In Divided Unity: Haudenosaunee Reclamation at Grand River

Critical Issues in Indigenous Studies

by Theresa McCarthy

In February 2006, the Six Nations occupation of a 132-acre construction site in Caledonia, Ontario, reignited a 200-year-long struggle to reclaim land and rights in the Grand River region. Framed by this ongoing reclamation, In Divided Unity explores community-based initiatives that promote Haudenosaunee traditionalism and languages at Six Nations of the Grand River as crucial enactments of sovereignty both historically and in the present.

Drawing from Haudenosaunee oral traditions, languages, and community-based theorists, In Divided Unity engages the intersecting themes of knowledge production and resistance against the backdrop of the complicated dynamics of the Six Nations community, which has the largest population of all First Nations in Canada. Comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations, citizens of the Six Nations Confederacy collectively refer to themselves as Haudenosaunee, which means “we build the house.”

Theresa McCarthy critiques settler colonial narratives of Haudenosaunee decline used to rationalize land theft and political subjugation. In particular, McCarthy illustrates that current efforts to discredit the reclamation continue to draw on the flawed characterizations of Haudenosaunee tradition, factionalism, and “failed” self-government popularized by conventional scholarship about the Iroquois. Countering these narratives of decline and failure, McCarthy argues that the 2006 reclamation ushered in an era of profound intellectual and political resurgence at Six Nations, propelled by the contributions of Haudenosaunee women.

Centering Haudenosaunee intellectual traditions, In Divided Unity provides an important new model for community-based activism and scholarship.  Through the active practice and adaptation of ancient teachings and philosophies, McCarthy shows that the Grand River Haudenosaunee are continuing to successfully meet the challenges of reclaiming their land, political autonomy, and control of their future.

432 pages, Hardcover

First published May 19, 2016

Reviews

[David Martinez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Theresa McCarthy does an impressive job of synthesizing a critique of non-Indigenous Iroquoianist history and ethnography with a political argument for Haudenosaunee sovereignty. 'In Divided Unity' begins with the Great Law of Peace that binds the Six Nations together into a confederacy that represents all of the people, male and female, young and old. Indeed, it will on the basis of Haudenosaunee friendship and kinship principles that the Six Nations will forge a Covenant Chain, exemplified by the two-row wampum, with the British. McCarthy then turns a critical lens on the anthropological work done on the Iroquois, most notoriously by William Fenton, who, not only appropriated the work of JNB Hewitt, but also represented Iroquois traditions, such as the Great Law, in salvage anthropological terms, in which traditions have deteriorated over the generations, becoming hollowed out by colonization and modern society, leaving the Six Nations a mere shadow of their former glorious selves. Because of this corruption of the Great Law, because of assimilation, and the breaking of the Covenant Chain, contemporary Iroquois, in Fenton's estimation, who are reasserting their sovereignty as nations do so on shallow ground. Their Great Law is fragmented and obsolete, as evident by the rampant factionalism. What McCarthy argues, convincingly, is that the flaws do not lie in the Six Nations but in Fenton's biased understanding of the Haudenosaunee, which is influenced more by dated social science theory than it is by the Six Nations people. Furthermore, the strife that afflicts the Six Nations is not due to their cultural decay but by the racist political agenda of the Canadian government. There is much for strength and unity that meets the colonial eye. In the end, through copious examples, McCarthy not only sees a viable future for the Six Nations and their Great Law, but also its Covenant Chain tradition offers a meaningful way out of the adversarial relationship that Canada has all too long imposed on all First Nations within its borders.