“painstaking exercise”: Chief Maracle
Yesterday
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte are nearing completion of the restoration of grave stones damaged decades ago at Christ Church in Tyendinaga Territory.
“In the 1960s, some of the marble gravestones were broken and smashed deliberately,” Chief R. Donald Maracle said in an interview in his office in Tyendinaga Territory.
Over the years, the broken pieces were relocated several times, eventually ending up covered in overgrown earth, until a $150,000 restoration project began the process of repairing not only the broken stones, but a tomb and other parts at the historical site.
“The Christ Church, when it was built, was a church for the Mohawk people as well as a lot of the United Empire Loyalists who lived in the area came there because there were not very many Anglican churches at that time,” the chief said. “So a lot of (UEL people) were buried there as well, so some of those stones (belonged) to non-native United Empire Loyalists, as well as Mohawk people.”
Thanks to an $18,000 grant from My Main Street Community Activator program, combined with funding from Bay of Quinte Marketing, the Anglican Diocese of Ontario, Aboriginal Labour Force Development Circle and some private donations, the stones have been painstakingly being pieced back together and soon will be returned to their original burial site.
“It’s a community project,” Chief Maracle said, “an example of restoring heritage and some of the early history in the community. Some of these people buried there were born in the late 1700s.”
The process of piecing the centuries old stones is no simple project, Chief Maracle said.
“They’ll put the pieces together, they’ll use epoxy to cement the different pieces together and they’ll put a metal bracket on the side and then put them back where they should go. Some of them we do know where they go, some of them we don’t. There are still a lot of the bases for those stones that came out of there. They’ll have to measure the width and thickness of the stone and match it up to the base. It’s a painstaking exercise.”
Acknowledging that it took a long time to get to restoring the stones, Chief Maracle said it was something he’s known for a long time that had to be done.
“It was disrespectful to our Mohawk ancestors and to the other people who are buried there to have those gravestones in that type of shamble.”
Since the restoration project began, there have been family members emerge who believe their ancestors’ stones to be among those damaged decades ago.
“One of our police officers believes that some of (the broken stones) might be (from the graves) of his relatives,” Chief Maracle said, adding that recently someone from Burnt Rapids showed up at church believing an ancestor’s grave to be among the damaged. “I’m sure that we’ll hear more from people who might have relatives buried there.”
Anyone with information about the location of the graves can contact Chief Maracle at 613-396-3424.
*
News and notes:
Tyendinaga Mohawk Council has approved the replacement of all play structures throughout the community.
In an effort to prepare the playgrounds for construction, the locations are temporarily closed. Residents with questions or seeking information can call 613-396-3424 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
The affected playgrounds are located at Bayshore Road, Huron Brant Drive South, Huron Brant Drive North, Lower Slash Road and Young Street.
*
Shelby Kramp-Neuman, MP for Hastings-Lennox & Addington, provides mobile office sessions on the third Wednesday of every month at the Mohawks Bay of Quinte administration office at 24 Meadow Dr. in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.
During the sessions, Shelby-Neuman’s team offers support for: passport application reviews; Service Canada; Canada Pension Plan; disability pension plan; Canada Revenue Agency; Veterans Affairs; employment insurance; old age security; Phoenix pay issues; federal small business program and more. Call 613-437-0649 or toll free at 1-866-471-3800 or email eric.lorenzen.439@*parl.gc.ca to book an appointment. Walk-ins are welcome.
Jan Murphy is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Belleville Intelligencer. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
Jan Murphy, Local Journalism Initiative, Belleville Intelligencer
Yesterday
The Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte are nearing completion of the restoration of grave stones damaged decades ago at Christ Church in Tyendinaga Territory.
“In the 1960s, some of the marble gravestones were broken and smashed deliberately,” Chief R. Donald Maracle said in an interview in his office in Tyendinaga Territory.
Over the years, the broken pieces were relocated several times, eventually ending up covered in overgrown earth, until a $150,000 restoration project began the process of repairing not only the broken stones, but a tomb and other parts at the historical site.
“The Christ Church, when it was built, was a church for the Mohawk people as well as a lot of the United Empire Loyalists who lived in the area came there because there were not very many Anglican churches at that time,” the chief said. “So a lot of (UEL people) were buried there as well, so some of those stones (belonged) to non-native United Empire Loyalists, as well as Mohawk people.”
