
POLICIES OF OPPRESSION IN THE NAME OF "DEMOCRACY"

Economic History of the Hau de no sau nee:

The Hau de no sau nee, People of the Longhouse, who are known to many 
Europeans as the Six nations Iroquois, have inhabited their territories 
since time immemorial. During the time prior to the coming of the 
Europeans, it is said that ours were a happy and prosperous people. Our 
lands provided abundantly for our needs. Our people lived long, healthy, 
and productive lives. Before the Europeans came, we were an affluent 
people, rich in the gifts of our country. We were a strong people in both 
our minds and bodies. Throughout most of that time, we lived in peace.

Prior to the arrival of the colonists, we were a people who lived by 
hunting and gathering, and practiced a form of agriculture which was not 
labor intensive. The economy of the people was an extremely healthful Way 
of Life, and our peoples were very healthy -- among the finest athletes in 
the world. There were some, in those times, who lived to be 120 years and 
more, and our runners were unexcelled for speed and endurance.

Among our people we refer to our culture as "OngweHonwekah." This refers 
to a Way of Life that is peculiar to the Hau de no sau nee. It is 
virtually impossible to us to recount, specifically, the history of "Hau 
de no sau nee economics." As will become evident, our economy, that way in 
which our people manage their resources, and the relationship of that 
management to the total organization of our society, are processes 
completely bound together. The distribution of goods, in our traditional 
society, was accomplished through institutions which are not readily 
identified as economic institutions by other societies. The Hau de no sau 
nee do not have specific economic institutions. Rather, what European 
people identify as institutions of one classification or another serve 
many different purposes among the Hau de no sau nee.

We were a people of a great forest. That forest was a source of great 
wealth. It was a place in which was to be found huge hardwoods and an 
almost unimaginable abundance and variety of nuts, berries, roots, and 
herbs. In addition to these, the rivers teemed with fish and the forest 
and its meadows abounded with game. It was, in fact, a kind of Utopia, a 
place where no one went hungry, a place where the people were happy and 
healthy.

Our traditions were such that we were careful not to allow our populations 
to rise in numbers that would overtax the other forms of life. We 
practiced strict forms of conservation. Our culture is based on a 
principle that directs us to constantly think about the welfare of seven 
generations into the future. Our belief in this principle acts as a 
restraint to the development of practices which would cause suffering in 
the future. To this end, our people took only as many animals as were 
needed to meet our needs. Not until the arrival of the colonists did the 
wholesale slaughter of animals occur.

We feel that many people will be confused when we say that ours is a Way 
of Life, that our economy cannot be separated from the many aspects of our 
culture. Our economy is unlike that of Western peoples. We believe that 
all things in the world were created by what the English language forces 
us to call "Spiritual Beings," including one that we call the Great 
Creator. All things in this world belong to the Creator and the spirits of 
the world. We also believe that we are required to honor these beings, in 
respect of the gift of Life.

In accordance with our ways, we are required to hold many kinds of feasts 
and ceremonies which can best be described as "give-aways." It is said 
that among our people, our leaders, those whom the Anglo people insist on 
calling "chiefs," are the poorest of us. By the laws of our culture, our 
leaders are both political and spiritual leaders. They are leaders of many 
ceremonies which require the distribution of great wealth. As 
spiritual/political leaders, they provide a kind of economic conduit. To 
become a political leader, a person is required to be a spiritual leader, 
and to become a spiritual leader a person must be extraordinarily generous 
in terms of material goods.

Our leaders, in fact, are leaders of categories of large extended 
families. Those large extended families function as economic units in a 
Way of Life which has as its base the Domestic Mode of Production. Before 
the colonists came, we had our own means of production and distribution 
adequate to meet all the peoples' needs. We would have been unable to 
exist as nations were it not so.

Our basic economic unit is the family. The means of distribution, aside 
from simple trade, consists of a kind of spiritual tradition manifested in 
the functions of the religious/civic leaders in a highly complex 
religious, governmental, and social structure.

