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GANIENKEH MANIFESTO
Ganienkeh - "Land of the Flint" - ancient homeland of the Mohawk Nation, whose descendants, with traditional natives from other Indian nations, are moving back to repossess their natural heritage. Other native nations throughout the world have regained their lands and governments. The North American traditionals are sure that the Government of the United States and its general public shall see the justice and the rights of the American Indian people to such a move.
Ganienkeh shall be the home of the traditional Red man. Here, according to the rights accorded every one else in the world, the Red man shall exercise his proven government and society according to his culture, customs and traditions. According to the rights of the human, he has the right to operate his state with no interference from any foreign nation or government. Here the people shall live according to the rules of nature. Here the Great Law of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy shall prevail. The people shall live off the land. The co-op system of economy shall prevail. Instead of the people competing with each other, they shall help and co-operate with each other. Here, they shall relearn the superior morality of the ancients.
It is not a backward step. The way to a proper, moral government, a practical and worthy economic system and a proper, moral human relationship is true progress. What is regarded as progress in this day and age is a road to destruction. Advanced technology abuses nature. The result has been the pollution of air, land, water and the human mind. A brief reflection reveals how abused nature repays in kind. The competitive society. The main objective of human intelligence should be the peace and happiness of mankind on earth, not the profits saturation of a few tycoons and the worship of advanced technology. The kind of progress has brought the world to the brink of destruction.
Let there be a ray of light somewhere. Instead of abuse of nature let there be an appreciation of nature. Ganienkeh calls all native American Indians who wish to live according to their culture, customs, and tradition. Traditional Indians who answer the call and participate in the project shall be asked to prepare to meet unusual situations. Indians lived a million years without money and technology. They lived off the land. (Today's existing co-operative communities refuse Family Allowance, Welfare relief, Old Age Pension and still live very comfortable. Utilizing the co-op community system, the Indian State of Ganienkeh shall be a money-less state. The requirement is enough land to grow food for all, enough grazing land for beef cattle or buffalo and enough timber land for building materials; and people who are ready to work towards its success.
The Mohawk Land was lost in an earlier century by fraud and its possession by New York State and the State of Vermont constitute illegal usurpation. No deed signed by Joseph Brant and the New York State agent can extinguish the rights of the Mohawks to their own country. The native North Americans not only have the rights but are duty bound to CORRECT THE WRONG COMMITTED BY JOSEPH BRANT AND THE NEW YORK STATE AGENTS AGAINST THE MOHAWK NATION. No individual Indian nor any individual Nation of the Six Nations Confederacy has the right to sell or give away land without the consent of the Grand Council of the Six Nations confederacy. This was one of the findings of the N.Y. Senate investigating commission which ended in 1922.
Joseph Brant, who was not even a member of the Six Nations Confederacy having before disqualified himself, did on March 29, 1797, with an alleged "power of attorney" make a deal with the New York State in which he gave away all the Mohawk land to the said New York State. Several months before in November of 1796, the same Joseph Brant with the same "power of attorney" gave away large tracts of land in Ontario to his British friends. It was called 999-year leases at not cost, that is, no revenue was to accrue. Brant loved white people so much or was mesmerized by them that he pauperized outright, his own people to please his white friends.
In a letter to the representatives of the United Nations at San Francisco, California, April 13, 1945, the Six Nations Confederacy states strongly that Joseph Brant was never given the right to give away their lands. Even if they had given Brant the alleged "power of attorney" it still would be invalid as the deal would have to be consummated in the Grand Council of the Six Nations Confederacy. The fee simple is still vested in the Six Nations and the Mohawks have the aboriginal title to ancient Kanienkeh. No self respecting nation on earth would accept the dirty deal handed out by Joseph Brant and the New York State agents.
The Mohawk Nation, supported by traditional North American aboriginal natives from other native nations such as Ojibways Crees, Algonquins and others, shall move into the Mohawk homeland of Ganienkeh. The combined nations shall establish the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh. The Great Law - Gayanerekowa - which has lately spread all over native North America shall be the Constitution of the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh. The Mohawk Nation is not breaking away from the Iroquois Confederacy. It is repossessing its homeland with the help of other Red Indian traditionals and at the same time exercising its human rights accorded every one else in the world. Other native nations of Asia and Africa have regained lost lands and human rights. The United States restored Okinawa to Japan. We expect that the United States should see their way to render the same justice to American Indians.
