James Ransom

Honoring Nations: James Ransom and Elvera Sargent: The Akwesasne Freedom School

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Elvera Sargent and James Ransom from the Sain Regis Mohawk Tribe present an overview of the Akwesasne Freedom School to the Honoring Nations Board of Governors in conjunction with the 2005 Honoring Nations Awards.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

Ransom, James and Elvera Sargent. "The Akwesasne Freedom School." Honoring Nations Awards event. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Tulsa, Oklahoma. November 1, 2005. Presentation.

Elvera Sargent:

"[Mohawk language] My name is Elvera Sargent but my Mohawk name is [Mohawk language]. My name means 'she is given room or space'. I've been the manager of the school for about four years now but I've been involved with the school for about 10 years. The school is 25 years old this year and this year we have 76 students. We have 76 students in pre-K to grade eight. Pre-K to six is all total...they're all taught in the Mohawk emersion and with a lot of culture integrated in that. Our students in seven and eight are taught in English and that's to prepare them for public school but our dream is that we have eventually go up to grade 12 or even college level. But that's a huge dream and I don't know if I have the energy to do it because it seems like when we teach them our language for eight years and then the last two years we're teaching them in English but it's kind of like we're taking away what we just worked really hard to give them. At this time too we also have a three-year adult fluency program, which we're training young women to become teachers to replace our current teachers. We're in our third year. We started with 20 students but today we only have 12 left. But that's okay. We know that these 12 are committed to learning it and eventually replacing our current teachers. Some of the moms of our kids are in that program. I think we have nine parents that have been studying the language so that they can in turn talk to their kids when their kids get home because that's a problem right now is our kids don't have anyone to talk to when they get home. I have poll presenters. Jim Ransom is going to go next and he was a parent in the school for a few years but he's been helping us and stayed involved with the school although their kids have graduated high school."

James Ransom:

"Thank you and good morning. I guess what...I wanted to make three points with the board here and thank you for allowing us to be here today. First, the Freedom School represents to me one of the best examples of tribal sovereignty that I can think of. It's grassroots, it has a dedicated Mohawk staff and it involves committed families. It's not only emersion but it uses ancient traditional teachings as its curriculum base. And finally it's community supported. It accepts no state or federal funding. Doing so creates financial challenges but it gives it the freedom to do what it does best. The second point I wanted to make is the influence it's having on the larger society. While it's sponsored by our traditional government in our community, its influence has spread positively to the public school district where I do have jurisdiction. Most of our students attend what's called the Salmon River School District. Out of 1,600 students, over 1,000 are Mohawk. It's the only school district in the State of New York that has a majority Native American student population. Thanks to the efforts and the contributions from former Freedom School staff, some of which I stole and put into that school district, and from their students who come up through the school district, what we've accomplished is that today our Haudenosaunee flag flies at the school alongside the American and Canadian flag. Our former staff teachers the Native Studies program at the school; before they had a non-Native teaching it. The Native content and curriculum in the public school system is enhanced. At graduation the school board passed a resolution allowing traditional clothing as an alternative to cap and gown, the only school district in the entire state to have that happen. Over the past 10 years, as the Mohawk student percentage has increased from 50 percent to over 60 percent, academic performance has gotten better, not worse. And finally, we send more students to college than any other tribe in the state. You have to add up all the other reservations to equal the numbers that we send. On a final note, personally, as Elvera mentioned, I know the Freedom School works. My daughter graduated from there. This year she graduated from Salmon River ranked third in her class and the highest ranked Mohawk, an accomplishment I'm very proud of. She knows who she is and she can compete in the larger society. That's what the Freedom School is about. Thank you."

[applause]

Mohawk language teacher:

"[Mohawk language]. My name is [Mohawk name]. It means 'I was the first to speak.' I graduated from the Akwesasne Freedom School in 2001 and then I went to Salmon River High School where I was inducted into the National Honor Society. And I was ranked in the top 13 out of 96 students, and then I went back to the Akwesasne Freedom School because I want to be a Mohawk language teacher. I'm a Mohawk speaker right now. I speak fluent. I went back to help my school. I'm taking a year off before I go to college to make sure that I want to be a teacher and to get a feel for it. Now I'm a teacher there and I know that my school's going to...I teach there now because I want more students to come out like me who want to go back and help and right now, like she said, we have pre-K to grade eight but that's not good enough. We need day cares, language nests so that the students when they go into the school they will be ready and willing and then we want the high school too. So right now, I'm working with students who went to school with me at the Akwesasne Freedom School and I want to try to start to get a day care there where the people who have graduated can go back and teach at the day care, the language to the younger generation so that they're ready to come into the school. They will go through until grade eight, they can probably learn all the way up until grade eight in the Mohawk language instead of up to grade six. Then we will have our high school where you can be taught in both the language and English and then you can go on to college. Thank you."