The Hau de no sau nee have no concept of private property. This concept 
would be a contradiction to a people who believe that the Earth belongs to 
the Creator. Property is an idea by which people can be excluded from 
having access to lands, or other means of producing a livelihood. That 
idea would destroy our culture, which requires that every individual live 
in service to the Spiritual Ways and the People. That idea (property) 
would produce slavery. The acceptance of the idea of property would 
produce leaders whose functions would favor excluding people from access 
to property, and they would cease to perform their functions as leaders of 
our societies and distributors of goods.

Before the colonists came, we had no consciousness about a concept of 
commodities. Everything, even the things we make, belong to the Creators 
of Life and are to be returned ceremonially, and in reality, to the 
owners. Our people live a simple life, one unencumbered by the need of 
endless material commodities. The fact that their needs are few means that 
all the peoples' needs are easily met. It is also true that our means of 
distribution is an eminently fair process, one in which all of the people 
share in all the material wealth all of the time.

Our Domestic Mode of Production has a number of definitions which are 
culturally specific. Our peoples' economy requires a community of people 
and is not intended to define an economy based on the self-sufficient 
nuclear family. Some modern economists estimate that in most parts of the 
world, the isolated nuclear family cannot produce enough to survive in a 
Domestic Mode of Production. In any case, that particular mode of 
subsistence, by our cultural definition, is not an economy at all.

Ours was a wealthy society. No one suffered from want. All had the right 
to food, clothing, and shelter. All shared in the bounty of the spiritual 
ceremonies and the Natural World. No one stood in any material 
relationship of power over anyone else. No one could deny anyone access to 
the things they needed. All in all, before the colonists came, ours was a 
beautiful and rewarding Way of Life.

The colonists arrived with many institutions and strategies designed to 
destroy the Way of Life of the People of the Longhouse. In 1609, Samuel 
deChamplain led a French military expedition that attacked a party of 
Mohawk people on the lake now named "Lake Champlain." Champlain arrived in 
search of wealth and was specifically interested in generating some kind 
of trade in beaver pelts with the Algonquin people of the area. He 
demonstrated his firearms to them, letting them see, for the first time, 
the power of guns.

Champlain, accompanied by his newly-found business partners, marched into 
the center of Mohawk territory. This war party encountered a party of 
about 200 Mohawks. The first volley of gunfire killed three men, and the 
second created such confusion that the Mohawks retreated, leaving twelve 
men who were taken captive.

The period of warfare which followed this incident has come to be known as 
the "Beaver Wars." The introduction of trade in beaver pelts inevitably 
triggered a long series of colonial wars. It represented the escalation of 
disputes among neighbors into a full-scale struggle for survival in the 
forests of the Native people of North America.

The European penetration affected every facet of the Native Way of Life 
from the very moment of contact. The natural economies, cultures, 
politics, and military affairs became totally altered. Nations learned 
that to be without firearms meant physical annihilation. To be without 
access to beaver pelts meant no means to buy firearms.

The trade in beaver pelts, and the now necessary weaponry, introduced 
factors never before encountered by the Native people. Trade meant that 
long routes over which goods were to be transported had to be secured. The 
only way that was possible was for the entire area to be in friendly 
hands. Any potential disruptor of the trade routes must either be pacified 
or eliminated.

With the introduction of firearms, war became a deadly business. It was 
made more deadly because the European strategy of economic penetration was 
to stimulate warfare among the Native nations which would have the goods 
for trade. Out of necessity, to protect themselves from annihilation, the 
People of the Longhouse entered the beaver trade. The pelts were used to 
buy more firearms and goods that made it possible for more men to trap 
more beaver more efficiently. The marketplaces of France, Holland, and 
England were eager for the "New World" merchandise.

Shortly after the encounter on Lake Champlain, the Hau de no sau nee began 
trading with Holland, which had established posts along the Hudson River. 
A large part of the trade involved firearms. French historians recount 
that the People of the Longhouse were very skillful at the strategies of 
battle, and within a short time, the Algonquin people were defeated. Their 
defeat was aided by the fact that the French had not taken seriously their 
pledges of aid to the Algonquin.