To any premise that the Mohawk project is an internal matter of a white people's government certain steps are hereby taken along with pointing out that the Indian Nations have long had their own organized governments and society, greatly preceding the people who have taken by usurpation authority of this area of the world and these steps include declaring to the world, news of this move on the part of the traditional Indians of North America. There shall be communication to every nation on earth and to their embassies at the United Nations with a request of foreign relations with the countries contacted, even if only on paper. That the Indian State of Ganienkeh has this right is guaranteed by the United Nations as the same right has been provided to new nations, who are actually old ones who have formerly been likewise defrauded of their land and governments.
The U.S. is a member of the United Nations and sworn to uphold its principles. The U.N. proclaimed its Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1948 and it provides in Art. 15: (1) Every one has the right to a nationality. (2) No one may be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.
We too are human and should have the rights accorded every one else in the world; the right to our nationality, the right of our nation to exist and the right to an area of land for our own territory end state where we can exercise our own proven government and society.
Notices shall also be sent to the President of the United States and to the Governors of the States of New York and Vermont. A request for foreign relations will be submitted to the U.S. Government. The procedure being followed to regain the ancient Mohawk homeland is consistent with human rights. Nature did not give certificates of possession to people she consigned to certain areas. Ours is the strongest naturally legal right known to man, aboriginal right.
Message to Congress, July 8, 1970.
"The first Americans - the Indians - are the most deprived group in our nation. On virtually every scale of measurement - employment, income, education health - the condition of the Indian people ranks at the bottom. This condition is the heritage of centuries of injustices ...The American Indians have been oppressed and brutalized, deprived of their ancestral lands and denied the opportunity to control their own destiny."
-President Richard M. Nixon
Today's white man say that the injustice was done two centuries ago and it has nothing to do with him. The present Mohawk action is in 1974 and will the white man continue to keep justice from the Indians? The Mohawk project is the way to real self determination - "control their own destiny". It is the way for the Red Indian race to regain lost pride, lost belief in humanity and to offset escapes from reality like alcohol, drugs, and suicides that are destroying the Indian people.
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(circa?)
0 N 0 N D A G A
I am Deganawidah and with the Five Nations Confederate Rotyaner I place the Tree of the Great Peace....Roots have spread out from the Tree of Great Peace...and the name of these roots is the Great White Roots of Peace. If any man or any nation outside of the Five Nations shall show a desire to obey the laws of the Great Peace....they may trace the root to their source...and they shall be welcomed to take shelter beneath the Tree....
1 9 4 5
SAN FRANCISCO
We the peoples of the United. Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourges of war...and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights...and to establish conditions under which justice aid respect for law can be maintained ... do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.
The noblest work of man is to find the formula for peace and happy for every one on earth. To that end the most urgent needs of the nation of mankind are proper, moral governments, a practical economic system that eliminates poverty and advanced human relationship. Down through the ages, the world's wisest men have ever tried to find a formula of peace and happiness for suffering and deprived humanity. We've read of the efforts of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and many others. Wise as they were, they all failed in this, mankind's greatest work.
Searchers for the formula have consulted the Holy Scriptures for instructions on devising a proper, moral government, but the teachers in the Good Book only spoke of Kingdoms, which are total dictatorships and had no idea of the government of, for and by the people. As no one has the right to be king or queen, it showed no idea of truly proper human relationships. Not knowing how to eliminate poverty, the holy teachers advocated poverty. Ask starving Indians in Northern Ontario reserves of destitute areas in Indian if they are happy and at peace. They repress people in the last stages of poverty and live in absolute misery and wretchedness. The Holy Scriptures laid no claim to have a formula for peace and happiness on earth, only in the "after-life" - after you're dead. That's no good for people suffering the tortures of the damned in this life.
The East had its own famous wise men, among whom was Confucius. Was as they were, they too could not find the key to peace and happiness, a proper moral government, a practical economic system and human relationship. It took the North American Deganawidah to find the formula. He took from natural righteousness (Kirwiyo) and made a Code which he called Gayanerekowa - known as the Law of the Great Peace. The Wise Man of the ages, armed only with his Great Law, conquered the five most fierce nations imaginable in history; the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas,Senecas and the Onondagas, united them in a Confederacy (Kanonsonnionwe in Mohawk), put them symbolically in one Long House and created peace and happiness that lasted until the white man came with his Dark Age. Gayanerekowa was the world's first national Constitution and the first international law, the first code of human rights. The Iroquois Confederacy was the world first people's republic with sovereignty for every one. All other countries were kingdoms and in a kingdom only the monarch has sovereignty. Everything and every one belonged to the king. The entire world may that the Peacemaker Deganawidah for whatever rights and freedoms its people enjoy, BUT not all the rights and freedoms in the Great Law were adopted. The copiers kept full justice from their people. They left loopholes through which they may continue subtly to oppress humanity....