[applause]

Amy Besaw:

"Questions from the board?"

Brian C. McK. Henderson:

"I think that one of the biggest challenges to any society is the preservation of one's culture and the culture clearly starts with one's language, and I think you should be congratulated for this effort that now is over 25 years and obviously you still have many challenges including the challenges of running them and running the school and attracting teachers. I really have two questions for you. The first one is that obviously you're on the U.S. side of the Mohawk Nation. I just wondered how do you compare your efforts with the efforts across the border and do you get more or less support relative to the Canadian side in terms of the facilitation of government to help in this process of getting more resources or getting more funding? And lastly, do you have anything that is being, I guess, described as an outreach program to the state authorities to help either create the facilitation for teaching of teachers in advanced Mohawk studies, if I can use that term, that could be assisted through the state since obviously the school district is already starting to embrace the program in a way which is additive to the local school district?"

Elvera Sargent:

"I can answer part of the question. We do get some support from the Canadian, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. Their school board receives money from the government and our students that are enrolled with the Mohawk council, that funding comes to us, but it doesn't cover our overhead or management. So we do all kinds of events to raise money. We write proposals to foundations but we haven't had much time to do that lately. And a lot of...with the border being there also a lot of our students...we have more than half of our students and half our teachers are from the Canadian portion of the reserve. Maybe Jim can answer..."

James Ransom:

"Yeah. I'm a little bit embarrassed to say that historically the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe has not been a big financial supporter of the school. I've been in office now for two years. We're working to change that and I'm hoping that over the next couple years we'll make tremendous changes in our financial support of the school."

Elvera Sargent:

"You had another question with the state."

James Ransom:

"Training of teachers..."

Elvera Sargent:

"We didn't go to the state when we...we do have a three-year program right now that we're training teachers. With that we have a non-profit organization and we applied to the Administration for Native Americans and they funded us for this three-year program. But we want to keep the control I guess of what and who and how we teach. That's why we've kind of stayed away from the state. We don't want them to tell us basically how to do the job that we do."

James Ransom:

"What I've learned is that having a piece of paper doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to be a good teacher and that equally as much just because you're fluent in Mohawk doesn't mean you're going to be a good teacher either. It's a combination of things and it's really the drive within the person, that internal instinct of wanting to help children. I think it's that combination that makes the Freedom School work is we have individuals like that in that school district. I think we're always trying...they're always trying to enhance it even further through formal education, but trying to balance it and make sure we don't forget our traditional teachings and one of them says, 'Stay in your canoe. Don't go into the ship.' And I think the Freedom School tries to stay with that."

Oren Lyons:

"What freedoms do you enjoy by being self-supporting and independent?"

Elvera Sargent:

"What freedoms? Our curriculum, we basically teach our kids what they need to know as [Mohawk] people. And we can teach them what we want them to know basically, to know themselves. Does that answer your question?"

James Ransom:

"I think that you can't overstate that and that...the value that my daughter got from going there in the class that she graduated with, the sense of knowing who you are, having an understanding of your language and then combining that with a public school education makes for better students in my opinion."

David Gipp:

"One other question, follow up to that. As you enjoy this freedom of your own curriculum and your own teaching and all of those things, what kinds of assessment or standards have you begun to look at or develop for your own selves when you talk about the attainment of language by your students?"

Elvera Sargent:

"I think our teachers look at how well our students speak, their vocabulary, how much do they know. Every activity that you do today, anytime, there's a lot of language involved in it. There's a lot of science, there's a lot of math in all of that. We have some samples with us of some of the things we...like for example, we recently had a...we took our kids fishing and then showed them how to prepare the fish and showed them which fish was good to eat so you got a lot of science in there because we're also located just down river of industrial plants, so there's a lot of PCBs and we can't eat all the fish that we need to, which is also affected our health. So I think I'm getting way off your question."

James Ransom:

"Can I add that I think a lot of times we tend to focus on the Mohawk immersion part of this, but the other part that the Freedom School offers is the culture and within our culture respect is probably one of the most important principles and that school teaches respect. Respect for one's self, respect for each other, respect for the natural world. And when they enter the public school system, the teachers in that public school system notice that difference about them that they come there respectful and willing to work with everybody else. So I think that's something that's usually not thought of when you talk about the Freedom School."

Duane Champagne:

"As you probably well know, through Indian Country many students are not finishing high school and fewer are going on to college. I think the preparedness rate in Indian Country is like about 16 percent. It's the lowest of any ethnic group in the United States. I suspect the same is in Canada. We've had other schools, we've looked at other schools and many schools do teach culture and community, but often their students still don't go on to college. They're not being prepared for college, but you seem to have a very good record in that way, graduating students from high school and going on to college. So what advice would you give to other people? What is the secret of a traditional education as well as motivating people to go onto college and to serve their community?"