So intense became the need for European goods, especially firearms, that 
by 1640 the beaver were becoming scarce in the Hau de no sau nee 
territories. Pressure from the newly created European frontiers was 
steadily increasing. Warfare was also common between the various 
colonizers. The Hau de no sau nee were well aware of what was occurring to 
the East. The Dutch, shortly after their arrival, began a series of 
genocidal wars that ended in the utter annihilation of the Native peoples 
of the Lower Hudson River Valley. In New England, the Pequot nation was 
nearly obliterated by the Puritan and English colonists there.

Knowledge of these massacres greatly influenced Hau de no sau nee defense 
policy. To the East were the Dutch and English, whose presence was 
necessary as a source of firearms. Yet, they represented a constant 
potential of movement of their frontiers westward into the Longhouse. To 
the North was the colony of France, which was supplying arms to the 
Western Native nations. France also threatened to gain a monopoly over the 
beaver trade which was increasingly centered to the north and west of 
Lakes Erie and Ontario.

France made repeated attempts to send missionaries, especially Jesuits, 
among the nations of the Hau de no sau nee. These missions were the major 
tool of propaganda for the European nations. Missionaries then, as today, 
are expected to carry more than the message of Christianity. They serve as 
lay ambassadors of their culture, splitting off individuals from families, 
families from villages, villages from nations, one by one. Some priests 
even served as the leaders of troops going into battle.

The missionaries made persistent attacks on the economic structures of the 
People of the Longhouse. They specifically attacked the spiritual 
ceremonies as "pagan," and thereby sought to end the practice of give- 
aways and public feasts. In addition, they sought to break the power of 
the clans by causing division which would split the people into nuclear 
households.

European churches, especially in colonial practice, take on their feudal 
roles as economic institutions. Among natural world people, they are the 
most dangerous agents of destruction. They invariably seek to destroy the 
spiritual/economic bonds of the people to the forests, land and animals. 
They spread both ideologies and technologies which make people slaves to 
the extractive system which defines colonialism.

In 1704, the first Anglican missionaries were sent, by England, to the 
Mohawks living along the Mohawk River. In 1710, a delegation of Mohawk 
chiefs received an invitation to visit England. They returned bearing four 
bibles, a prayer book and a communion plate for the Anglican chapel, gifts 
from Queen Anne. But the missionaries also brought behind them a long, 
long tail. To house themselves they needed a mission, to protect the 
mission they needed a fort, and to propagate the faith, they needed a 
school. Missionaries spread more than the word of God. The British Empire 
was fast entering the Hau de no sau nee territories, and there was more to 
come.

The warlike European kingdoms were constantly fighting among themselves. 
There were three wars during the 18th Century just between France and 
England. Queen Anne's War (1701 to 1713,) King George's War (1744 to 
1748,) and the "French and Indian War," known to the European world as the 
"War of the Spanish Succession," (1754 to 1763.) It is clear from the 
records of the time that the People of the Longhouse remained neutral 
throughout these conflicts. Although individuals on the road to 
assimilation, such as the Anglicized Mohawks, who had been coerced into 
roles as British peasants, could be counted on to aid the colonizers.

If France was unsuccessful in her attempts at military penetration of the 
territory of the Longhouse, England was far more successful in her social 
and religious colonization of the Eastern part of our territories. William 
Johnson was an Irish immigrant who became famous for his influence over 
certain Mohawks. As an agent of the British Crown, he maintained an 
embassy as an operational base close to the Mohawk country. He took 
several Native women as concubines and had several children by them, none 
of which he ever recognized as heirs. His position was known as "British 
Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Northern Department." He is 
widely credited, by European historians, as a successful manipulator of 
events and developments on the frontier during his tenure. In today's 
context, Johnson would be working as an ambassador to a Third World 
country, executing simultaneously diplomatic, military, intelligence, and 
foreign aid operations.

