything was taken care of, everything was settled, right? Media just took that at face value. But armed resistance is not new to Indigenous Peoples on Turtle Island. It was the way of the land when the colonizers came. 

So the approach by journalists was very naive and racist and ignorant, especially the French media. Overall [the media] is just a propaganda machine, as far as I’m concerned, for Canada and the provinces and the corporations. And we’re deemed to be the radical, ridiculous ones for defending our rights. So they didn’t see our rights as human beings, they didn’t see our rights to self-determination. 

All the commissions and reports that had gone out — from the [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples — there are recommendations for everyone at every level to learn the truth about how Canada was formed. But we see today that this is still not the case. They’re still teaching history the way I learned it in the ’70s: that we’re savages, and all these stupid stereotypes. So I think the media has a responsibility to search for the truth, and to dig deeper.

There have been some very significant victories in the recognition of Indigenous Rights and title, like the legislative recognition of Haida title over Haida Gwaii. But we’re still seeing Indigenous land defenders met with militarized violence in nations like Wet’suwet’en, and the same kind of justifications for that state violence provided by the media. Do you think that things have changed, in terms of how Indigenous struggles for recognition of rights are understood by non-Indigenous people? 

I think we’ve come a little further in the public understanding. But in terms of sovereignty and what that means, or land back and what that means, it’s superficial. And government has not changed. They just repackaged colonization. We’re still at the same point in regards to our land rights, our rights to self-determination, as we were in 1990 — and as we were since Canada’s inception. 

I see that there are more opportunities for Indigenous artists, filmmakers, writers — but how do you change the curriculum in the schools that would teach future lawyers, judges, policemen? To be sensitized to the history of colonization that we’re aware of, that we know and feel on a daily basis? If I look at my community, and it’s lawless, there’s nothing that has changed. We’ve lost more land. I don’t see anything as far as where I’m from — I don’t see any improvement whatsoever. In fact, I see us going backward. The community that was directly affected [by the siege] is still reeling from that trauma.

There’s so much more work to be done in regards to education, in regards to respecting our human rights. There’s a lot of rhetoric about inherent rights, but I don’t hear any politician talking about respect, and that’s a vital part of reconciliation. That’s a vital part of reparations. 

If I respect you, I will respect your personal space. I’ll respect your right to have peace, to live in security. I won’t interfere in that right. I’m not going to push you around. That’s not what Canada does. Canada creates a police force that continues to brutalize our people and laws. There is no justice when we go to court. 

If there was respect for our human rights, we would be getting land back without having to pay for it. We would not have the provinces interfering in the education of our children and youth. And we would have the resources needed to restore all of our pre-contact institutions, and to restore the authority of women in our communities. There’s a long way to go. It’s nice to think that everything has changed, but it really hasn’t.

You write about how the understanding of the crisis focused on the Mohawk men who were at the forefront of the standoff, whose photos appeared in media, while women were marginalized — both in the immediate and long-term narrative. Can you talk about the role of women and how decolonization, as you say in the book, requires restoring that balance?

I heard something really interesting, which is that instead of using the word decolonizing, it’s “Indigenizing”. And I think that really goes to the point of what we’re talking about as Indigenous Peoples, in the restoration of those values and institutions that helped our people survive for centuries. 

I can only speak for Haudenosaunee women — I can’t speak for your nation or other nations — but we have title to land. The clans are passed on through women. The women choose the chiefs. The women had an equal role in the Constitution of Kaianere’kó:wa, the Great Law of Peace. 

That summer, the men looked to the women for decisions. And the women would be the ones who were leading, through the words that were being said, and the support given to the men who were defending the people. But you never really saw that in the media; the focus was on the men, not the women who were negotiating and trying to help people not lose their minds. 

You know, people forget it was two communities that were under siege, denied our basic human rights. [In Kanehsatà:ke, closer to the golf course,] we went without food, water, medicine, that kind of stuff. And in Kahnawá:ke, there were 40 women on Highway 207 blocking Canadian Army tanks from coming in to raid the Longhouse. So the women were out there physically as warriors, but we were not recognized as that. 

It was this whole patriarchal perspective, but actually the women were in charge. 

As I was reading, I was thinking about the connections between extractive resource economies and violence against Indigenous women — which is an epidemic everywhere, but is concentrated in these regions where there are resource-based industries. 

Indigenous women who have been working on this issue for a long time — in 2004, my good friend Beverly Jacobs and Amnesty International wrote Stolen Sisters — have talked about the root cause, which is colonization and the dehumanization of Indigenous women. For us, this is not a woman’s problem. This is a man’s problem. The majority of the violence is by men. And the man camps are no different than when the first explorers came to Turtle Island and wanted to have women for sex, right? We’re seen as a commodity. We’re not actually equal to them as human beings. 

I think the rape of the land is personified in the rape of the women, and the murdered and missing Indigenous women, because we are not valued. The Earth is a commodity only — they don’t respect the land. They dig. They create destruction and devastation, and prevent future generations from enjoying those lands. And one of the things that I think is important to connect is that if there is a healthy environment, then there are healthy people.