Thanks to an $18,000 grant from My Main Street Community Activator program, combined with funding from Bay of Quinte Marketing, the Anglican Diocese of Ontario, Aboriginal Labour Force Development Circle and some private donations, the stones have been painstakingly being pieced back together and soon will be returned to their original burial site.
“It’s a community project,” Chief Maracle said, “an example of restoring heritage and some of the early history in the community. Some of these people buried there were born in the late 1700s.”
The process of piecing the centuries old stones is no simple project, Chief Maracle said.
“They’ll put the pieces together, they’ll use epoxy to cement the different pieces together and they’ll put a metal bracket on the side and then put them back where they should go. Some of them we do know where they go, some of them we don’t. There are still a lot of the bases for those stones that came out of there. They’ll have to measure the width and thickness of the stone and match it up to the base. It’s a painstaking exercise.”
Acknowledging that it took a long time to get to restoring the stones, Chief Maracle said it was something he’s known for a long time that had to be done.
“It was disrespectful to our Mohawk ancestors and to the other people who are buried there to have those gravestones in that type of shamble.”
Since the restoration project began, there have been family members emerge who believe their ancestors’ stones to be among those damaged decades ago.
“One of our police officers believes that some of (the broken stones) might be (from the graves) of his relatives,” Chief Maracle said, adding that recently someone from Burnt Rapids showed up at church believing an ancestor’s grave to be among the damaged. “I’m sure that we’ll hear more from people who might have relatives buried there.”
Anyone with information about the location of the graves can contact Chief Maracle at 613-396-3424.
*
News and notes:
Tyendinaga Mohawk Council has approved the replacement of all play structures throughout the community.
In an effort to prepare the playgrounds for construction, the locations are temporarily closed. Residents with questions or seeking information can call 613-396-3424 between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
The affected playgrounds are located at Bayshore Road, Huron Brant Drive South, Huron Brant Drive North, Lower Slash Road and Young Street.
*
Shelby Kramp-Neuman, MP for Hastings-Lennox & Addington, provides mobile office sessions on the third Wednesday of every month at the Mohawks Bay of Quinte administration office at 24 Meadow Dr. in Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory.
During the sessions, Shelby-Neuman’s team offers support for: passport application reviews; Service Canada; Canada Pension Plan; disability pension plan; Canada Revenue Agency; Veterans Affairs; employment insurance; old age security; Phoenix pay issues; federal small business program and more. Call 613-437-0649 or toll free at 1-866-471-3800 or email eric.lorenzen.439@*parl.gc.ca to book an appointment. Walk-ins are welcome.
Jan Murphy is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of the Belleville Intelligencer. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
Jan Murphy, Local Journalism Initiative, Belleville Intelligencer
Land defenders, developers prepare for next
legal stage of Caledonia dispute
Things have been quiet at 1492 Land Back Lane, the planned subdivision in Caledonia that has been occupied by Indigenous land defenders since July 2020.
But the legal dispute between Foxgate Developments and the Haudenosaunee-led group continues, with the developers set to return to court on Monday seeking to reclaim the 25-acre property on which they had planned to build over 200 homes.
The site has seen clashes with police by land defenders who claim the territory as unceded Haudenosaunee land on the Haldimand Tract — a claim the developers reject.
The OPP has arrested dozens of supporters who visited the disputed property, most of whom have had their charges dropped. These days, about 20 people live on the land in tiny homes set up near community gardens and young trees.
“It’s still about giving space for Mother Nature to do her work,” Land Back Lane spokesperson Skyler Williams of Six Nations told The Spectator.
“It’s quite the thing to be able to build and grow a community around this movement.”
Monday’s Superior Court hearing at the Cayuga courthouse is essentially a legal do-over of an October 2020 hearing that saw Justice R. John Harper grant Foxgate a permanent injunction barring unauthorized personnel from the McKenzie Road site.
An appeal court later determined Harper erred by barring Williams from the proceedings. The higher court ordered a new hearing, which will be led by a different judge.
Williams and his lawyers, Meaghan Daniel and Aliah El-houni of the Community Justice Collective, are expected to argue the Canadian Constitution guarantees Indigenous treaty and inherent rights, and governments have corresponding duties to First Nations where those rights are engaged.
Legal submissions are also expected from Foxgate, Haldimand County and the province.
The federal government was invited to participate but chose not to, which Williams found disappointing.