During his tenure he engineered the establishment of a beachhead from 
which immigrants could be sent Westward to broaden the colony. Mohawk 
lands along the Susquehanna and Mohawk Rivers were increasingly encroached 
upon by British settlers, including Johnson himself. By the Spring of 
1765, the carefully managed Longhouse environment was in trouble as 
ignorant and destructive peasant settlers almost eradicated the deer 
herds.

There was so much trouble with the peasant settlers that the Mohawks, who 
had so generously allowed them to share their lands, were actually 
considering moving Westward into Oneida territories to gain some more 
peace. By the Spring of 1765, many Mohawks had already been displaced and 
were living as refugees among the other nations.

William Johnson was a master public relations man for the King. He would, 
on the one hand, apologize for the behavior of the frontiersmen and urge 
the Mohawks to be patient, and on the other hand encourage more settlers 
to move in to the Mohawk lands. He would make a great show of protecting 
Hau de no sau nee interests, and in that way encourage the People of the 
Longhouse to seek a resolution at the bargaining table were they 
invariably ended up trading land to gain a temporary peace.

Throughout this period many other Native peoples had been moving into our 
territories to gain some respite from the colonial onslaught. Far to the 
South, in the colonized area known as the Carolinas, the Tuscarora were 
faced with imminent destruction. In their drive to gain some more land and 
economic advantage, English colonizers were using the same techniques 
which were being employed in the Northeast. In 1713, the dispossessed 
Tuscaroras withdrew from their homelands and sought protection in the 
territories of the Hau de no sau nee. They were not the only people who 
were displaced. Delawares, Tuteloes, Shawnees and others fled to the Hau 
de no sau nee lands seeking peace.

Peace, however, was not to be. At the approach of the American revolution, 
the Hau de no sau nee did everything possible to remain neutral. With the 
decline of France, and the increasing decline in the importance of trade, 
the settler bourgeoisie of the Anglo colonies cast an increasingly envious 
eye on the lands of the Longhouse. Still our military power was 
formidable, and our resolve was to remain neutral.

The policy of England, however, was to involve the Hau de no sau nee in 
the war. To accomplish this goal, they resorted to bribery, trickery, 
false propaganda, and the emotional appeal. The Hau de no sau nee 
continued its policy of neutrality throughout. Both the colonists and the 
"Loyalists" entered our territories in search of mercenaries. The loyalist 
strategy was the more successful. They were able to draw out some of our 
people into a battle with the revolting colonists.

The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war, made no provision, at least in 
writing, for the Native nations, which the British Crown had solemnly 
promised to protect. Thus the representatives of the People of the 
Longhouse held an international treaty meeting with the new federation 
called the United States of America in September of 1784. The U.S. 
demanded huge cessions of territory, especially from the Senecas. The 
warriors who had been delegated to the meeting eventually signed the 
treaty. However, they had not been authorized to commit the Hau de no sau 
nee without consulting them. For a time, the terms of the treaty were not 
known, as the U.S. would not provide the Hau de no sau nee with a copy of 
the document. As many Native people knew, to their regrets, signing a 
treaty and the ratification of a treaty are two separate acts, each 
necessary before a treaty becomes valid. Although the U.S. Congress 
ratified the treaty, the legislative council of the Hau de no sau nee met 
at Buffalo Creek and renounced the agreement.

Somehow the United States takes the position that the Hau de no sau nee 
ceased to exist by the year 1784, although the Longhouse has continued to 
this day. There is ample evidence that all the nations continued to 
participate in the matters of the Great Council, the legislative body of 
the Confederacy. None of the nations of the league has ever declared 
themselves separate from the Confederation. The Oneidas, whose reputed 
allegiance to the United States was based on the existence of Oneida 
mercenaries, continued to send their delegates to the council, and the 
Tuscarora remain firmly attached to the League. The Onondagas, Senecas, 
Cayugas and Mohawks continue to hold their positions within the League. 
Although the Hau de no sau nee have been severely disrupted by the 
Westward expansion of the United States, the subsequent surrounding of 
their lands, and the attempts to devour its people, the Six Nations 
Confederacy continues to function. Indeed, today its strength continues to 
be increasing.

