Mohawk are an Iroquoian-speaking people with communities in southeastern Canada and northern New York State, primarily around Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River.

Mohawks of most of the reserves have established constitutions with elected chiefs and councilors, with whom the Canadian and U.S. governments usually prefer to deal exclusively.

On July 29, 1609, hundreds of Hurons and many of De Champlain's French crew fell back from the mission, daunted by what lay ahead.

By 1642 they had regrouped from four into three villages, recorded by Catholic missionary priest Isaac Jogues in 1642 as Ossernenon, Andagaron, and Tionontoguen, all along the south side of the Mohawk River from east to west.

These were recorded by speakers of other languages with different spellings, and historians have struggled to reconcile various accounts, as well as to align them with archeological studies of the areas.

[6][7] While the Dutch later established settlements in present-day Schenectady and Schoharie, further west in the Mohawk Valley, merchants in Fort Nassau continued to control the fur trading.

He operated from the Fort Nassau area for about six years, writing a record in 1644 of his observations of the Mohawk, their language (which he learned), and their culture.

In addition, Dutch trade partners equipped the Mohawk with guns to fight against other First Nations who were allied with the French, including the Ojibwe, Huron-Wendat, and Algonquin.

They killed the Pequot sachem Sassacus who had come to them for refuge, and returned part of his remains to the English governor of Connecticut, John Winthrop, as proof of his death.

During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the Mohawk and Abenaki First Nations in New England were involved in raids conducted by the French and English against each other's settlements during Queen Anne's War and other conflicts.

Neither of the colonial governments generally negotiated for common captives, and it was up to local European communities to raise funds to ransom their residents.

The Mohawk at Kahnawake forcibly adopted numerous young women and children to add to their own members, having suffered losses to disease and warfare.

Johnson called the Albany Congress in June 1754, to discuss with the Iroquois chiefs repair of the damaged diplomatic relationship between the British and the Mohawk, along with securing their cooperation and support in fighting the French,[13] in engagements in North America.

Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs, built his first house on the north bank of the Mohawk River almost opposite Warrensbush and established the settlement of Johnstown.

They had a long trading relationship with the British and hoped to gain support to prohibit colonists from encroaching into their territory in the Mohawk Valley.

[14] Joseph Louis Cook (Akiatonharónkwen), a veteran of the French and Indian War and ally of the rebels, offered his services to the Americans, receiving an officer's commission from the Continental Congress.

It conducted extensive raids against other Iroquois settlements in central and western New York, destroying 40 villages, crops, and winter stores.

Other Mohawks settled in the vicinity of Montreal and upriver, joining the established communities (now reserves) at Kahnawake, Kanesatake, and Akwesasne.

On November 11, 1794, representatives of the Mohawk (along with the other Iroquois nations) signed the Treaty of Canandaigua with the United States, which allowed them to own land there.

The notable movements started by the Mohawk Warrior Society have been the Oka Crisis blockades in 1990 and the Caledonia Ontario, Douglas Creek occupation of a construction site in summer of 2006.

In 1993, a group of Akwesasne Mohawks purchased 322 acres of land in the Town of Palatine in Montgomery County, New York which they named Kanatsiohareke.

[18] The work and home life of Mohawk ironworkers was documented in Don Owen's 1965 National Film Board of Canada documentary High Steel.

Tarbell is from Kahnawake and was working as a film curator at the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, located in the former Custom House in Lower Manhattan.

They typically drive the 360 miles from the Kahnawake reserve on the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to work the week in lower Manhattan and then return on the weekend to be with their families.

On October 15, 1993, Governor Mario Cuomo entered into the "Tribal-State Compact Between the St. Regis Mohawk First Nation and the State of New York".

[24] In 2008 the Mohawk Nation was working to obtain approval to own and operate a casino in Sullivan County, New York, at Monticello Raceway.

[25] In the early 21st century, two legal cases were pending that related to Native American gambling and land claims in New York.

The number of clans vary among the Haudenosaunee; the Mohawk have three: Bear (Ohkwa:ri), Turtle (A'nó:wara), and Wolf (Okwaho).

In 1632 a band of Jesuit missionaries now known as the Canadian Martyrs led by Isaac Jogues was captured by a party of Mohawks and brought to Ossernenon (now Auriesville, New York).

Ten years after Jogues' death Kateri Tekakwitha, the daughter of a Mohawk chief and Tagaskouita, a Roman Catholic Algonquin woman, was born in Ossernenon and later was canonized as the first Native American saint.