The Mohawk are one of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois League, historically based south of the Great Lakes and in present-day New York and Pennsylvania.

Broadly speaking, the elected chiefs and the Mohawk Warrior Society have supported gambling, while some traditional leaders have opposed it.

Under US treaty law, the federal government has jurisdiction over certain crimes on the reservation, but the Mohawk have their own police force for other cases.

[3] It is bordered by the New York towns of Fort Covington (east), Bombay (south), Brasher (southwest), and Massena (west), and by the Akwesasne Indian reserve to the north in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario.

[7] The settlement was founded about 1755 by several Catholic Iroquois families, primarily Mohawk, who moved upriver from the mission village of Caughnawaga, Quebec (now known as Kahnawake), which was south of Montreal.

They were seeking better lives for their families, as they were concerned about negative influences of traders at Caughnawaga, who plied the Mohawk with rum.

[8] After the United States acquired this territory in settlement of its northern border, relations among the people and the varying jurisdictions became more complex.

Since the reservation was established, the Mohawk on both sides of the St. Lawrence River have lost land and been adversely affected by major infrastructure projects conducted by state and federal authorities.

These include construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway, what is now known as the Three Nations Crossing bridge, and dams on the rivers for hydroelectric power projects.

[9] The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal government applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to take over and dismantle the dam, which they did in 2016.

Based on restoration of fisheries after such dam removals in other locations across the country, they are optimistic that salmon and other migratory fish, such as walleye, will quickly return to the region.

[9] In 2013 the tribe received a $19 million settlement from "GM, Alcoa, and Reynolds for pollution of tribal fishing and hunting grounds along the St. Lawrence River".

The tribe intends to use this money to redevelop the former dam site as "the focus of a cultural restoration program that will pair tribal elders with younger members of the tribe to restore the Mohawk language and pass on traditional practices such as fishing, hunting, basket weaving, horticulture and medicine, to name a few.

[13] The New York Times covered this issue in February 2006 in an article headlined "Drug Traffickers Find Haven in Shadows of Indian Country".

[14] The Akwesasne police and government spokespersons have defended their work, saying they have had to take on an unfair federal burden of border enforcement while not receiving additional funding.

Due to a quirk in the law, they were not eligible to receive grants from the federal Department of Homeland Security that were available to local jurisdictions to support the extra work at the border.

The legislature often passes such a resolution[16] but the federally recognized tribe says that it has sovereign authority on its reservation and does not need to collect the state tax.