By pretending that the Hau de no sau nee government no longer exists, both 
the U.S. and Britain illegally took Hau de no sau nee territories by 
simply saying the territories belong to them. To this day, Canada, the 
former colony of England, has never made a treaty for the lands in the St. 
Lawrence River Valley. But the truth continues to remain and plague 
officials yet today. The Hau de no sau nee territories are not and have 
never been part of the U.S. or Canada. The citizens of the Hau de no sau 
nee are a separate people, distinct from either Canada or the United 
States. Because of this, the Hau de no sau nee refuses to recognize a 
border drawn by a foreign people through our lands.

The policy of the dispossession of North American Native peoples, first by 
the European kingdoms, and later by the settler regimes, began with the 
first contact. Dispossession took a number of approaches: the so-called 
"just warfare" was a strategy by which Native nations were deemed to have 
offended the Crown and their elimination by fire and sword was justified. 
That was followed by the Treaty Period in which Native nations were 
"induced" to sell their lands and move westward. The Treaty Period was in 
full swing at the beginning of the 19th Century. By 1815, the governor of 
New York was agitating for the removal of all Native people from the state 
for "their own good."

While the infamous Trail of Tears was removing Native peoples from the 
Southeast to Oklahoma, New York State was lobbying for a treaty in 1838 
which was intended to remove the Hau de no sau nee, who were on lands that 
the state wanted, away to an area of Kansas. The principal victims were to 
be the Senecas.

Like the Termination Policy a century later, the Removal Policy was 
eventually abandoned due in part to the bad press received during the 
Cherokee Removal in 1832. During the process of the Cherokee removal, 
thousands of Cherokee men, women, children and elders were subjected to 
conditions which caused them to die of exposure, starvation and neglect.

In 1871, the U.S. Congress passed an Act which included a clause that 
treaties would no longer be made with "Indian Nations." It was at this 
time that official United States policy toward Native people began to 
shift to a new strategy. Reports to Congress began to urge that the Native 
people be assimilated into U.S. society as quickly as possible. The policy 
of fire and sword, simply began to become less popular among an 
increasingly significant percentage of the United States population. The 
principle hindrance to the assimilation of the Native people, according to 
its most vocal adherents, was the Indian land base. The Native land base 
was held in common and this was perceived as an uncivilized and unAmerican 
practice. The assimilationists urged that, if every Indian family owned 
its own farmstead, they could more readily acquire "civilized" traits. 
Thus the Dawes Act of 1886 ordered the Native nations stripped of their 
land base, resulting in the transfer of millions of acres to European 
hands.

There was consistent pressure in the New York Legislature to "civilize" 
the Hau de no sau nee. To accomplish this, all vestiges of Hau de no sau 
nee nationality needed to be destroyed. This is the 19th Century origin of 
the policy to "educate" the Indian to be culturally European. It was 
thought that when the Indian was successfully Europeanized, he would no 
longer be distinct and separate, and that there would no longer be an 
indigenous people with their own customs and economy. At that point, the 
Indian could be simply declared to have assimilated into the United States 
or Canadian society. The net effect would dispense with the entire concept 
of Native nations, and that would extinguish the claims of those nations 
to their lands. The report of the Whipple Committee to the New York 
Legislature in 1888 was clear: "Exterminate the Tribe."

In 1924, the Canadian government "abolished" Hau de no sau nee government 
at the Grand River territory. The Oneida and Akwesasne territories were 
invaded and occupied by Canadian troops in order to establish neo-colonial 
"elective systems" in the name of democracy. Also in 1924, the United 
States government passed legislation declaring all American Indians to be 
United States citizens. The 1924 Citizenship Act was an attempt to deny 
the existence of Native nations, and the rights of these Native nations to 
their lands. The denial of the existence of Native nations is a way of 
legitimizing the colonists' claims to the lands. This concept is furthered 
by the imposition of non-Native forms of government. This also serves to 
fulfill the colonizer's need to destroy any semblance of sovereignty. The 
actual process for taking lands can be accomplished when the Native nation 
no longer exists in its original context -- when it is less of a nation.

