Article prepared by the MCA Aboriginal Rights and Research Office

INDIAN TIME - Vol. 23 #18 - Onerahtohko:wa/May 5, 2005 Edition - Page 3 & 4

The Mohawk Council of Akwesasne utilizes the first Friday in May each year to commemorate Saiowisakeron. Saiowisakeron is the Mohawk man from the village of Kanatakon who died defending traditional Rotinonkwiseres (Akwesasne Community Life Chiefs).

The elective form of government was imposed in all Native communities by the Indian Advancement Act of 1884, less than twenty years (1 July 1867) after Canada had itself become an independent Nation. What little the new government of the Dominion of Canada knew about democracy and functional government, (most of which it arguably patterned after existing Aboriginal Nations in Kanata), it intended to employ to restructure those Nations in its image. OUT with traditional, leadership and Clan systems. IN with the elective, democratic system overseen by Provincial and Federal Canada. OUT with matrilineal and sovereign self-government of Native First Nations; IN with the patternalistic enfranchisement. 'Civilizing the redmen' became more or less the justification for the subsequent acts of government, starting with the removal of Aboriginal children from their homes to be trained in ways of the whites in Residential Schools, beginning in 1849; THE ENFRANCHISEMENT ACT of 1869, which explicitly stated as its goal the assimilation of all Aboriginals; the INDIAN ACT OF 1876; THE INDIAN ADVANCEMENT ACT OF 1884, which meant to install municipal governments in First Nations; and, even the POTLATCH LAW IN 1885, that prohibited the actual practice of holding traditional feasts, events the government found conductive to meetings between community elders and leaders (INAC);

These Acts of government, all in the way of 'civilizing' and molding Aboriginal communities in the way of the new Canadians (nee Europeans), naturally led to resistance among First Nations.

Among these communities in resistance to the newly enacted INDIAN ADVANCEMENT ACT was Akwesasne. Clamothers circulated petitions to demonstrate the movement against the elective system, and meetings set up by the Indian Agent were boycotted. Elections were held by Agent Long even though, up until 1899, no one voted in them. The movement against the Indian Act elective system was so strong that Agent Long had been physically prevented from holding an election in April of 1899, traditional leaders preventing him from leaving the schoolhouse on the day the election was to be held. Among the leaders opposed to both the Indian Act elective system and the transfer of Reserve Lands to non-Natives was John Saiowisakeron Fire, or "Jake Ice". In 1899, Saiowisakeron was approximately 52 years old, married, with one daughter. He and his wife Mary Teioshirake, and daughter Sarah, lived at Akwesasne in the village of Kanatakon near his brother, the Life Chief Jacob Ohnehtotako Fire.

According to Indian Agent Long's records, Saiowisakeron was not an admirable man. Long wrote in his reports to Indian Affairs, and in his personal diaries, that "Ice" was "short-tempered," "a drunkard," "violent," unreasonable," and "bad," among other things. What should be considered, though, is the fact that according to the language in legislation of the Dominion of Canada during this time period, the Aboriginal population was not admired or treated well at all. To the Canadian government at the time, 'Indians' were a people to be tolerated, civilized and assimilated at best, and obliterated at worst. The Indian Act itself reads as paternalistic legislation, as if those legislators were accomodating a foreign population. Wills written by Natives were not "legal" instruments until a Minister approved it, or a "court granted probate thereof pursuant to [the Indian Act]" (Indian Act RS1970, c.I-6, s.45).

Traditional Government was not seen as valid or legal, only as an impediment to assimilation and, according to the Dominion of Canada, common morality - a morality imposed without regard to the values and traditions that Natives had for centuries up until European contact. "Agents", according to the 1999 Report on the Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, "appointed as magistrates, were to regulate the behavior of their Aboriginal wards according to the ACT RESPECTING OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC MORALS AND PUBLIC CONVENIENCE, bringing into play the alien Victorian morality encoded in it" (INAC).

So, which report of the murder of Saiowisakron is to be believed? Agent Long's, which painted "Ice" as a violent and ingorant alcoholic? Colonel Sherwood's, which, for all the 'concessions' that Sherwood gives to the Indians as he attempts to objectify the incident, still fails to explain why Dominion officers shot an obviously unarmed, older man. Twice. Should we so quickly discount the oral tradition of the story of John Saiowisakeron Ice as it has passed down through our history here at Akwesasne, as many other historical accounts have, because they are 'biased' simply because they are told by the 'Indians' themselves?

The words of those ancestors who were alive when Saiowisakeron was killed are worth as much, if not more, as Indian Agent Long's, and yet Long's report remains the 'documented history.' This man did not come to the village of St. Regis to befriend and make peace; he came to assimilate the Indian population here into the rest of Canada - to mold the Indians here into quiet and manageable communities. Long came as an agent of the democracy that he believed would make Canada a strong Nation, not realizing that he was facing a strong resistance in the Nation that existed before his own.