“Canada has continued to stay mute on the entire subject,” he said. “Money talks. So these big developers and this pro-development Ford government is continuing to push for our lands to be developed.”
A spokesperson for the developers previously told The Spectator that Foxgate “has never opposed” Williams’ participation in the hearing.
“The completion of a final judgment in the injunction proceedings is an important step to definitively proving Foxgate’s legal right, title and ownership of the lands,” said William Liske, vice-president and chief legal officer for Losani Homes, one of the companies in the Foxgate consortium.
The two-day hearing could have broader ramifications for other Indigenous land defence actions.
“If the injunction isn’t granted, this could be a very significant precedent,” El-houni told The Spectator, explaining that the court could confirm the Crown’s duty to consider Indigenous rights before deciding whether to grant developers permission to build.
“All of this could have been avoided if our community had been consulted with in a real way,” Williams added, noting Foxgate only consulted with “the pro-development group, which in this case is band council.”
If, however, the court grants Foxgate the injunction, Williams said he and others at Land Back Lane are worried about the police again trying to clear the site as they did in August 2020, when officers fired at least one rubber bullet while making arrests.
“There’s definitely some nervousness, knowing what transpired last time,” Williams said.
“There’s a pathway towards peace here, and it doesn’t come with a guy with a badge on his chest. It comes with nation-to-nation negotiation.”
J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hamilton Spectator
Things have been quiet at 1492 Land Back Lane, the planned subdivision in Caledonia that has been occupied by Indigenous land defenders since July 2020.
But the legal dispute between Foxgate Developments and the Haudenosaunee-led group continues, with the developers set to return to court on Monday seeking to reclaim the 25-acre property on which they had planned to build over 200 homes.
The site has seen clashes with police by land defenders who claim the territory as unceded Haudenosaunee land on the Haldimand Tract — a claim the developers reject.
The OPP has arrested dozens of supporters who visited the disputed property, most of whom have had their charges dropped. These days, about 20 people live on the land in tiny homes set up near community gardens and young trees.
“It’s still about giving space for Mother Nature to do her work,” Land Back Lane spokesperson Skyler Williams of Six Nations told The Spectator.
“It’s quite the thing to be able to build and grow a community around this movement.”
Monday’s Superior Court hearing at the Cayuga courthouse is essentially a legal do-over of an October 2020 hearing that saw Justice R. John Harper grant Foxgate a permanent injunction barring unauthorized personnel from the McKenzie Road site.
An appeal court later determined Harper erred by barring Williams from the proceedings. The higher court ordered a new hearing, which will be led by a different judge.
Williams and his lawyers, Meaghan Daniel and Aliah El-houni of the Community Justice Collective, are expected to argue the Canadian Constitution guarantees Indigenous treaty and inherent rights, and governments have corresponding duties to First Nations where those rights are engaged.
Legal submissions are also expected from Foxgate, Haldimand County and the province.
The federal government was invited to participate but chose not to, which Williams found disappointing.
“Canada has continued to stay mute on the entire subject,” he said. “Money talks. So these big developers and this pro-development Ford government is continuing to push for our lands to be developed.”
A spokesperson for the developers previously told The Spectator that Foxgate “has never opposed” Williams’ participation in the hearing.
“The completion of a final judgment in the injunction proceedings is an important step to definitively proving Foxgate’s legal right, title and ownership of the lands,” said William Liske, vice-president and chief legal officer for Losani Homes, one of the companies in the Foxgate consortium.
The two-day hearing could have broader ramifications for other Indigenous land defence actions.
“If the injunction isn’t granted, this could be a very significant precedent,” El-houni told The Spectator, explaining that the court could confirm the Crown’s duty to consider Indigenous rights before deciding whether to grant developers permission to build.
“All of this could have been avoided if our community had been consulted with in a real way,” Williams added, noting Foxgate only consulted with “the pro-development group, which in this case is band council.”
If, however, the court grants Foxgate the injunction, Williams said he and others at Land Back Lane are worried about the police again trying to clear the site as they did in August 2020, when officers fired at least one rubber bullet while making arrests.
“There’s definitely some nervousness, knowing what transpired last time,” Williams said.
“There’s a pathway towards peace here, and it doesn’t come with a guy with a badge on his chest. It comes with nation-to-nation negotiation.”
J.P. Antonacci, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hamilton Spectator
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