With all semblance of a Native nation's original context destroyed, Canada 
and the Unites States can rationalize that integration has occurred. With 
this rationale in hand, both governments have set out to enact their final 
solutions to the "Indian Problem."

The Hau de no sau nee vigorously objected to the Citizenship Act and 
maintains to this day that the People of the Longhouse are not citizens of 
Canada or the United States, but are citizens of their own nations of the 
League.

The Termination Act of the 1950s were efforts to simply declare that the 
Native nations no longer exist and to appropriate their lands. The acts 
were so disastrous that they caused something of a national scandal. "St. 
Regis," the European name for Akwesasne, was one of our territories 
targeted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs as "ready for integration."

The BIA based its recommendation on the fact that many Mohawks had 
acquired at least some of the material conditions which made their 
community outwardly indistinguishable from the white communities. In fact, 
however, Akwesasne was, and is, very different from the small towns in the 
area surrounding it.

Termination submerged as an official policy in the late 1960s. But 
Termination is simply a means to an end. The objective is the economic 
exploitation of a people and their lands. The taking of lands and the 
denial and destruction of Native nations are concrete and undeniable 
elements in the colonization process as it is applied to Native people 
surrounded by a settler state. Tools to accomplish this end include guns, 
disease, revised histories, repressive missionaries, indoctrinating 
teachers, and these things are often cloaked in codes of law. In the 
Twentieth Century, the taking of land and the destruction of the culture 
and Native economy serve to force the Native people into roles as 
industrial workers, just as in the 19th Century the same processes forced 
Native people in the U.S. and Canada into roles as landless peasants.

The Hau de no sau nee has, over a period of 375 years, met every 
definition of an oppressed nation. It has been subjected to raids of 
extermination from France, England, and the United States. Its people have 
been driven from their lands, impoverished, and persecuted for their Hau 
de no sau nee customs. It has been the victim of fraudulent dealings from 
three European governments which have openly expressed the goal of 
extermination of the Hau de no sau nee. Our children have been taught to 
despise their ancestors, their culture, their religion, and their 
traditional ceremony. Recently, it has been a government-sponsored fad to 
have bi-lingual/bi-cultural programs in the schools. These programs are 
not a sincere effort to revitalize the Hau de no sau nee, but exist as an 
integrationists' ploy to imply "acceptance" from the dominating culture.

Revisionist United States and British historians have cloaked the past in 
a veil of lies. The national and local governments of the Hau de no sau 
nee have been suppressed and usurped by the colonial authorities, and 
their neo-colonial Indian helpers, to carry out policies of repression in 
the name of "democracy." Generation after generation has seen the Hau de 
no sau nee land base, and therefore its economic base, shrink under the 
expansionist policies of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.

The world is told by colonial government propaganda machines that the Hau 
de no sau nee are simply "victims of civilization and progress." The truth 
is that they are the victims of a conscious and persistent effort of 
destruction directed at them by the European governments and their heirs 
in North America. The Hau de no sau nee is not suffering a terminal 
illness of natural causes -- it is being deliberately strangled to death 
by those who would benefit from its death.

Although treaties may often have been bad deals for the Native nations, 
the United States and Canada chose not to honor those which exist because 
to do so would require the return of much of the economic base and 
sovereignty to the Hau de no sau nee. The treaties contain the potential 
for independent survival of the Native people. The dishonoring of treaties 
is essential to the goal of the U.S. and Canadian vested interests which 
are organized to remove any and all obstacles to their exploitation of the 
Earth and her peoples.

The European nations of the Western Hemisphere continue to wage war 
against the Hau de no sau nee. The weapons have changed somewhat -- Indian 
Education programs and social workers, neo-colonial Indian officials and 
racist laws are used first. If these methods fail, the guns are still 
ready, as recent history at Akwesasne and South Dakota have shown.