The babies inside the mother’s womb, the water that keeps them growing and floating, all those aspects for us as Haudenosaunee — all those things that the women are responsible for — have been attacked by colonial laws and policies. [Mohawk scholar] Dawn Martin-Hill [is working on] a map of the majority of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and they are all near man camps. It goes to the respect of women, which is a value that is not taught to the little boys and young men, and that’s where the change needs to come from. Along with Indigenizing Canada’s laws.

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I’ve noticed commitments to Indigenous people being framed as “economic reconciliation,” the idea that prosperity and security will come from getting a cut of resource projects. In the book, you say many Indigenous leaders are challenged by the real urgency in many communities to meet basic needs. How do you think Indigenous nations can resist those short-term economic survival prospects in order to protect their homelands?

Well, colonial-rooted poverty will not be solved by more colonial solutions. On our traditional homelands — which extend far beyond the reserves that we’re allowed to live on — the government’s perspective is always “accommodating concerns” of Indigenous people, and talking about consultations rather than free, prior and informed consent. There are many court decisions that talk about the different levels of consultation. But free, prior and informed consent is much stronger, because you cannot be coerced into accepting, like: well, this will create jobs. That’s a form of coercion. What are the consequences of having this in our communities? 

I think often the band councils are making choices as politicians, and not as Indigenous Peoples — as if their role as an Indigenous person is secondary to their role as a leader in their community. So you have these rich corporations coming in and saying: ‘Oh, you’ll benefit from this.’ But what will it mean for picking our medicines — will that area be gone? What about the biodiversity? What about the long-term consequences? 

We are not creating sustainable economies. Service providers are the majority of our employers. I hear, ‘You’re against every kind of development.’ Well, I’m not against sustainable development. But if we’re looking at the climate crisis, the desertification, the floods that are erasing good agricultural soil … there has to be a better way to get out of this colonial root of poverty, where we’re not accepting these destructive forms of extraction. 

For traditional people — I’m not talking about all of the Mohawk Nation, I’m talking about traditional people — we think about the faces not yet born, and how our decisions today will impact the future, as our Elders did when we were those faces not yet born. We need to come up with a better approach if we’re going to be part of that solution for your children, your grandchildren. I think we’ve lost that. We’re just duplicating what Western society wants us to duplicate. 

What’s the way out of that?

Understanding your own culture. Having a strong sense of identity. And having discussions like, how are we going to get out of this? How are we going to survive? How are our teachings, our identities, our languages, our cultures going to survive? 

And we need to start using our minds for better purposes, other than trying to survive and doing whatever is the priority of the Canadian government to issue grants and financial arrangements.

Looking beyond our Indigenous nations, in the book, you and Sean discuss how important allies are for Indigenous resistance. What would you say to non-Indigenous people who want to be allies? 

Educate yourself. Don’t try to speak on our behalf. Support us. But more important, change the laws of Canada. Indigenize the laws to the First People’s values, those original values that helped us survive colonization. 

I have always believed that we should be assimilating the settlers and not the other way around. In small ways, we’re doing that, and getting them to understand who we are and our perspective.

But as human beings we’re flawed. We can be of the same nation but have different approaches, different beliefs. We’re not a monolithic culture, or a static one. And we have to have our rights respected, which includes our right to self-determination on our lands.

There need to be better discussions. There has to be stuff out there that they can use to Indigenize their institutions. Because reconciliation is not our job. Reconciliation is their job. They have to step up to the plate, and not be afraid to say, ‘You know, the Indian Act is pretty racist. Why are we still using it?’

Learning the genocidal history of Canada, but also looking at Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal: all those countries that came and killed our people. Then they’ll understand why we’re so angry sometimes.

One last question: what is your vision and hope for the future?

I go back to the constitution that I’m a part of [Kaianere’kó:wa]. The main mission of it is peace. And what does that mean? For me, I hope that the people on this beautiful little planet will wake up and see what really matters. Not just here on Turtle Island, but everywhere. I hope the Indigenous youth will start learning their languages and cultures. 

And I hope that we have time to heal. Every day, I see that in people who have been traumatized. You know, the six people who were killed in two weeks by the RCMP — some had mental health problems and probably some, if not all, had residual effects from the Indian residential school system. There’s a whole issue of feeling worthy, right? Our people need that, in order to have this future. But we don’t have time. Because what is coming will be worse than what we’ve seen. 

We need to help those who will survive, the faces not yet born. We need to do that today. To make that road a little bit easier for them. To push back against corporations, against corrupt politicians. We need to change our lives, to change how we consume. We need to learn how to love the Earth again. We need to respect her. 

I just hope that there will be peace — peace, love, compassion, respect. Those are some of the elements that our people believe in. I know it sounds like a really lofty dream, but it’s okay to dream.  That’s what people need to know: you don’t have to feel so alone, if you feel like something isn’t right in this big, capitalistic, colonial world we’re living in.