Kahnawake Iroquois and the Rebellions of 1837–38

The Iroquois community of Kahnawake played a unique role in the Lower Canada Rebellions, part of the greater Rebellions of 1837.

Situated between the Montréal and Lachine British-Army headquarters and the Patriote-friendly Châteauguay River Valley, the Kahnawake Iroquois rapidly found a place in this context of civil war and revolutionary crisis.

Aiding British armed forces

Existing works have discussed to some extent the involvement of the Iroquois on three different occasions during which they intervened by cooperating with the British:

November 1838 raid on Kahnawake

Kahnawake oral history accounts that a local unnamed woman searching the bushes for her lost cow saw the Patriotes and alerted the community. Although this account is often dismissed by non-Native historians, there are some sources that indicate that Kahnawake resident Marie Kawananoron did indeed see the Patriotes at the outskirts of the village. Although the subsequent events are more complex, including a trap set up by the Mohawks to lure the Patriotes into the village, the oral account does seem to have some documentary evidence to support it.

Investigators have traditionally failed to take on an insider's perspective of the Rebellions as they were lived and assessed by the Iroquois. Further, when attempts have been made to explore the underlying causes of Kahnawake's involvement, interpretive research has been quite limited. There has been a generalized tendency to view the Kahnawake Iroquois as a group of loyal Indians acting in defense of the British Crown.

On the contrary, the actions of the Kahnawake people were not necessarily grounded in an outright allegiance to the British Crown. Indeed, it is possible that a wide and complex mixture of socio-economic, political, and cultural factors shaped the behavior of the community, in general, and of specific Kahnawake people. Some of these factors are heavily detailed in the letters of, Joseph Marcoux, the secular priest residing in Kahnawake during the time of the Rebellions.

For instance, at the time, the Indian Department was seeking ways to reduce its expenses by curtailing annuities it had been providing to Native people. By collaborating with the Crown, the people of Kahnawake may have been hoping to maintain the flow of annual presents, and thus protect interests which they felt belonged to them as "Indians". Also, in, perhaps the relations between Kahnawake and its French-Canadian neighbours as well as between the former and the Patriotes were marked by mutual mistrust and suspicion. These relationships did indeed shape Kahnawake's intervention. Given the relative importance of factionalism in Iroquois political culture, the village of Kahnawake experienced internal disputes at the time of the Rebellions. Studies have suggested that despite the common presence of divisive tendencies within Native American communities, whose sense of collective identity can prevail in the face of an external threat to resources, land, and identity. In the case of the Rebellions, a perceived external threat to Native land, life, and identity effectively united the entire Kahnawake community. Finally, the oral historical tradition of Kahnawake maintains that the Iroquois intervened in the Rebellions in order to protect their land and express their identity. Drawing on this tradition, David Blanchard writes that it

"was not necessary to reward the Kanienkehaka for defending their own lands. By defending their land, the Kanienkehaka had not joined with the British against the French. They had simply been protecting the interests of the people of Kahnawake. Such a defense did not make the Kanienkehaka pro-British or anti-French. It simply showed that they were Kanienkehaka."" [1]

The documentary record does show that in the end, the will to defend land and identity, united the Kahnawake Iroquois and ultimately shaped their intervention. Factional disputes which enhanced individual interests among Kahnawake residents during the 1830s were temporarily dissolved. Based on recent research, it can therefore be concluded that the decision of the Kahnawake Iroquois to intervene in the Rebellions may have been prompted by a powerful desire to protect common interests as well as a strong community will to defend and express a collective identity.

Notes

  1. ↑ Blanchard, Seven Generations

References

See also

French Wikipedia article: fr:Attitude des Amérindiens du Bas-Canada lors des rébellions de 1837-1838

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