James Ransom:

"We have a philosophy and we...again, it's based on one of our traditional teachings. We call it a 200 percent education. We want our children to get the 100 percent education that every other student gets in mainstream society that a public school system offers. But, we also want them to have a second hundred percent about who they are, about their language, about their culture so that they're grounded as they go into the public school system. And that's what the Freedom School provides is that second hundred percent. The problem that I see is that unless you have that second hundred percent, it's difficult to achieve the first hundred percent. And you see it, it manifests in low academic performance, in low attendance. As our students gets older, they start challenging what they're hearing, but they're not grounded in who they are so they don't have a base to challenge it from, but they certainly have questions. And I think the Freedom School helps to ground them so that they can learn from the larger society as well. And the ultimate benefit is that the second hundred percent benefits the first hundred percent in the non-Natives. It's always good to learn about another culture so combining the two benefits all of the students."

Honoring Nations: Sovereignty Today: Q&A

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

The 2007 Honoring Nations symposium "Sovereignty Today" panel presenters as well as members of the Honoring Nations Board of Governors field questions from the audience and offer their thoughts on the state of tribal sovereignty today and the challenges that lie ahead.

Native Nations
Resource Type
Citation

"Sovereignty Today: Q&A." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Ethel Branch:

"Hi. Thank you all for speaking. It was really inspiring to hear all of your words. I guess my question is -- My name's Ethel Branch. I'm a student at the law school. I'm Navajo from Arizona. My question is, Indian policy, federal Indian policy has always suffered vicissitudes going back and forth from an era of termination, extermination, whatever, and switching to an era of revitalization, empowerment of tribes. We've been in self-determination for now over 30 years. Do you see a shift in the tide? What direction do you think the next era is going to go? If you could give insight on that, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you."

Floyd "Buck" Jourdain:

"Geez, I feel like Billy Madison up here. Anybody who's seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.

Self-governance. We're a self-governance tribe and we no longer have a BIA agent and all that, we deal directly with our appropriations through the tribe. And it's [an] experimental thing that several tribes took on, but we feel it's working to our advantage; we're using it in a good way. And one of the things that we notice with the non, the tribes that are still under the BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] -- they do get preference over us, so we have to really fight and arm wrestle every year; appropriations, negotiations, hearings. And it's almost like sometimes there's a safety net there that we need to grow away from. Self-governance is a good thing if it's used in a good way, and it's used correctly, and you have good leadership, and people are really on top of it. I think we just need to pry away from that old era and get away from that. And if it doesn't happen, then you'll see tribes, kind of, falling back into that, which is a dangerous thing.

Like I talked about today, the climate. You talk about the energy push in America, George Bush and the big oil companies. One of the things that -- our tribal treasurer goes to D.C. and brings back these horror stories about, 'There's going to be another huge cut. The [Department of the] Interior and BIA is going to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.' And you have all these issues in your Indian community. You have methamphetamine, you have homelessness, you have poverty but, 'Hey, here's the answer to all your solutions! Let us come in and build a power plant on your lakeside and that will really help you guys out and get you out of this state.' So right now it's been rights of ways issues, those are huge -- people wanting to build power lines and roads across our land so they can -- tourism can explode and those types of things.

So I think that tribes need to really grasp it, emphasize self-governance, and really use it in a good way, and be aggressive with it. And I think that if more of them start moving in that direction you're going to see a lot of self-sufficient tribes out there doing some pretty good things."

James Ransom:

"I wanted to stand up. I know some of the people over here can't see us over here. I just had two comments on the question.

A trend that I see happening and which is real obvious is one, stay out of court. That cannot be overemphasized right now. Anything that gets to the Supreme Court is going to be an erosion of sovereignty. You can almost be guaranteed that.

What that tells us though is we need to refine our diplomacy skills and we need to negotiate solutions to issues on the local level, on a state level, on the federal level but in a way that is protective of our communities. And again, that talks about responsibility. We need to work on that and bring that back.

I think that's going to be the key to the future is exercising our responsibilities in ways that non-Natives -- the larger society -- can understand and appreciate."

Michael Thomas:

"I can only agree first of all with what's been said in terms of our own responsibilities and how we should not allow a perpetual federal trust responsibility to us to foster dependency. And frankly, the 30 years of the [Indian] Self-Determination Era has, in my mind, fostered as much dependency as self-determination. And frankly, I think that self-determination can be an excuse for modern governments to avoid their trust responsibility to each and every one of the people in our tribal communities. And so it's a balancing act. I think that we will see the lip service toward self-determination continue, but I think that you'll see the pendulum swing back and forth between whether these people are walking the walk or simply talking the talk.

