[1] Joe David grew up in Kanehsatake, a small Mohawk (Kanienkehaka) community about 70 km west of Montreal, Quebec.
By the late 1980s, he had established himself as an artist with the sale of an artwork to the Public Service Commission [3] and the group exhibition PHOTOMATON (1989), part of "Mois de la photo" at Galerie Articule in Montreal, Quèbec.
In 1990, Joe David's life and career moved in an unexpected direction as a result of the Oka crisis, a 78-day armed stand-off between the Kanehsatake Mohawks and the Canadian army that began during the summer of that year.
The Oka Crisis began as a non-violent occupation of the Pines, a stand of hundred-year-old trees located in Kanehsatake and planted by the ancestors of the Mohawks who live there now.
[5] In support of the Mohawk blockade at Kanehsatake, the warriors blocked every highway leading from Kahnawake to Montreal and seized the Mercier Bridge, closing it to the daily flow of 65,000 vehicles.
[6] On 26 September, the Mohawks (including Joe David) who had remained behind the barricade in Kanehsatake dismantled their guns and threw them in a fire.
Near the end of all the testimony, the Crown prosecutor objected to Bob Anton, an Oneida chief, testifying about a meeting he had with General Kent Foster of the Canadian Armed Forces, on the grounds that the evidence was hearsay.
[10] David also received media attention; he was featured in an article called "The Making of a Warrior" in Saturday Night magazine.
[11] As a result of the conditions during the 1990 stand-off, many of the protesters, including David, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems.
Thomas juxtaposed the photo-portrait of David, a modern-day "warrior" who became an enemy of the Canadian government, with a portrait of a Mohawk emissary who visited the Queen of Great Britain in 1710 when the Iroquois were allies of the British.