Oka Crisis Analysis

The Oka Crisis of 1990 was seventy eight day standoff initiated by Mohawk protestors against the municipality of Oka, Quebec regarding the expansion of a private golf course and the construction of sixty luxury condominiums that protesters felt would encroach on sacred burial grounds known as the Pines. Beginning with peaceful resistance, tensions quickly escalated as the provincial police were called to tame the situation. Further deteriorating relations prompted the request of the Royal Canadian Armed Forces releasing army troops against Canadian Mohawk citizens. The destabilizing events of July 11 to September 26, 1990 became a focal point of national interest as land negotiations began to break down between opposing sides. By the end,

In order to understand the Oka Crisis one must look at the historical context of land grants of the Mohawk people in the Oka area. Within this context it is made evident that for nearly three centuries the Mohawks had been denied any legitimate claim to the land of which they inhibited. Continually shut out by the Canadian bureaucracy, the announcement of a golf course expansion became the tipping point in which the Mohawks rose in protest to protect the remaining lands which had continuously been eroded through court ruled expropriation. Therefore, the origins of the Oka Crisis do not solely lie within the recent attempts to expand a golf course but rather the deep seeded contention over the Pines that date back to the St. Sulpice Seminary of 1717 and the conflicting conceptualization of land rights between the Mohawk people and European settlers who would later develop into the Canadian government who would continue to suppress Mohawk grievances, instead favouring to continue colonial conceptions of land

Instead, Mohawks recorded transactions through wampum belts, a ceremonial method of recording information through ornamental placement of beads in a belt. Following the verbal promise of the Sulpicians the Mohawks created a wampum belt to memorialize the agreement in addition to the cultural memory of the promise. Either or, there was no formal written document of the agreement. Because of lack of document, the Canadian government would reject any claim to the land on the premise there was no recorded transaction despite knowing the Mohawks did not record transactions in the same manor of the