There has been a continuous psychological warfare waged against the American Indian. It's every bit as deadly as the one with guns. The casualties are the drunks, drug addicts, suicides, renegades and traitors, all destroyed people. Indians are made to feel cheap and inferior. It results in identity conflict. Most Indians cannot find' work in what man's mainstream and have to go on welfare relief and are called "welfare bums" to help them slide down in their self valuation.
The establishment of the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh offers a positive solution of the problems of Indians. They get away from the deleterious effects of welfare relief life. They can get away from the slums of cities. They will live in fresh unpolluted air. They shall help build an Indian State. They shall regain privileges. They shall do it themselves. No longer shall white man's government say Indians are a burden on their country's economy via welfare relief. A well run cooperative community needs no financial help whatever. The white man will no longer be hurt where it hurts the most, in the pocket book. Wouldn't that alone be an inducive persuasion to the white man to let go the captive Indians? There may be some broken down brainwashed Indians who because of fear and inferiority complex shall afraid to go to Ganienkeh at first.
The vanguard of strong, resolute men, women and children who shall establish the Indian State are traditionals. They know their rights are exercising it. The establishment of the Indian State gives the North American Indians an international personality and the right to establish foreign relations with other nations - all the rights mentioned above are guaranteed by the United Nations. Because of the nature of the movement, it is an international affair, not an internal matter.
The prospective members of the new Indian State shall be ready to herbal preventative medicine, to keep sickness to a minimum (see Chief Smallboy's healthy camp). By following the above, the Independent North American State of Ganienkeh shall be free of the white man. For the protection of the rights, culture, customs and traditions of the Indian people who participate and join in the project, the following is proposed.
BY THE NATIONS WITHIN THE
INDEPENDENT NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN STATE OF GANIENKEH
PLEDGE OF ALLIANCE
Assembled this day on repossessed Mohawk land, representatives of various North American Indian Nations have come to agreements with the host Mohawk Nation in matters attending the establishment of the Independent North American Indian Nations agreed on the following:
1. That the host Mohawk Nation was dispossessed of its land by unjust actions on the part of a foreign people and its repossession was a result of a joint effort of the above mentioned Indian Nations whose signatures appear below; therefore the said North American Indian Nations concerned shall share in equality the benefits, protection, privileges resources, production and the government of the said Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh
2. That the assembled North American Indian Nations do make ordain a publish an A L L I A N C E and take the Pledge on the Wampum that they shall forever defend and protect each nation in the Alliance and the Great Law of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, mankind's first and greatest national constitution.
3. That the assembled Indian Nations shall implement the Co-operative economic system to run the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh and that each member nation shall take a certain area to lock its co-operative communities and that every subject of the said Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh is a member of the co-op, with the right to an equal share of the production and to this end, every subject of the said Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh shall pledge to do his share of the work to so earn his share of the production.
4. That the assembled Indian Nations shall live off the land, grow food on every available acre, keep livestock and preserve the environment.
5. That each member Nation continue to exercise its own customs and traditional Indian spiritual ceremonies and each member Nation shall permit the other members to adopt any spiritual ceremony if they so desire.
To make sure that the project succeeds in all its Phases, it has been proposed that all traditional Indians joining and participating in the project take the pledge of allegiance to the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh, while holding the string of sacred Pledge Wampum in hand and the following words to be used in taking the Pledge are hereby suggested:
"I__________________, do pledge on the Sacred Wampum that I shall support defend and protect the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh. I accept the Great Law of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy as the Constitution of the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh and do pledge to obey its laws and to defend it to the best of my ability. I do pledge to work in the interest of all the people of the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh who are engaged in developing the Indian State into an example of proper, moral government and society. I accept the co-operative economic system as the most practical and worthy of the human state and do pledge to do my full share of the work to help in its success. I pledge to co-operate fully with others who are taking this Pledge of Allegiance to the end that the people of the Independent North American Indian State of Ganienkeh may realize fully their human rights and know peace and happiness."