ResoluteReader: Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel with Sean Carleton - When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance

Sunday, September 06, 2026

Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel with Sean Carleton - When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance

In July 1990 the Canadian state laid siege to an Indigenous Mohawk community near the town of Oka in Quebec. The 78 day siege saw violent confrontation, including the use of guns against the First Nations people, and self-defence and armed retaliation from the Indigenous community. Images of masked and armed First Nations people resisting the state made headlines across Canada, but few of the newsreports talked about either the wider issues or the way that the community's resistance was led by unarmed women. One figure who did stand out was Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, the young spokesperson for the First Nations people.

The dispute was over the extension of an existing nine-hole golf course into Indigenous lands - the pinewoods suggested by the title. A further nine-holes were to be built on land that was considered sacred, but was also an ancient burial ground. The appalling dismissal of Indigenous beliefs and interests was shocking, but characterises the dismissal by the Canadian state of First Nation's interests. The resistance was, eventually, successful. The golf course was not extended, but the conflict itself exposes wider questions of Canadian history and colonialism.

Gabriel's account of the resistance is inspiring, and demonstrates that through collective resistance, injustice and be tackled. But she is keen to make wider points. Firstly she repeatedly emphasises the so-called Oka crisis was not an isolated example of injustice. It was part of an ongoing process of displacement and land-robbery. Indeed she makes the point that dispute the end of the resistance in 1990, the situation continues in different forms.

It's very frustrating that in the years since 1990... we're still dealing with the land issue. The federal government had an opportunity to do something about it in 1990 but did absolutely nothing to change it. Canada continues to commit land fraud. They've sold our land to a developer again, as they did in 1990. They sold contested land to a private individual, so they should be compensating the people (in Oka) that they fradumently sold the land to, but they won't acknowledge or take responsbility for creating this mess.

Of the wider Indigenous demand for #landback, a hashtag that has become a common demand by First Nation's people and their supporters, she points out that the state and its supporters

claim we want the keys to their houses, but that is absurd, really. Canadians need to direct their outrage at the right people: the Sulpicians, the Municipality of Oka, the provincial and federal government, settler-colonialists themselves. They all need to be held accountable for their ongoing complicity in land fraud and land theft at Kanehsata:ke... for the land fraud committed against all Indigenous Peoples in the Americas.

The Sulpicians were a French Catholic order that arrived in French Canada to convert and subvert Indigenous society. Gabriel argues, that "peace and reconciliation" is not about taking land back completely. But it is about recognising genocide and robbery and giving reparations and restitution.

Going further Gabrield explicitly places the blame for Indigenous genocide and repression on an economic system that puts profit before people. She says:

It feels like a war, the rich against the poor. It's a very dysfunctional society in which racism is the accepted norm and whereby systemic racism and environmental destruction are justified for corporate profits. I think that is the key reason why there's so much resistance to change: Land Back will mean less money in settlers' pockets and the coffers of the state... Canada's economic prosperity has always been at the expense of Indigenous Peoples' lands and our human rights.

She continues:

Canadians who are indifferent to our plight and history seem oblivious to the fact that their prosperity is built on the backs of Indigenous people. They're getting rich from developing outlands, which they've stolen, and their developments are protected by colonial laws. So, naturally, they stay quiet and benefit from the racism norms.

Would #landback be at the expense of most ordinary Canadians? I think probably not. In fact most ordinary Canadians probably can be won to such a struggle because they have a shared interest in resisting corporate greed and state racism.

Peace and reconciliation will not be straightforward. But it can be done in a rational and equitable way. The people who ought to pay are those who have concentrated wealth in their hands through centuries of exploitation - and that's a minority of super rich people and their corporations. This requires winning an argument in Canada that non-Indigenous workers have a shared interest with Indigenous workers. There are multiple hints that this is possible in Gabriel's book. One example, surprisingly, comes from the family of Corporal Marcel Lemay who died during the 1990 crisis. Lemay is likely to have been killed by "friendly fire" from the state/army troopers attacking the First Nations. But what is interesting is that his sister, has dedicated herself to a process of "peace and reconciliation" and has concluded that her brother died unnecessarily.

Gabriel does, however make the point, that while this is tragic, Lemay's death was used to blame and target Kanien'keha:ka people and the police "enacted a kind of revenge in which they did not listen to government and became a law onto themselves". Lemay's sister has "become a strong voice for reconcilation" says Gabriel. But she also wonders if there would have been the same outcry and indignation if it had been a First Nations person who was killed. For Gabriel the fact that Lemay's sister has spoken out demonstrates the potential for things to change among non-Indigenous people, but it also was "history repeating itself".

For me, this discussion of the tragic death of Corporal Lemay, highlights a central important theme of the book. Nothing that happens in Canada can be understood without reference to the colonial history of the state. And until that is acknowledged, there can be no justice. The problem is a systemic one, and it requires systemic change.

Since 1990, Gabriel has become a leading figure in the fight for Indigenous rights on a global stage. Much of this book explores her own thoughts and ideas, which naturally engage with wider issues such as the global environmental crisis. Ultimately Gabriel is clear

History will show that what we're doing is the only choice we have if we're to be true to ourselves and to honour Mother Earth, giving the future generations a fughting chance to survive the cataclysmic environmental changes from the climate crisis.

Socialists, like myself, will have their own ideas about how that struggle will manifest itself. What Gabriel's book makes clear is that that struggle cannot win without a recognition that historic colonialism is part of the basis for todays' capitalist destruction and that the repression and displacement of Indigenous Peoples is an ongoing structural part of contemporary society. Supporting the ongoing contempory struggles of Indigenous Peoples for economic and political justice is not a optional extra for the left, trade union and environmental movements. It is part of how we understand and challenge capitalism.