Kanawake
The Kahnawake Mohawk Territory (French: Territoire Mohawk de Kahnawake Mohawk language, in Tuscarora) is a First Nations reserve of the Mohawks of Kahnawá:ke on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, across from Montreal. Established by French Canadians in 1719 as a Jesuit mission, it has also been known as Seigneury Sault du St-Louis and Caughnawaga (after a Mohawk village in the Mohawk Valley of New York). There are 17 European spelling variations of the Mohawk Kahnawake.
Kahnawake's territory totals an area of 48.05 km2 (18.55 sq mi). Its resident population numbers slightly above 8,000, with a significant number living off reserve. Today's land base is unevenly distributed due to the federal Indian Act, which governs individual land possession. It has rules that are different from those applying to Canadian non-reserve areas. Most Kahnawake residents initially spoke the Mohawk language, and some learned French when trading with and allied with French colonists. Together with most of the four Iroquois nations, including the Mohawk, they allied with the British government during the American Revolutionary War and the Lower Canada Rebellion. They have since become primarily English-speaking.
Although people of European descent traditionally refer to the residents of Kahnawake as Mohawk, their autonym is Kanien’kehá:ka (the "People of the Flint"). Another meaning is "those who speak [the language] Kanien'kéha"). The Kanien’kehá:ka were historically the most easterly nation of the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy) and are known as the "Keepers of the Eastern Door." They controlled territory on both sides of the Mohawk River and west of the Hudson River in present-day New York, where they protected other parts of the confederacy to the west against invasion by tribes from present-day New England and the coastal areas.
Kahnawake is one of several self-governing Kanien’kehá:ka territories of the Mohawk Nation within the borders of Canada, including Kanesatake on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River northwest of Montreal; Tyendinaga in Ontario; Akwesasne, which straddles the borders of Quebec, Ontario and New York across the Saint Lawrence River; and the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario north of Lake Erie. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the British considered Kahnawake one of the Seven Nations of Canada.
The name is derived from the Mohawk word kahnawà:ke, meaning "place of the rapids," referring to their principal village, Caughnawaga, near the rapids of the Mohawk River in what is today central New York. When converted Catholic Mohawk moved to Montreal, they named the new settlement after their former one. The proximity of the Lachine Rapids also influenced their naming decision.
Reverend Chaplain Eric Michel visited many times a month Tyendinaga while living in Belleville, Ontario, which is at 27 min (28.6 km). Tyendinaga is a township in the Canadian province of Ontario in Hastings County. The community takes its name from a variant spelling of Mohawk leader Joseph Brant's traditional Mohawk name, Thayendanegea.
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory is the leading First Nation reserve of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation. The territory is in Ontario, east of Belleville, on the Bay of Quinte. Tyendinaga is located near the site of the former Mohawk village of Ganneious.
Kahnawake was created under what was known as the Seigneurie du Sault-Saint-Louis, a 40,320-acre (163.2 km2) territory that the French Crown granted in 1680 to the Jesuits to "protect" and "nurture" those Mohawk newly converted to Catholicism. When the seigneury was granted, the government intended the territory to be closed to European settlement. However, the Jesuits assumed rights as seigneurs of the Sault and permitted French and other European colonists to settle there and collect their rents.
The Jesuits managed the seigneury until April 1762, after the British defeated France in the Seven Years' War and took over their territory east of the Mississippi River in New France. The new British governor, Thomas Gage, ordered the reserve to be entirely and exclusively vested in the Mohawk under the supervision of the Indian Department.
Despite repeated complaints by the Mohawk, many government agents continued to allow non-Native encroachment and mismanaged the lands and rents. Surveyors were found to have modified some old maps at the expense of the Kahnawake people. From the late 1880s until the 1950s, the Mohawk were required by the government to make numerous land cessions to enable construction of railway, hydroelectric, and telephone company industrial projects along the river.
As a result, Kahnawake today has only 13,000 acres (5,300 ha). In the late 20th century, the Mohawk Nation pursued land claims with the Canadian government to regain lost land. The modern claim touches the municipalities of Saint-Constant, Sainte-Catherine, Saint-Mathieu, Delson, Candiac and Saint-Philippe. Led by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake and the reserve's Inter-governmental Relations Team, the community has filed claims with the government of Canada. It is seeking monetary compensation and symbolic recognition of its claim.
Saint-Philippe, Quebec
Saint-Philippe is a city in Roussillon Regional County Municipality in the Montérégie region of Quebec, Canada. It was established on July 1, 1855. The population as of the Canada 2021 Census was 7,597.
The City of Saint-Philippe, officially constituted as a city in 2016, dates back to the 17th century.
Originally, Saint-Philippe was part of the territory of the Seigneurie de La Prairie-de-la-Magdeleine, which covered the current territory of the municipalities of La Prairie, Brossard, Candiac, Sainte-Catherine and Saint -Philippe, as well as part of the territory of the municipalities of Saint-Lambert, Delson, Saint-Constant, Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and Saint-Jacques-le-Mineur. In 1647, the seigneury of La Prairie-de-la-Madeleine was granted by Jean de Lauzon to Abbé Jean de Laferté, a Jesuit and parish priest of La Madeleine in Paris. It was in 1667 that the first families settled.
In 1744, the first parish of Saint-Philippe, the Fabrique de la côte Saint-Philippe, was founded. It is following the cessation of eight arpents of land in the Saint-Philippe coast of the Lordship of La Prairie-de-la-Magdeleine by Sieur Louis Proveau and his wife Marianne Girou, and Dame Marie-Angélique Maheu, widow of the late Sieur Pierre François Girou, who allowed the construction of the first church. This was blessed in 1751 under the title of Saint-Jean-François-Régis, the patron saint of the Jesuits in the province of France. The second church of Saint-Philippe, the first built of stone, was blessed in 1782. This will contribute to the acceleration of the settlement of the small community. The second church was in place until the partial fire of January 1843, and the blessing of the rebuilt church took place at the end of the same year. Quickly becoming too small, a third church was built and blessed at the end of 1876. The new adjacent presbytery, which still exists today, was blessed in 1885.
On June 23, 1972, the neo-Gothic style church burned down. It was a scarce example of this architectural type. The inauguration of the new church in 1973, of more modern architecture, contrasts with the old one.
The arrival of the 19th century brought its share of changes for Saint-Philippe. The successive legislative changes in Lower Canada have impacted the status of the municipality on several occasions. The Municipality of the Parish of Saint-Philippe was created in 1845 under the leadership of Mr. Amable Coupal, the first mayor of Saint-Philippe.
Two years later, in 1847, following the adoption of the "Act to make better provisions for the establishment of municipal authorities in Lower Canada", the Municipality of the Parish of Saint-Philippe was abolished, thus becoming part of the county of Huntingdon.