As you watch the composition of our Supreme Court change, the advice about staying out of court becomes more and more relevant. And that is the kind of long-term pendulum swing that we as Indian people can appreciate but the average American cannot. The reality is, unless you are subject to those swings in constitutional interpretation, and Supreme Court composition, and federal Indian policy, and all the other things that create the storm of politics within which we must live, you're not going to get consistent outcomes.

And so that responsibility that both other tribal leaders here have emphasized is critical. Because it's a different approach to say 'They will never fully meet this trust responsibility, therefore we must...' than it is to simply cry over and over and over, 'Meet your trust responsibility, meet your trust...' We end up putting our people in a victim's position, when the reality is that we have all we need to protect and advance our people even in the absence of that fulfilled trust responsibility. I think an increasing recognition of this by tribal leaders can only lead us to good places."

Ben Nuvamsa:

"I'm very humbled to be here among you leaders. Thank you for your teachings and validation of what I also believe in. Chief Ransom, as you spoke, I feel like you were talking about us.

At Hopi, we're going through a tremendous change. I agree with you, wholeheartedly, that along with sovereignty comes responsibility and accountability, and if we can exercise that in the correct way -- hopefully we don't get to the point where somebody tells us what sovereignty means to us, like the Supreme Court. Our constitutions that we have adopted, the IRA constitution -- at Hopi we're very different because of our traditional ceremonies that we are very still actively involved in, in that -- and our values are much different than what an IRA constitution puts forth. And that really creates some problems for us, that we have two different cultures always conflicting with how we operate. And I think that in the situation that we're in, we need to go out and we need to re-evaluate that constitution. And many tribes have done that. I guess what I'm trying to say is that good, bad, or indifferent, however our constitutions are, we need to interpret those in our Hopi ways, in our tribal ways, what does that mean to us in our local customary practices. That's what's going to sustain us forever. I think that's where we're at.

I'm also very humbled to be with a group of our representatives here that are very knowledgeable in our tribal government. Mr. Kuwaninvaya has been on the council for a long time and I look to him for guidance. He's very astute about when we get into a debate at the council -- and he has this unique knack to put things in proper perspective, and he brings our traditional values, our knowledge, and interprets that debate into how we are supposed to be. And it seems like it really clarifies the whole debate. It's very simple. Go back to what Hopi is. Go back to what our beliefs are. And I think that's what sovereignty means to us is who we are as a people, and what our beliefs are, what our customs are. And we speak our language; our language is what sets us apart also. That is our sovereignty.

And so I just want to thank you for the thoughts. We also have certain principles that you talked about. Sumi'nangwa. Nami'nangwa. Kyavtsi. Respect for one another, coming together as one people, putting our heads together and working together. Those are principles and kind of visions that we have, high bars that we have to achieve. But I think that's the kind of a process that we're in right now and we'll need to get to that point. And I just want to thank you for your words of wisdom all of you."

Regis Pecos:

"Thank you for that, what I think is a really profound question. If we go back into the past and reflect upon that time of federal policies dealing with extermination, and where that moved to assimilation, and where that moved to termination, and then the more recent federal policy that defines this time as the era of self-determination, we really are at a critical juncture to be asking some very critical questions with regard to, 'What are we doing differently now, when we are in control, from those times when we weren't and we were critical of that subjection to those federal policies?' Because if we're not careful, I think that we potentially become our own worst enemies at this particular time and juncture in our journey through life.

I really think that this next wave, to answer your question, really is going to be a return to the core values. And that the definition of sovereignty is really going to come back to be defined, redefined, internally and outwardly. And I think part of the celebration, with something as profound as what we've heard all of today, are the incredible redefining of approaches that is coming from and dictated by our return to those principles and core values. I think in this next wave it's going to be part of a process and an evolution that is using the core values to redefine the strength of tribal governments, and the sovereignty and the power of our peoples to define, outwardly, the interrelations of intergovernmental relations, if you will, but defined for our purposes. So that, as we take a circle, and in it are the core values of our land, our language, our way of life, our people, our resources, our water, our air that sustains that spirit of living, to examine the way in which we either are making decisions with governance and our jurisprudence that moves us away from the core values or reinforces the core values; and where decisions are made that's moving us away, how we're contributing to make fragile that institutional framework that otherwise creates for an operation from a position of strength. And if all we're doing in this time of self-determination is simply replicating programs with no conscious thought about how the replication of programs is moving us further away from those core values or reinforcing core values, or the way in which economic development is viewed, to either be supportive and compatible with the core values or moving us away from the core values, and something as critical as education -- If we see education as the means and the process that was never intended for us, but how we find that to be necessary in developing our skills to deal with their external forces, to protect the internal workings of our nations, it becomes critical at this very point to really look at ways in which we strike a balance. And as our young people and our trust for the future are being schooled in the formal education institutions, we really have to be mindful in terms of what we're doing consciously in redefining our own blueprint for the teachings, from a cultural perspective, so that in the kind of challenges from this point forward, we really must operate from that position of strength, that is, articulating our relationships with other governments from those fundamental principles encompassed and defined by those core values.