The effect of all these policies has been the destruction of the culture 
and therefore the economy of the People of the Longhouse. The traditional 
ceremony has been largely replaced by the colonial ceremony which serves 
multinational corporate interests. The colonial ceremony is one that 
extracts labor and materials from the people of the Hau de no sau nee for 
the benefit of the colonizers. The Christian religions, the school 
systems, the neo-colonial elective systems, all work toward these goals.

We are an economically poor people today. Few of us can afford to support 
the spiritual ceremonies which form the foundations of our traditional 
economies. The money economy is not adaptable to the real economy of our 
people. Few of our peoples participate in the Domestic Mode of Production 
which defines the traditional economy. This is largely because of the 
colonizer's education system, and also more systematic and brutal attempts 
at acculturation, have placed neo-colonial governments on our territories. 
On some of the Hau de no sau nee lands, the Canadian and United States 
government moneys employ one-third of all employable workers, creating an 
economic dependence among potential leadership of the Hau de no sau nee, 
and actively recruiting people away from the Domestic Mode of Production. 
The traditional economy is under heavy attack from many directions, and 
all else is an economy of exploitation. The political oppression, the 
social oppression, the economic oppression, all have the same face. These 
are the tools of Genocide in North America.

Genocide is alive and well in the territory of the Hau de no sau nee. Its 
technicians are in Washington, Ottawa, and Albany, and its agents control 
the schools, the churches, and the neo-colonial "elective system" offices 
found in our territories. This oppression of the Hau de no sau nee has 
taken its toll -- but the Hau de no sau nee continues to meet in council, 
and its members are on the rise. The Hau de no sau nee, the People of the 
Longhouse, still have a long history ahead. We have developed strategies 
to resist the economic effects of the conditions we face. But, those 
strategies require that we revitalize our social and political 
institutions. This can only be accomplished on sufficient lands within the 
ancient boundaries of our territories.

We are living in a period of time in which we expect to see great changes 
in the economy of the colonizers. The imperial powers of the world appear 
to be facing successful resistance to expansion in Africa, Asia, and other 
parts of the world. We will soon see the end of an economy based on the 
supply of cheap oil, natural gas, and other resources, and that will 
greatly change the face of the world.

For the moment, there is more wealth, more goods and services, more 
automation than has ever existed in the history of mankind. The world is 
living in an age of manufactured affluence. But the people of the world 
have rarely been told the costs in terms of peoples' lives and suffering, 
that this affluence has extracted from each of us. Even the people in 
North America, who seemingly benefit from all these "advances" seem to be 
unaware of the destruction they are experiencing. The "Modern Age," and 
its consumer values, has altered, in very basic ways, the very structure 
of human society, and the basic conditions of the Natural World.

The modern family is an institution which is presently under a great deal 
of stress. The family in Western society has undergone great changes over 
the last century. As the Westernization of the world continues, all 
peoples will be faced with similar stresses and turmoils.

We, the Hau de no sau nee, have clear choices about the future. One of the 
choices which we have faced is whether to become Westernized, or to remain 
true to the Way of Life our forefathers developed for us. We have stated 
our understanding of the history of the changes that have created the 
present conditions. We have chosen to remain Hau de no sau nee, and within 
the context of our Way of Life, to set a course of liberation for 
ourselves and the future generations.

Our liberation process is not one that is exclusive to us as Humans, but 
also includes the other life forms that coexist and are as oppressed as 
we. The liberation of the Natural World is a process which is being 
undertaken in a most difficult environment. The people surrounding us seem 
to be intent on destroying themselves and every living thing.

Throughout the past four hundred years, the Hau de no sau nee have exerted 
a great influence on the lives of millions of people. Theories about 
democracy and classless society have been developed from inadequate 
interpretations of the true nature of those ideals. This conference may be 
the time which begins a process which moves toward more real definitions 
of these concepts.

