Six Nations
Oct 26th, 2009 by admin
In response to continuing development on Six Nations land, in February of 2006, members and allies of the Six Nations community set up barricades and began ‘occupying’ a portion of land known as Kanonhstaton. Kanonhstaton is loosely translated as “the protected place” and is also known as Douglas Creek Estates, in Caledonia—it is situated within the borders of the Haldimand Proclamation of 1784. This action was supported by the Clan Mothers, who issued a statement on March 20th, 2006, reaffirming Haudenosaunee sovereignty and calling for nation-to-nation negotiations. Shortly after the reclamation the Henning brothers, developers of the Douglas Creek Estates subdivision filed an injunction to remove protestors from the site. The injunction was granted by Justice T. David Marshall, and served to the protestors on March 3rd, 2006. Protestors burned the injunction, and refused to vacate the site.
At 5am on April 20, 2006, about 150 Ontario Provincial Police raided the site, armed with tasers, batons, tear gas, and pepper spray against unarmed Six Nations protesters. The OPP raided after promising Six Nations that they would not enter without notification. Unlike at Ipperwash, nobody was seriously injured, and the OPP were eventually driven off the site by Six Nations activists, non-native supporters, and the nearby Six Nations community, who immediately flooded to the site. Hazel Hill, one of the spokespeople at the time, in her ‘Report from the camp on police raid’ wrote, “we had hundreds of Six Nations people gathered at the site within the hour, and had the police surrounded at the back gate; and finally, the police agreed to withdraw. We marched them off the back gate, many women linking arms together walking police off our land followed by the rest”.
The Confederacy Council (traditional Haudenosaunee government) is being recognized in ongoing talks with the federal government in Caledonia regarding struggles for the land. At the time of writing, Six Nations Haudenosaunee are ‘negotiating’ with the federal government regarding compensation for Six Nations land that has been settled, unpaid leases, as well as the return of unsettled land belonging to Six Nations. I have the word ‘negotiating’ in quotation marks, as negotiation implies ‘bargaining in good faith’, which is something Six Nations community members do not see as happening. In fact, not much has been settled since negotiations began.
(text from the Solidarity with Six Nations website)