History & Culture Kahnawake's Council of Chiefs:1840-1889 By:
Gerald F. Reid, Ph.D Sacred Heart University Prior to the
establishment of a band council system in the late nineteenth
century, Kahnawake was governed locally by a council of chiefs.
When the Indian Advancement Act was applied to the reserve in
1889 Kahnawake’s council of chiefs had a structure perhaps only
about a half century old, but still rooted in the Iroquois
system of clans and the community’s traditional form of
government. Part 1 of this report focuses on the organization
and composition of the council of chiefs during the second half
of the nineteenth century. Part 2 is concerned with divisions
within Kahnawake over the issues of the council and the Indian
Act. Part 3 focuses on the circumstances under which the chiefs
council was replaced by a band council system in 1889. The
following discussion is based on a variety of primary and
secondary source materials. The most important of these are
files of the Indian Department and Department