So I think in this next wave, it's going to be about our redefining relationships with other governments based upon the articulation and the full utilization of the core values moving from within, outwardly, as it's never been done before. And if we're not approaching it in that way, the gaps are going to become greater and wider. And if language and culture is not the focus of what we do in creating the next generation of leaders, ask ourselves, 'Will they have any opportunity to argue the spirit of sovereignty from any other context or perspective?' Because when that happens we're going to be reduced to everything we don't want to be reduced to, as simply political subdivisions of someone else's sovereign governmental framework, different than what we want to do -- to come from within that context that sustains that spirit, that is defined by everything the Creator gave us and blessed us with, that sustains that spirit of living from a totally different perspective, which means that we have to create our own institutions. So that for all of us who've gone through the experience of a formal education, it doesn't take us to move back through a process of being reeducated in the principles of those core values.

So I think in this next wave, we have to be conscious about creating our own opportunities and institutions to strike the kind of balance that results in the kind of training that is necessary for young people to have that kind of balanced perspective, moving the core values as we define the way in which we're going to preserve that sustained spirit of living using those core values."

Michael Thomas:

"Definitely very well said. I would only add one piece, to what frankly, I don't think any of us could say better, which is that one of those core values we have to emphasize, in addition to that which separates us...is our foundation, our language, our culture, our values, the history, this dirt that we are from and of -- the interconnectedness value that we were all given as well is horribly underplayed. As important as all of those things that make us distinct tribal communities are, equally important are the things that bind us from one to the other, the interconnectedness value that every last one of us was taught by our elders is one that we don't walk often enough. It's an area where the way I say it to our council, it's an area where we are not matching our lips with our moccasins. It sounds wonderful, but to really emphasize the interconnectedness means that we would fight less within each of these tribal communities.

And frankly, I've never been to a tribal community, and I've visited several hundred in my life, that is startlingly different from another. As a matter of fact, when people come to Mashantucket, I tell them, 'Don't be confused by the cars and the houses. This is the res.' It might be a little bigger or a little prettier -- same issues, frankly. Wealth has intensified some of those community, social, cultural issues that we face. We're thankful to have the means to deal with those things, finally, but we've got to emphasize connectedness, because all of the other things bring us into our own individual boxes. And everything in this American culture is so individualized and so disconnected from anything, that what that value of 'the connectedness of all things' is one of the most important traditional values we should keep in mind and turn into the action that Regis articulated as well as anyone could. Thank you."

David Gipp:

"Regis, I think you summed up quite a few things today, at least from our perspective and from the tribal perspective, and where we're going hopefully. Let me jump to the next question. And it's a question for you, and other leaders, and everyone here, I think. And that's the question that our Assistant Secretary is posing and he's talking about modernizing the BIA. I don't know if you heard his remarks this morning. And I thought some of them made very good sense as compared to what I heard you say out in...which was the introduction of that thought. And I know you're running around the country trying to get ideas of what that means as well, at least that's what I hear. Comes that question, and that's part of what you have raised is, where are we going to go with this? And how are we going to deal with this? Because the immediate question is, now we have a new trust office that's been put in place, and it's supposedly doing all of these wonderful things for us in terms of managing our trust resources, and being accountable, and somebody mentioned the word transparency, and perhaps we'll see this someday from the U.S. government and truly see what they've been up to all these centuries. But the other issue is, what happens with the rest of the functions within the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Particularly as our tribal nations assume more of these, I'll just say, jurisdictional issues and more of the issues that relate to sovereignty and who and what we're all about. What happens to the government in the meantime, and the U.S. government? And what role does it play? And how will it play that role? And where do we put it in its place, if you will, as we talk about this new, if you will, evolution that's beginning to take place? And I think that's a very real question, because the government can surely be, as we know, stand in the way and create even more problems than it has in the past. Or it can be, indeed, potentially a partner, if we make it a partner. And how do we do that?"

Oren Lyons:

"Sovereignty is the act thereof. No more. No less. And it's a French word. It talks about kings. It talks about absolute monarchal power, absolute. That's what sovereignty comes from. But we came to understand it to mean control of your own future. When we talked this morning about the landing of our brothers here, and not too far away from right here, and they saw the Indian come standing out of the forest. And they looked at him and the word was, 'We'll never tame that man.' And all they ever saw was a free person. That's what they were looking at, was a free person. And that's what we all were at one time. And it's absolutely [certain] that we have to go back to our original teachings to move into the future because they're fundamental, they don't change. Principles don't change. Everything else changes, but principles do not. So as we move forward, we've changed as well. I would imagine that if we were to talk to our counterparts 200 years ago, if they walked in here, they wouldn't know who we were. They'd say, 'Well, whatever happened to our people?' We change. And 100 years or 200 years from now, we'd look at what's in the future and we'd say, 'Well, whatever happened to them?' But if you keep your principles, the main core principles, you can change all you want and nothing changes.

