#LandBack at #Barnhart:
Contextualizing the Re-occupation of #BarnhartIsland in Shared Legacies of Struggle
From #TurtleIsland to #Palestine, the struggle at #Akwesasne is rooted in the shared struggle of all #OppressedPeoples of the world who are opposing the illogic of #SettlerCapitalism and the endless violation of the #lands and #waters that our current economic system necessitates.
By Jennifer Lee
June 25, 2024
"On May 21, 2024, a group of eight Kanien’kehá:ka (#Mohawk) community members from Akwesasne were arrested at Niionenhiasekowa:ne (Barnhart Island). Certain individuals among the '#Akwesasne8' had originally gone to Barnhart to exercise their right to build a hunting and gathering shelter on their own territory, in part to protest an ongoing land claim settlement that threatens to hand over Kanien’kehá:ka title to this island, among other traditionally held territories, to New York State. The settlement is being negotiated between New York entities and three Akwesasne government councils.
"Presently, the settlement negotiations would require the extinguishment of Mohawk title to Barnhart Island, which would be effectuated through an act of Congress. By asserting their right to the land, the #Akwesasne8 have sent a clear message to both negotiating parties. Barnhart Island, like all other territories illegally stolen and swindled from their community, is not for sale—particularly not by collaborationist band and tribal council entities that purport to represent the full community but that were in fact historically imposed upon it at gunpoint.
"The fact that a group of eight community members was surrounded within just a few hours by approximately 35 police agents (including both border patrol agents and state troopers) is a clear indication of the strategic significance of this island to the interests of settler-capital. As Taiewennahawi (Marina Johnson-Zafiris), one of the eight arrestees, explains in her article 'Akwesasne and the History of #Hydropower,' the Moses-Saunders #hydrodam, located at the east end of Barnhart Island, is one of the many dams along the St. Lawrence Seaway that has supplied 'cheap' electricity to an unending procession of heavily #polluting factories since the 1950s.
"For decades, dirty plants like #Alcoa, #GeneralMotors, and #ReynoldsMetals harnessed the immense power of the #Kaniatarowanenneh (#SaintLawrenceRiver) at the Moses-Saunders dam to manufacture aluminum, a cheap, abundant, and malleable building material that requires vast amounts of power to extract and process. Not only was hydropower-fueled aluminum production critical to New York’s economic development, it was central to the national pride and independence of so-called #Québec. Eager to assert its autonomy from Anglophone capital in the 1960s, the province began damming rivers on #Indigenous land in a frenzy of hydropower nationalism.
"Upstream on the St. Lawrence, the aluminum plants at Akwesasne used a #toxic #sludge containing polychlorinated biphenyls (#PCBs) as a hydraulic fluid during the production process. These PCBs were manufactured by the infamously litigious #corporation #Monsanto, which continues to evade public #accountability for discharging this known #carcinogen into the St. Lawrence River and onto Kanien’kehá:ka soil. The #carcinogenic soup was left exposed on the very grounds where the children of Akwesasne played and where families grew their vegetables. Today, Akwesasne sits downstream and downwind of three heavily #polluted #superfund sites, and residents of Akwesasne report that almost everyone they know has a friend or family member suffering from a rare #cancer, #MetabolicSyndrome, or #autoimmune disorder. Rare, life-threatening illnesses exist at Akwesasne at rates that the public would never consider normal or acceptable in any non-Indigenous community.
"Dana-Leigh Thompson, one of the Akwesasne 8, lived about 3,000 feet from the PCB #dumpsite of the #GeneralMotors (#GM) factory for a decade. She calls what is happening to the community nothing short of an '#environmental #genocide.'"
Read more:
https://magazine.scienceforthepeople.org/online/land-back-at-barnhart/#easy-footnote-15-16285