In our homelands, our people are still struggling and developing 
strategies for survival. In the Mohawk country, our people have re- 
occupied lands for the purpose of revitalizing our culture and economy. 
This settlement, known as Ganienkeh, has been successfully held for more 
than three years. The Oneida people have been waging a court battle for 
several years to regain 265,000 acres illegally taken in the 1700s. The 
Cayugas have also been engaged in an effort to regain 100,000 acres taken 
during the same period as the theft from the Oneidas. The Onondagas and 
Tuscaroras have been carrying on an unceasing battle to gain control of 
the education that their children receive. The Senecas have been forced 
into a long struggle to protect the last pieces of their land still under 
traditional government, the lands at the Tonawanda territory. Every day of 
our lives finds us defending ourselves from some form of intrusion by the 
State of New York or the United States or Canadian governments.

If we are to continue to survive, we need the help of the international 
community. We need external presence to bring some sort of stability to 
the situation of our people. We have learned, too frequently, that what is 
good law today can rapidly be changed into bad law. Both Canada and the 
United States have taught us that their legal systems are part of the 
political machinery which effects the oppression of our peoples.

We are nations by every definition of the term. We have been unable to 
obtain any semblance of justice in the court systems of the United States 
or Canada, and we suffer horrible legal injustices which have terrible 
economic and social consequences for our people. Many of our legal 
problems involve land and sovereignty over land, and land is the basis of 
our economy. We are seeking our rights in those areas under International 
Law.

Lastly, we require economic assistance in the forms of economic aid and 
technical assistance. We are aware that there exist various international 
figures who have technical expertise and who are conscious of the 
development in the context of specific cultures. Our case is appropriate 
to the deliberations of the United Nations Decolonization Committee. We 
are engaged in a struggle to decolonize our lands and our lives, but we 
cannot accomplish this goal alone and unaided.

For centuries we have known that each individual's action creates 
conditions and situations that affect the world. For centuries we have 
been careful to avoid any action unless it carried a long-range prospect 
of promoting harmony and peace in the world. In that context, with our 
brothers and sisters of the Western Hemisphere, we have journeyed here to 
discuss these important matters with the other members of the Family of 
Man.


------------===============************===============-----------

Footnotes:

1. Eric R. Wolf _Peasants_ Foundations of Modern Anthropology Series
 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1966), p. 11; see Belshaw, Cyril S.,
 _Traditional_Exchange_and_Modern_Markets_, Modernization of Tradi-
 tional Societies Series (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1965),
 pp. 53-54

2. Kroeber, A.L. _Anthropology_, Rev. Ed. (New York, 1948), p. 284;
 see Redfield, Margaret Park, ed. _Human_Nature_and_the_Study_of_
 Society: _The_Papers_of_Robert_Redfield_ (Chicago, 1962-3) I,
 p. 287

3. Robert Redfield _Peasant_Society_and_Culture:_An_Anthropological_
 _Approach_to_Civilization (Chicago, 1956), p. 45-6

4. Francis Jennings, _The_Invasion_of_America:_Indians,_Colonialism,_
 _and_the_Cant_of_Conquest_, University of North Carolina Press,
 (Chapel Hill, 1976) p. 105


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_Agricultural_Origins_and_Dispersals:_The_Domestication_of_Animals_and_
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_Civilization_in_the_West,_From_the_Old_Stone_Age_To_the_Age_of_Louis_XIV,
 Crane Brinton, Prentiss Hall, 1973

_Medieval_Technology_and_Social_Change, Lynn White, Jr., Oxford University
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_Origin_of_the_Aryans_, Isaac Taylor, Gordon Press, 1976

_Rome_-_The_Story_of_an_Empire, J.P. Baladon, McGraw, 1971

_Seed_to_Civilization:_the_Story_of_Man's_Food_, Charles B. Heiser, Jr.
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_Stone_Age_Economics_, Marshall Sahlins, Aldine Press, 1972

_Technology_in_the_Ancient_World_, Henry Hodges, Knopf, 1970


