Kahnawake Mohawk address the United
Nations.
A delegation of Kahnawake Mohawk appears
before the United Nations to claim that their
human rights have been violated by the Canadian
government. At issue is the government’s con-
fiscation of 1,260 acres of Kahnawake land
along the St. Lawrence River. The land was
taken in preparation for the construction of the
St. Lawrence Seaway, which will connect the
Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. Although the
government offered the Indians monetary compen-
sation, the Mohawk refused, maintaining that the
money offered was far lower than the amounts
given to non-Indian landowners for land along the
river. The UN delegates express sympathy for the
Mohawk but ignore their request that the United
Nations pressure Canada to end its encroachment
on the reserve.
January 3
Alaska becomes a state.
With the passage of the Alaska Statehood Act,
Alaska becomes the 49th state of the Union. The
act allows the new state to appropriate 108 million
of the 375 million acres within Alaska’s borders for
the state’s own use. The state subsequently identi-
fies as its property many hunting and fishing areas
frequented by Alaska’s Natives.
March 5
Traditional Iroquois rebel against the tribal
council at Ohsweken.
On the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, Canada, a
group of Iroquois traditionalists, declaring them-
selves the true governing body of the reserve, seize
the council house at Ohsweken, the meeting place
of the reserve council set in place by the Canadian
government in 1924. The revolt ends when 50
Royal Canadian Mounted Police raid the council
house and restore the officially sanctioned council
to power.
SpringThe Cape Dorset Inuit establish the West
Baffin Eskimo Co-operative.
In the mid-1950s, non-Indian adventurer and writer
James Houston traveled to the village of Cape Dorset
on Canada’s Baffin Island, where he taught the Inuit
the art of printmaking. Using simple designs that
traditionally decorated their sealskin robes, the Cape
Dorset Inuit quickly took to making high-quality
prints that they could sell to whites. To capitalize fully
on non-Indian demands for their works, Houston
encourages the Inuit printmakers to create the West
Baffin Eskimo Co-operative. Artists can buy shares
in the co-operative, which operates a studio where
they can work and a store where they can sell their
prints. (See also entry for 1967.)1960A Norse village is discovered in Newfoundland.
Norwegian author Helge Ingstad discovers the
ruins of an ancient settlement near the village of
L’Anse aux Meadows, in northern Newfoundland.
The remains include multiroom houses built using
3,000-year-old Norse technology. The date is
consistent with Norse sagas of the 12th and 13th
centuries that tell of the travels of Norse seamen from
Greenland and Iceland to a location they called
Vinland (see entry for CA. 1000). Many scholars
have identified Vinland as Newfoundland, but the
discovery of L’Anse aux Meadows is the first evidence
of pre-Columbian Norse settlement in North
America that is widely accepted by archaeologists.Half a million Americans identify themselves
as Indians in the U.S. Census.
For the first time in American history, the U.S. Cen-
sus Bureau allows Americans to report their own
racial origins as “Indian.” Approximately, 513,500
people identify themselves as Indian, and an ad-
ditional 28,000 Alaskans call themselves Aleut or
Eskimo. Over the next few decades, the new system
of self-identification will help account for a rapid