On May 1, 1899, an armed and plain clothed contingent of four officers arrived at Akwesasne under the pretense of recruiting workers for a stone quarry (Montreal Daily Star). The policemen, Colonel Sherwood, Chief of Dominion Police, and special constables R.G. Chamberlain, G. Kennedy and M. Kelly, had warrants for the arrest of those traditional leaders who opposed the elective system, and met with Agent Long at the agent's quarters upon their arrival to the village. Agent Long sent for the leaders, hoping to quietly gather all of them in his quarters whereupon they would be arrested and taken away without incident. Those who responded were Jacob Fire (the brother of John Saiowisakeron "Ice" Fire), Angus Papineau, Louis Thomas and Peter Thompson, entering the house a few minutes apart from one another and without suspicion. It was only when Jacob Fire, according to Col. Sherwood's account, recognized Constable Chamberlain as a police officer that the incident started. Jacob Fire yelled out toward the street in an attempt to alert his community of the presence of the police, and was soon involved in a scuffle with the police inside the Agent's quarters. The officers, having subdued, for the most part, the detainees inside, attempted to barricade the door upon seeing the effect of Fire's alert. Dozens of men gathered outside of the Agent's quarters and forced in, including Fire's brother John Saiowisakeron Fire.

Several accounts, including those from both Sherwood and a community member, insist that Saiowisakeron alone broke down the door in an affort to aid his brother. Both Agent Long's report, and that of Col. Sherwood, insist that Saiowisakeron was maniacal, screaming wildly and attacking all four officers, and Sherwood especially. Sherwood fired once, hitting Saiowisakeron in the arm. What exactly occurred next is difficult to ascertain, since nearly all historical accounts conflict as to the manner in which John Saiowisakeron "Ice" was shot again, this time fatally. According to Indian Agent John Long's official report to the Department of Indian Affairs, Saiowisakeron committed an act in defiance of Canadian law when he attacked the officers inside the Agent's quarters, and any action on the part of the officers was an effort to enforce such law on those who were, in essence, 'lawless.' Colonel Sherwood's report states that Ice left the officers "badly beaten," and the first fire from the officer did not stop the onslaught of violence from Ice. To protect themselves from further threat, according to Sherwood, the officer fired again. All other reports, from those other community members involved and witnessing the incident, point to an abuse of the firearm as a means to kill rather than protect, as no one's report stated that any Indian was armed. John Saiowisakeron "Ice" Fire went unarmed into the Indian Agent's quarters, responding to pleas for assistance from his fellow community members. Even according to Agent Long's testimony, and the Dominion Police Commissioner's inquest, done by Colonel Sherwood, report that John Ice was attempting to gain entrance into the Agent's office. Neither mentioned his motive. They assumed he was angry, worked up, violent. They assumed he would have further damaged the headquarters. Broken chairs and a roughed up Dominion police officer resulted, angry words were exchanged. This sort of thing has occurred in Parliament from time to time, and among distinguished and dignified Canadian men of politics. The difference, of course, is that this occurred in an admittedly deceptive entrapment scheme occurred in secrecy, by plain-clothed police officers, in the isolation of a Native reserve. And among Natives, whose opposition to the imposition of the electoral Band system was widely-known to take on a rather loud tone.

John Saiowisakeron Ice opposed the imposition of a foreign system of government on his people, an imposition by a foreign government. That was his 'crime', the charge that initiated the police to issue warrants for the arrest of the men the Dominion of Canada saw as impediments not to law and order, which may have been justified, but to a state complacency and submission that was the goal they had for all Native communities. A quiet and loyal submission. John Saiowisakeron "Ice" Fire, and his fellow traditionalists, did not share this belief, and John Saiowisakeron Ice died in pursuit of something he treasured. His culture and identity as a Mohawk of Akwesasne.

The May 2, 1899 edition of the Montreal Daily Star reports that Agent Long stood over the body of Ice and said, "There lies a bad Indian, who will forver be a good Indian." This is the history that non-Natives wrote for us, as a people. We have our own, and we must continue to teach it to our generations so that no one else ever believes that Saiowisakeron was just some "bad Indian." His spirit lives here still, and we must preserve it in all of us.

RESOURCES AND WORKS CITED:

Dockstator, Mark. "Towards an Understanding of Aboriginal Self-Government: A Proposed Theoretical Model an Illustrative Factual Analysis", doctor of Jurisprudence dissertation, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, 1993, chapters 5 and 6.

Hurley, Mary C. and Law and Jill Wherrett. "Looking Forward Looking Back", Vol. 1, Part 1 The Relationship in Historical Perspective, Chapter 6: "Displacement and Assimilation" Report on the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. INAC publication, 2000 (Rev.).

Rarihokwats. "How Democracy Came to St. Regis." Akwesasne Notes.

The Indian Advancement Act, 1884.

Cornwall Standard Newspaper. May 5, 1899. Cornwall, Ontario.

Massena Observer newspaper. March 30; May 4-5, 1899. Massena, New York.

Montreal Daily Star newspaper. May 1-2, 1899. Montreal, Quebec.

Palladium newspaper. June 1, 1899. Malone, New York.

Reports of George Long, Indian Agent. Department of Indian Affairs, Canada. 1899.