I'm sure some of you remember this sad incident in ADK history:
EAGLE BAY, N. Y.—Indians encamped on state‐owned land near this Adirondack Mountain resort community have called upon the White House to intervene in a conflict with state authorities that began as a land‐claim dispute but became complicated last week by the shooting of two white persons near the camp.
An investigation by the state police of the Oct. 28 shooting incidents, in which a 9‐year‐old girl and a 22 year‐old man were injured, was stalemated for more than a week as the Indians continued to bar whites from entering a former girls’ camp that they claimed as an ancestral homeland last May.
In an effort to avoid aggravating a tense situation, the state police entered into negotiations on Oct. 30 with representatives of the Indian settlement to lay ground rules for the scope and conduct of the investigation at the campsite.
The negotiations produced their first results last Wednesday in an agreement that allowed the police to inspect the property for 20 feet on either side of Big Moose Road, where the man and the girl were struck in passing cars. However, the police were not permitted to enter the adjacent camp building inhabited by the Indians.
‘Land of the Flint’
The conflict started six months ago when a group of Mohawk Indians proclaimed an independent North American state of Ganienkeh, meaning “Land of the Flint” in the Mohawk language, at the 612‐acre campsite at Moss Lake in Herkimer County.
They put up a sign calling it the home of the Six Nation Iroquois Confederacy, a reference to the tribes of upstate and Canada—the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Tuscaroras.
Robert T. Coulter, a lawyer for the Indians, said a statement was sent to the White House on Friday saying, “A state of extreme crisis threatens the peace and friendship established by the treaties between the United States and the Six Nations.” The message charged that on four occasions in the last two weeks, “United States citizens” had fired on the settlement.
The Indians also said that, according to the terms of a 1794 treaty between the United States and the Six Nation Confederacy, the situation can be resolved only through the intervention of the President.
No arrests have been made in the shooting incidents and no charges have been filed. Following the inspection on Big Moose Road, the police removed their roadblocks but maintained additional men in the area. The police and spokesmen for the Indians are to continue their discussions this week.
While negotiations proceeded, an air of peaceful watchful‐waiting, which had persisted in this resort area ever since the Indians appeared on May 13, has now given way to an uneasy quiet, questions from local residents and a sense of frustration among some law‐enforcement officials.
“We never would have reached this state, if we had gone in and cleaned them out at the beginning,” a State Police spokesman in Albany said. “After all, two crimes have been committed and you don't negotiate a crime.”
But the State Troopers on the scene, many of whom served in the assault on Attica Prison, conducting their investigations and negotiations patiently, with no indication that any force is being planned.
And the two different disputes, the long‐standing civil question of the ownership of the land and the new criminal question of responsibility for the shootings—have become intermingled and confused.
“We had no problems with the Indians until this incident,” said Harry Fowler, in charge of the Eagle Bay Fire Police, standing outside the firehouse where the State Police have established a command post.
Douglas Bennett, who operates Big Moose Inn just up the road from the Indian occupied land, was bitter, however, about the shooting in which the gill was wounded.
“We are not dealing with Indians; we are dealing with savages,” he said.
But he and most of the local residents seem to be content to leave the matter to the police. They indicated concern with the possibility of future conflicts, with the impact on children and with the long‐term effect. Eagle Bay and the surrounding areas are dependent on the tourist business — summer vacationists, fall hunters and winter snowmobilers.
A hamlet with a permanent population of about 150, Eagle Bay is in the western Adirondacks in Herkimer County, about 55 miles north of Utica. It is on the shores of Fourth Lake, one of a string of Fulton Lakes that run parallel to Route 28 from Old Forge to Baguette Lake.
1798 Treaty Cited
A favorite vacation spot for New Yorkers today, the area was a favored hunting ground for the Mohawk Indians before the period of white settlement.
To Kakwirakeron, a 32year‐old spokesman for today's Indians, the area around Eagle Bay and, indeed, most of upstate New York has always been land that belonged to the Indians. He and his colleagues charge that the Treaty of 1798, in which the land was conveyed to the State of New York, is invalid.
“The claim of New York is based on the treaty signed by Joseph Brandt for the Indians, but he had no authority,” he said. “He was a traitor.”
Kakwirakeron, whose name means “Trees Lying All Over the Ground,” is a former structural ironworker who helped build the Verrazano Bridge in New York City and skyscrapers around the country. Before he came here, he was known as Art Motour, but he now prefers to use his Indian name.
Accompanied by his wife, Eintion, a Seneca Indian whose name means “Land of My Own,” Kakwirakeron came out of the blockaded Indian encampment the other night to explain why the Indians had taken the land. He declined to say how many Indians were inside but other observers estimated the number at between 30 and 70.
The rationale for the Indian movement, Kakwirakeron said, was that “this has been the land where our forefathers lived for thousands of years,” that it never was legally transferred to the white men and that it was the last chance for Indians to live in their own environment:
“We had no choice,” he said. “This was the only wild area where no white people lived. We did not come hereto make money, but to be self‐sufficient, living off the land in a cooperative farming community.”
The land that is now occupied is a 612‐acre former girls’ camp that was purchased by the state in 1973 for $783,000. The tract was made part of the New York State Forest Preserve and designated to be kept “forever wild,” along with other Adirondack areas.
After the Indians moved in the state filed suit in Federal Court to reaffirm its title and to get the Indians moved off, but made no effort to remove them. “We consciously” avoided a direct, conflict with the Indians,” a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Conservation in Albany said. “We didn't want another Wounded Knee.”
Local residents raised no serious objection to the Indian occupation because the land was not available to them either, according to Robert D. Hall, director of the local tourist promotion group. He and others in the area conceded that there might have been some minor harassment, catcalls and possibly even some shooting by some people in cars driving by the Indian camp.
The Indians said they had been treated very well in general by local residents, despite several occasions in which they charged bullets, had been sent into the camp from cars passing by, on Big Moose Road.
Conflicting Report
There are conflicting reports about the latest shooting incidents in which the two whites were injured, about three hours apart last Monday night. The Indians said they had been shot at before firing back, but the State Police said there was no evidence of any guns in the cars that were hit.
The injured were Stephen Drake of nearby Inlet and Aprile Madigan of Geneva, N.Y., who was a passenger in a car driven by her parents on the way home from a vacation. Mr. Drake was listed in good condition with a shoulder wound and the girl —shot in the back—in critical condition in a Utica hospital.
The Indians expressed sympathy for the girl We feel it very strongly,” said; Kakwirakeron. “Our children were shot at the day before We know what it is like. We burn at one of our sacred services for her recovery.”
But the Indians have remained adamant, despite the negotiations, about letting the State Police in to continue their investigation, citing a Treaty of 1794 with the United States Government.
That treaty, they said, provides that if an injury is done to a citizen of either the United States or of the Six Nations, the question shall be resolved by “negotiations”, between the United States and the Six Nations.
Moreover, the Indians add‐ed, they intended to keep their lands free of alien influence, which is why they have barred whites, including, one of their own lawyers from most of the occupied area.
One State Police official here, who described himself as sympathetic to the Indian position, said he hoped the investigation could proceed according to the laws of both the United States and of the Indians.
“Oor only concern is the shooting investigation,” Capt. Kenneth Crounse said. “The other dispute is up to the courts.”
“We have no confidence that the courts will render a just decision,” Kakwirakeron said, “but we are confident that it will work out because we have so much backing us up.”
-Harold Faber (Special to the NYT)
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/10/a...the-flint.html