And so I think that it's true that there's going to be outside forces, this global warming is no joke. It's going to break economies. It's going to break world economies. They're just not going to be able to stand it. They're not going to be able to be spending all their money on wars and fighting because they're just going to be talking about survival. So commonality comes back. The discussion is about water, it's about land, it's about resources. When you talk about sovereignty in a contemporary sense, you're talking about jurisdiction. Who has jurisdiction on your land? And that will tell you how sovereign you are. And so jurisdiction is a very important discussion. How do you maintain that?

The courts have always been unfair but they're extremely unfair these days. I agree with you, it's a very difficult time. There's not been fairness in this country to us, there never has been. Racism is still here, it's still rampant, doesn't take much for it to come up. It does not take much for it to pop right up and look you in the face. So we're in a time, I guess, where we're going to see momentous changes. And so the spiritual strength that comes from our elders and comes from our nations and our old people, they always talk about the old people. I always remember Thomas Banyacya saying, 'Well, the old people said...' I always liked it when he said that because he was talking about our elders and how they instructed us and how they always looked after us. It was never a question about leadership then.

The problem with today's leadership in Indian Country is the system that doesn't allow you any continuity. You're there for two years, and then you have an election, and you fight each other for two years, and then you start again, and two years later you're -- it keeps you off balance. The traditional system, the old system, where the chiefs were there for life, I'm one of them. I've got 40 years on the bench, so to speak. I've seen a lot, talked to a lot of leaders (Nixon), most of them one time or another. Bob Bennett, I knew Bob. All of them actually -- how they had a short time, problematic time, but meantime back home, back home where we live, things remain kind of constant. You do what you can do, but I think the core values are just what we're going to depend on and we have to just get back to that. The ceremonies that Jim [James Ransom] was talking about as a guideline -- ceremony is what kept us going, ceremony is what makes us unique, it makes us different from everybody. If you were to ask who we are, we're the people who give thanks to the earth. That's who we are. And we do it all the time. And we still do it. It's important and we were told as long as you're doing it, you're going to survive. When you give it up, you won't. Simple as that.

So we're coming into times, hard times. We've had changes. On September 13th [2007] the United Nations adopted the Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And for the first time in the history of this world they recognized us as peoples with an "s." We fought 30 years for that. Up to that point, we were populations. Populations don't have human rights. Peoples do. That's why we had such a problem. Well, 143 countries voted for us, four voted against us. We know who they were. But the question is why? The question is why? And you have to really inspect that for a reason. We know each other. We've been sometimes allies, sometimes antagonists, but we know each other very well, especially the Haudenosaunee. Those 13 colonies were about as close to Indian as you're ever going to get, Grand Council, the whole works, instructions from our chiefs, democracy. Democracy is from here. It didn't come from overseas. It was here all the time. We were all democratic.

And so we're coming to a crux and it's a tough one. We're involved in it because we're people; peoples, I should say. That was really a benchmark. Now the problems that we had in that final document, we'll be battling in the next 30 years I suppose, if we have 30 years. That's the question. This global warming is extremely fast, it's coming and it's coming faster than you will think. In 2000, we gave a speech at the UN and we warned them then. We warned them then. The ice is melting. It took them seven years to respond to that, but seven years lost. Time's a factor now. We really don't have the luxury of another 100 years. We're going to see stuff very quickly and we best be ready, as leaders, as responsible people. It's coming now. You can't be red, you can't be white, you can't be yellow, you can't be black. You're people, you're a species and the species is in dire trouble as a species. There's nobody in charge of our fate except ourselves. Human beings have their own fate in their hands and how they act is how it's going to be. So they're looking for instructions and right now the long-term thinking is coming forward and the values are coming forward -- our values. And I say that collectively, because I know we all have the same -- I know that. I've traveled into ceremonies all over the place. It's all the same. It doesn't matter what language. It's the same. That's going to come back again. Now whether we can survive, collectively, is going to be up to us. It's just going to be up to us. That's all. So leadership is now coming forward and I think Indian nations have that opportunity. And the stuff that we're doing right here is kind of what you would call getting in shape. You're getting in shape, flexing yourself, getting back to where we used to be, getting in shape for the big one.

