ABSTRACT

The land, said the Mohawks, was seized as a symbol because it is part of 8 million acres in New York and 1 million acres in Vermont that together make up the original Mohawk homeland. Kakwirakeron said that the Indians who seized Moss Lake came from Canada and the United States. In an interview during the Moss Lake occupation, Kakwirakeron said: All Indians have asked of the whites is that they respect the Indian way of life. Permission was denied, and the Indians stayed; three years were to go by before an interim agreement was reached that arranged for the Indians to move to a new site in New York's Clinton County near Plattsburg and the Canadian border. The mediation effort lasted thirty months, and during the final ten months New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo represented Governor Hugh Carey at the sessions.