American academic speaks about poverty

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Historian Dr. John Mohawk laughs a lot for a man with a serious message to deliver. Mohawk, a professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, spoke about endemic Native poverty in the United States and Canada on March 22 at the University of Toronto's Distinguished Speaker Series.

"We're in this together," said Mohawk.

Native people are the poorest people on both sides of the border and those living on reserves see just over half of the average national income. Non-Native people may think gaming has been a boon to Native groups, but according to Mohawk, "Gaming has not impacted Native poverty.

"How can a population which once owned the entire continent now be its poorest residents?" Mohawk asked rhetorically. In his opinion, "public policy creates poverty." He added that in both Canada and the United States, cultural intolerance and prejudice determined public policy.

"Indian dispossession," said Mohawk, "was the big story of the 19th century. Keeping them dispossessed was the big story of the 20th century."

Mohawk, a Seneca from Cattaraugus, New York, gave an example close to home.

"In 1805," he said, "the Mississaugas of the New Credit were paid 10 shillings for over 100,000 hectares of land-most of present-day Toronto."

Mohawk proposed two solutions to lessen Native poverty. In the short-term, settle the land claims, he said. In the long-term, "Indian nationhood is really important."

Mohawk told the audience, "First thing they stole, before they stole your land, they stole your right to be a nation."

Now that some nations are working to reclaim that right back, Mohawk observes that Indigenous groups in Latin America have travelled further along the road to nationalism, and he believes that one day there could be Indigenous control of a government in the Western Hemisphere.

He's worked with grassroots groups since the late 1960s, but says much of the work that needs to be done demands more support than grassroots groups can afford.

Looking back on his career, he said, "A lot has changed in 30 years. In lots of ways, the big questions haven't been addressed yet. There's lots to do; enough for three more generations of scholars to work through."

Mohawk stressed the need to study Native American history and to share information across borders as governments do.

He's noticed that the "Internet in Canada is used in a different way than in the U.S. [In Canada] you can access every major court decision dealing with Indians," whereas, in his country you pay for everything.

Mohawk concluded by saying he wanted to talk "a little bit" about Toronto, but he chose a big and current issue.

It was the Toronto land claim of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, who allege their land encompassing about 250,000 acres was never properly surrendered to the Crown:

"They [the governments] need to go back and do something about that. They don't want to-they can't afford it. But, if the question came down to what they could afford, I bet they could get a pretty good discussion going with the Indians on that." Mohawk's advice was, "Pay it off over time. Pay out enough to alleviate rural Indian poverty."