And I'm just really pleased and honored for this collection of humanity: common people, common cause, and we have to work together for survival. That's the way it's going to be. Unity -- that's what the peacemaker said. Your strength is in unity. One arrow you can break, arrows bound together in a tight bundle is strength. That's what we're doing. We're binding the arrows, getting ready. We've got to take care of each other and help our brother. He's in a lot of trouble and when he's in trouble so are we. There's no way to run. You have only one Mother and when you make her mad you're in trouble. And that's where she is right now. You can't make war against your Mother and that's what's going on in this world, and not without a consequence. So I know next year, when we have the meeting again, there'll be more examples of our abilities and our strength and who we are. It's coming forward and I'm pleased to see that.

I just want to say one more thing about sovereignty. In May [2007], in Halifax, Canada, they played the World Games Box Lacrosse Championships, world championships. And Iroquois Nationals won all through the week and came into the semi-finals and we defeated the United States 14 to 4. And we moved in to play for the gold on a Sunday and we were defeated by Canada by one goal in overtime. And I would say bad call from the ref in there, too. But it was our flag, it was our anthem, and our nation and our boys and they did do well. [Thank you]."

Megan Hill:

"Thank you, Chief. I've been honored and humbled to have been in this room with so much wisdom."

Honoring Nations: James Ransom: Sovereignty Today

Producer
Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development
Year

Former Saint Regis Mohawk Chairman James Ransom provides his perspective on what sovereignty means today, and stresses the importance of using traditional Indigenous teachings in modern Native nation governance.

People
Resource Type
Topics
Citation

Ransom, James. "Sovereignty Today." Honoring Nations symposium. Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. September 27-28, 2007. Presentation.

Megan Hill:

"Next, we're going to hear from Chief James Ransom from the St. Regis Mohawk. As we know, Akwesasne Freedom School is a 2005 [Honoring Nations] honoree. Chief."

James Ransom:

"Thank you. I wanted to thank you for the opportunity to speak, and it truly is an honor to be here. I wanted to recognize David Cole from our tribe's economic development staff. He is also here, and you had already met Elvera earlier. Just as introduction to myself, I've been on tribal council now for four years but I've been working for my community for 29 years in different capacities. Akwesasne is pretty unique. We're an international community, half in Canada and half in the United States. And I've been fortunate to work for the tribe, prior to becoming Chief, to also work for the Canadian Recognized Council, as well as to -- I've spent five years working for the Confederacy itself. So I've kind of had a unique life experience of seeing all of our governments in action in different capacities.

What I want to talk about is, to share with you my perspective on sovereignty first. I think that I view it as inherent, as either you have it or you don't. There is no gray area about it. Someone else can't give it to you, and I feel strongly that someone can't take it away from you. I think that the Supreme Court just doesn't get it. They can only suppress it, but it keeps coming back. I think it was [Justice John] Marshall, on the Supreme Court, that called us 'domestic dependent nations,' as you heard this morning. Tell that to, as you heard this morning, tell that to Israel, tell that to China, tell that to Australia, who are looking to us for help today. That's not dependent on anybody. I think that the key to why sovereignty can't be taken away from us is because it's about responsibility. It's about our responsibility to live in peace and harmony with each other. It's about our responsibility to live in peace and harmony with the natural world. As Oren [Lyons] said this morning, it is about our responsibility to ensure that there is going to be a seventh generation.

The one thing that I've learned over the years about it is that it can become the longest four-letter swear word that I know when somebody abuses it. Particularly when individuals defend inappropriate actions by hiding behind it, that's the danger for us. The other thing that I've learned is that if you don't exercise then you can be pretty certain that somebody is going to try to exercise it for you and to your detriment. I wanted to talk briefly about the origins of tribal sovereignty in particular, and I think that -- I've heard a lot of the presentations today -- and the common theme that I keep hearing, resonating, is we need to look inward, we need to look at our culture. And I think the same holds true for sovereignty, that's the key to it. And for the Haudenosaunee, in particular, and I think for all tribes and all nations, we need to turn to our traditional teachings to answer the questions about the origins of sovereignty. And I think that when you're talking about responsibilities that our ancestors knew their responsibilities long before sovereignty was even a word, and that they embodied these responsibilities in the traditional teachings.

For us, you can see it in some of our teachings, like the Thanksgiving address, like the two-row wampum treaty belt, and they serve today as valuable guides on how we should conduct our relationships with others. And when you look at your teachings, look at the principles that underlie them. For us, I think that these principles are based on simple, but powerful words that are just as practical today as they were hundreds and thousands of years ago. For example, in the two-row wampum, there's three principles. The first one is [Mohawk language], or peace, and peace requires action. It doesn't just happen. It means that we have to work at it to achieve it. It means we need to be communicating with each other, always working to maintain the peace. The second principle, we call it, [Mohawk language], or a good mind. And what that means is that we set aside our differences and instead we try to bring our minds together as one and focus on our common interests rather than our problems. The last principle is [Mohawk language], or strength. And strength arises when our words and our actions match. That's what integrity is, that's what ethical conduct is.

