Brick house by the riverside

Courtesy: Sonny Joe Cross

Story told by Sonny Joe Cross

My father built that house in 1925. It was there 1925 to 1955. They took it away for the Seaway in 55’. They took those houses away, destroyed them, just like they did near Russia. Same thing. They set a bomb and they took all the people and they threw them out of there, out of the islands. The Canadian government did that. 

They took all those houses over there, they bulldozed them, they set them on fire.

In the public collection of the Indian Affairs and Northern Development’s annual report for 1957, the report details the range of compensation made to individuals affected by the land expropriation for the St. Lawrence Seaway project. (Courtesy: Government of Canada Collections)

At the time that it happened, we didn’t have the officials like they have today. The men who were elected to be in the council office, they weren’t getting paid and they were all working. Today, the government gives them money to stay here and settle everything down. 

Those days, you had no resources, any help, nothing. Everybody was brainwashed by the catholic church. They were all brainwashed. The government paid the church to brainwash the Natives.

Whatever the government did to you, you accepted. Now today, you’ve got the warriors. If that happened today, they’d come here, the warriors would pick up the gun and fight. 

In the public collection of the Indian Affairs and Northern Development’s annual report for 1957, the report details ongoing negotiations with residents for the settlement of funds for the expropriation of Indian reserve lands. It also relates further land expropriation of an additional 100 acres on the Caughnawaga reserve in order to relocate the main highway. (Courtesy: Government of Canada Collections)