In terms of sovereignty today, I thought it was important to set that backdrop to talk about it today. In that, if we look at Indian Country, we are approaching an economic crossroads. Some are already there, some are fast approaching it, others have a ways to go. And I think that the message I try to give on that is that now, more than ever, we need to make sure our decisions are rooted in our traditional teachings. I think it can make the difference as to whether we control our decisions or whether our decisions control us.

I wanted to give Akwesasne as an example to try to convey the message. We've had more than our share of problems, we've had 100 years if not more of industrial pollution. We've seen the destruction of our traditional lifestyles. We have health problems today from this pollution that weren't there before. In terms of education, in the 1950s, we turned over the responsibility of educating our children to the state and the public school systems. Internally, we've struggled as a community. We've struggled in particular to come of one mind as a community.

As I said, we're one community that's international, but we've become a community divided, and it's more than just the border dividing us geographically. Today we have three Mohawk governments. I sit on the elected council on, quote, 'the American portion.' We have an equivalent Canadian federally recognized government on the northern portion of the community, and we have a traditional government, and we [have] a couple of others that are trying to claim to be governments as well. I think to say that we haven't always gotten along is to put it mildly -- anybody who knows our community. If we look at our surrounding area and our region, locally and regionally, we have similar stories to others. We've been marginalized over the years, we've been viewed as being irrelevant, unimportant. We've got the St. Lawrence Seaway and the associated hydroelectric project in our backyard, but we have none of the benefits of that. We certainly have the environmental harm. Our local school district that we send our children to has an arena, has a swimming pool, at one time it had a planetarium, all built with Indian dollars because our students were going there.

So that's sort of a little bit of the past, but today, we're a community in transition, and that's where I want to bring back the traditional teachings. In that, particularly the last 30-40 years, I think we've seen a return to those traditional teachings, an enhancement of them to guide our community. If you look at some of the examples, I don't know if people are familiar with Akwesasne Notes. That newspaper, I think, really was a big part of the renaissance in terms of traditional teachings coming back into our community, and that thinking being reinvigorated. The Akwesasne Freedom School in 1979, and that institution being established. It's literally wrapped in traditional teachings, both in the Thanksgiving address and in teaching in the Mohawk language. What Elvera didn't talk about is the influence the Freedom School has had on the public school system. And what we've been doing the last 10 years in particular is taking back responsibility for the education of our children. I think that we send the majority of our students to a public school system and today over 60% of the students in that school district are Mohawk. It's the only school district in the entire state of New York that has a Native American student population that's the majority. Today, five out of the nine school board members are Mohawk. The curriculum is now incorporating the Thanksgiving address into it. You can go to the school and the Haudenosaunee flag flies alongside the Canadian and American flags, and it has carried over into Onondaga territory and the other territories as well. You can go to graduation now and you can see Mohawks in traditional clothing as an alternative to cap and gown at graduation -- it is a powerful visual sight. If you look at [the] environment, that we've been using the teachings to change relationships with state and federal officials and with industry. We've been using them to explain how we've been harmed from the pollution. We've been able to, by doing this, force -- literally force -- hundreds of millions of dollars of environmental cleanups. We're also using the teachings to restore our agricultural base. We are now planting original Haudenosaunee heirloom seeds in our community. We've planted thousands of black ash trees to support our basket makers. We've now developed an environmental assessment process based on the Thanksgiving address. I think that going forward from here for Akwesasne, and I think for Indian Country, is we need to develop a positive vision for that seventh generation that Oren [Lyons] talked about. In Akwesasne, what that means for us is getting control of our infrastructure.

Right now, we're in the process of forming a tribal electric distribution company and we've convinced the local company to leave our territory and allow us to buy them out and take it over. We're working with the Mescalero Apache, and we hope to form a tribal telephone company. We're working to heal the rift in our community, and that's probably the most daunting task we have. The reason is that, I think it's a trust issue in that the years of distrust work against us and it takes years to build trust. And when I talked about the last principle of [Mohawk language], or the strength, what I've seen is that when our words and actions don't match, it can take years to repair that damage. That being said, I believe our community is well positioned going forward. There is a lot of cooperation going on in the community that wasn't there before. We held a referendum on land claims in 2005, first time in the history of Akwesasne that we held a referendum on the southern portion and the northern portion on the same issue, on the same day, at the same time. And in that same time period, the traditional council held a similar debate over the issue. All three councils came out and the community literally came out in support of the settlement. That's the power of working together. What's changed probably most significantly is how the outside community views us. And I think that we're now getting our respect from our neighbors, our non-Native neighbors, that's been missing for a long time. And in fact we're becoming recognized as the economic hope for the region.

So I wanted to share this perspective with you and again I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak."