Traditional Trading’s Akwesasne mill rolls out 600 cases of DK’s and Putter’s every week. This is a fraction of the volume that passes through Akwesasne. But production can be increased, especially if export duties on Players and Du Maurier’s are levied in the future. A laboratory report commissioned by the Brantford Expositor in July 1993 indicates that tar and nicotine levels in DK’s and Putter’s are far higher than they are in the more conventional brands. There have been problems with supply as shipments can be erratic.

In Chicago, during the early days of the 1919-1933 Prohibition Era, most of the bootleggers operated in competition with each other. The great accomplishment of Al Capone was the forging of co-operative arrangement within the Chicago underworld. The peace became mutually profitable and allowed more citizens to drink without feeling that they were encouraging violent crime. Among the tobacco dealers in six Nations, there had been some competition as the number of smoke shops proliferated. In March 1993, a smoke shop was torched by unknown parties. A month later, gunmen fired 23 shots into another smoke-shop during a robbery. Limited violence has been reported since then — as most shop operators are now armed, but also because the major participants in the tobacco industry on the Reserve have been meeting to fix prices and share sources.

The indirect price of peace has been paid by the teenaged night guards who are paid $10-14 dollars an hour by some smoke shops. Giving a teenager a gun and easy money is risky under any circumstances, especially as 16 to 19 year old males often believe they are immortal. Many Six Nations guards have been spending their money on fast cars and alcohol — one dies in a road accident about every month.

Glen Styres owns 10 cigarette stores and a brace of gas stations. He allegedly trades cigarettes into Niagara Falls and London. Anne MacNaughton is reported to have been taking advantage of her duty-free status for business purposes since the 1960s. The two of them own a number of outlets and all of them have been diversifying into other activities since 1988. The MacNaughtons broke ground for a shopping plaza on Six Nations in 1988, the very day after the police in Cornwall made their first major arrests of native contraband-runners. Most Iroquois are, at best, neutral about the activities of the tobacco millionaires. They call them the "Silk Shirts", or simply, "Silks".

The tobacco millionaires, like the Warrior’s Society, are brazen in playing upon sympathies and adopting tradition. Anne MacNaughton often describes herself to reporters as a Clan Mother — one of the 25 Iroquois matriarchs who select the chiefs. She also claims that her son Alan is a chief. This conveys tremendous respectability with impressionable whites and lets one presume that if traditional leaders are backing the tobacco industry, then most Iroquois approve of it. Anne is not telling the truth. Her sister has the hereditary right to be a Clan Mother, Anne does not and Alan is not a chief. Alan runs a video store in the MacNaughton plaza and claims not to be physically involved in the cigarette trade. During the Oka Crisis, Alan outraged many Six Nations residents by unilaterally deciding to represent them during the talks between Mohawks and various government officials during the crisis. He also spoke at Brock University in St. Catharines in January 1992 and claimed to be a Mohawk Chief of the Six Nations Reserve.

Reg Hill is the largest of the tobacco millionaires. He owns about 350 acres on the Reserve and one of his close associates, Steve Bomberry, owns another 100 acres of prime land on the outskirts of Ohsweken. Some residents say Hill owns 10 houses in various parts of Canada and the US and travels widely. He is a large man, seemingly affable and has described himself as "hustler." He has a entrepreneurial spirit and is interested in almost anything that can make money. Many aspects of the cigarette trade are reputedly his ideas, but attempts to invest the profits in other projects founder as his originality does not seem to be backed by research skills. Between 1988 and 1991 he was involved in a building spree on Six Nations and erected warehouses, and unused bingo hall and expanded his store complex. Through much of 1993, he seemed more subdued and could sometimes be seen selling oil and potato chips from his smoke shop. Hill was a founder of Two-Row Enterprises. Other partners include Philip Deering, who runs much of the cigarette trade in Montreal Area Reserves, the Nova Scotia Mic-Mac Stan Johnson, Ted Pearson from BC and Vince Powless.

Hill was often in Russia and Eastern Europe in 1991-92 attempting top buy commodities. He seems to have done poorly, despite making between 15 to 30 trips. One estimate suggests Two Row lost over $20 million in Russia with little to show for it except for a cargo of upholstery stuffing and another of crystal, cloth, fur hats, and carvings. Hill had a number of aircraft and often flew to St. Pierre and Miquelon, North Carolina (a source of cheap tobacco) and the American South-West. Shortly after the Oka Crisis, he sold his aircraft. Many of Hill’s Holdings have been transferred to family members in the event of financial disaster at the hands of the law enforcement community.

Another Silk is Mark Maracle. Like Reg Hill, he has a modest business on his own property — a restaurant off the road that runs past Six Nations house. His neighbours report that his restaurant often stays open far into the night when the Grand River (which is behind his house) is open for boating and that traffic can be heavy at times. Maracle may be a partner in the JoMar tobacco enterprise which is headquartered in western New York. He is described by some Iroquois in Six Nations as "self-serving, opportunistic and glib". Maracle has another face he shows outside Six Nations. At a November 1991 conference on Native Rights he impressed many in the Canadian-left with the intensity of his anger and the depth of his feeling for the long-suffering Canadian Native... "We as a people have to stand-up and grab a hold of our destiny by any means necessary" and "The only thing the white man recognizes is power. The only time they take notice is when we stand up and point a gun at them."

Maracle has begun his stand against the white man by telling his Iroquois neighbours that he will shoot them if they annoy him on his land. In a Globe and Mail interview in September 1993, Maracle underscored his determination to keep any authority at bay by showing the reporter a loaded AK-47 he keeps at hand. Even so, according to the Six Nations newspaper Tekawannake, Maracle was arrested by Band Police in late December 1993, following complaints by other residents of the Reserve that he had been molesting children. He was being held without bail at the time of writing.

The Silks often say a large share of their profits goes to the community. This is untrue. Tony Laughing, the Akwesasne Casino owner, was obliged by law to give 60% of his gambling profits to the Band Council on the American side of Akwesasne. He never showed his books to anyone (and many have shredded them) and declared that he only had a small fortune of $150,000. In Kahnawake, before the Oka Crisis, profits from the cigarette industry built a $3.2 million bingo hall, while tax-payers paid for the $4 million survival school which helps preserve the Mohawk heritage. These examples followed in Six Nations, where some residents estimate that at least $10million in cigarette profits flowed through the Reserve in 1992. Some Silks have shown reporters the new public housing projects underway in the village of Ohsweken and claimed credit for it. In point of fact, Hill once offered to fund a local sports team, but was rejected. Hill, MacNaughton, Maracle and Styres have built their own homes and built-up their own enterprises. They have not built one Council House, one health clinic or bought one computer for Native schools.

The small smoke shops operate in an environment of low wages ($7 per hour is not unusual), under a Silk-dominated supply system. Perhaps only 600 of the 8,000 residents of the Reserve are involved in the tobacco industry, yet an estimated $90 million and over 2 million cartons of cigarettes went through Six Nations in 1992. Profits are immense for those who control the industry. The Silks oppose efforts by the Band Council to draw income from the tobacco industry. Chief Steve Williams thinks a share of the profits can be used for the good of the Band. The Warrior’s Society has threatened violence if the Band Council institutes a plan for a common warehouse for cigarettes. A Council attempt in January 1993 to gain access to the profits of the industry, received this warning from Trevor van Evory, a Warrior and associate of Hill and Maracle: "They’re [the Silks] not willing to give the money up to Band Council because of the fact that the Band Council has not helped the community in the past few years…Its going to get worse before it gets better unless the Band Council starts changing [its] way of thinking." Mr. van Evory was being untruthful; the Band Council has been very active in recent years.

As Silks’ properties become more of a no-man’s land, so far police are concerned, other activities become possible. A facility for cock fighting has been built on land apparently owned by a relative of Anne MacNaughton and roosters are on the property. But on land where the Band Police are circumspect, the RCMP go in plain clothes and the OPP never appear, who needs to worry about an inspector from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals?

The Tuscaroras and Senecas of New York

One Godfather of the Native Tobacco industry is "Smokin’ Joe" Anderson. He has two smoke shops and gasoline outlets, a short drive from the Canadian border crossings below Niagara Falls. Canadian currency is accepted at a slight premium. Anderson has become wealthy and has diversified into clothing, office supplies and jewellery. He has a strong-arm contingent of Warriors, which has helped to reduce internal opposition. Local Tuscaroras call Anderson’s Warriors the Goon Squad and are quietly unifying against him. They get limited support from the State Police — who know of the presence of heavy weapons on the Reserve and are extremely careful in planning their visits to it.

During 1988-89, Anderson’s critics had shots fired into their homes, family pets killed, and several incidents of arson were reported. Harold Printup had worked for Anderson, but left his employ in 1990. Shortly afterwards, Printup received a number of death threats. In July 1990, after the Oka Crisis had begun, Printup was shot in the head by two of Anderson’s associates and slid into a lengthy coma. The two gunmen then piled debris around the shooting site into a rough barricade and spray-painted pro-Oka slogans in an attempt to disguise their motives. Anderson was in Akwesasne at the time, but local police believe he was fully aware of the planned shooting. Anderson has admitted to being a Warrior.

Anderson allows the Tuscarora Reserve to act as a staging area for cigarettes en route to Akwesasne and Six Nations. Many Canadian cigarettes are shipped to wholesale buyers in Upstate New York; these buyers sell the cigarettes in turn to Smokin Joe and his colleagues. Smokin’ Joe is reputed to have links to Mafia figures in the US, including Frank Carlucci, and is frequently seen in Como’s Restaurant in Buffalo — a Mob hangout. Rumours among some natives have it that the Mafia is also connected to most of the wholesalers. Cigarette mills are running on the Tuscarora and nearby Seneca Reserves. Some of these are run by a company called Jomar, a name assumed to represent Joe Anderson and Mark Maracle.

Beside Marshalling Shipments for Akwesasne, Smokin’ Joe’s is the centre for a number of individual smugglers. Since 1988, individuals have smuggled hundreds of cartons into Canada every day over the Niagara frontier. Since 1991, Canada Customs has engaged in a war of wits and technology with the tobacco-runners but is swamped by the volume of traffic. False panels, cigarettes stuffed in wheel wells and hubcaps, plus dummy gas tanks compete with high-tech scanners and micro-cameras and fiber-optic cables.

The Seneca Reserve southwest of Buffalo is home to contraband runners who cross the Lake Erie into Ontario. The route is long and risky as conditions on the lake can become quite choppy. One Seneca, Barry Snyder, reported that cigarette stores on the Reserve made $4 million in 1992 from sales to Canadians. Profits from smuggling cannot be gauged. Snyder is now president on the Reserve and is promoting the creation of gaming establishments.

Akwesasne and the City of Cornwall

Akwesasne is the epicentre of the Canadian Black Market in tobacco. As of June 1993, as many as 9,000 cases of cigarettes may pass through Akwesasne on any given day. Each case contains 50 cartons, about 10,000 cigarettes. The Reserve straddles New York, Ontario and Quebec and marks the site where the St. Regis and Raquette rivers reach the St. Lawrence. Much of the Reserve is divided by a maze of waterways bordered by reedy marshes. Opposite the reserve, the environs of Cornwall line the north bank of the river. Once a fast boat breaks cover to speed to Ontario, it may take five minutes to complete its crossing. Between its physical and political geography, the Reserve is a smuggler’s paradise.

As of September 1993, some RCMP officers in Cornwall were estimating that the contraband tobacco industry was worth $1.6 billion, and that half the smuggled cigarettes in Canada came via Akwesasne and Cornwall. Police estimated that they were only intercepting about 1 in every 20 cases of cigarettes. The police are not eager to line the banks of the river and await smuggler’s boats with good reason. The smugglers have better night-vision equipment then the police do. They are also better armed and often even the casual listener in Cornwall can hear them firing at night. When the river freezes up, snowmobiles make the run and one smuggler may have a pair of hovercraft. Others have airboats to help during the spring breakup.

Julius Cook, one of several Akwesasne leaders, was quoted in the November 21^st, 1993 edition of Canada’s national Aboriginal newspaper Windspeaker on the smuggling industry. (Most bands have elected chiefs on Band Councils and traditional chiefs, while people with high standing can hold tremendous influence — the variety of leadership can bewilder the casual observer). "It hasn’t done any good for the community. It has done nothing except cause apprehension, fear for the loss of morality, an atmosphere of greed amongst our younger people, and a material want that our people never had before." He went on to say that "They are jeopardizing our collective rights as Indians to make themselves rich." Teresa David, editor of Indian Times, is quoted in the same article about how "Thos e kids, when the shooting and stuff is going on, they’re not in their right minds."

The Reserve seems indifferently prosperous. Many homes are run-down and have junked cars parked outside; others are new, large, or have extensive renovations underway. The better houses usually have all terrain vehicles, new cars (often customized 4-wheel drives) and new power boats parked outside. In a remote corner of the Reserve, old dumped cars have been riddled with bullets from target practices. A quick inspection suggests that some riflemen are not bad shots with an automatic rifle at 100 metres. Some massive new homes are tucked away from the main roads. The St. Regis River is dotted with docks and small fast boats along the shore. At dusk, convoys of expensive cars and trucks enter the driveways of some homes and everyone prepares for that evening’s cargo. Where the boats go is no secret; Cornwall is just across the river.

Both Ron Martelle, the Mayor of Cornwall, and Staff Inspector Stuart MacDonald, a 27-year OPP veteran, now with the Cornwall Police, are keenly aware of the effect the Black Market has on their town. MacDonald describes it as a "Klondike of organized crime", and says most organized criminal groups have representation there. Mayor Martelle, a former Mountie, agrees that organized crime is well established in his city. Neither would discuss specifics, because of ongoing investigations by various police forces, but indicated that numerous ethnically-based criminal gangs were involved. The gangs handle distribution of cigarettes brought from Akwesasne to store owners of the same background throughout central Canada. When the cigarette trade began in earnest in 1990-91, individuals from Cornwall and the surrounding area began to move cigarettes to Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. Now, organized operators are squeezing out the part-timers. According to Staff Inspector MacDonald, some local buyers have been stung in purchasing deals, to keep them out of the market. Some hijackings have occurred, as has some intimidation of local operators — although the victims remain unlikely to report specifics.

A Chinese gangster is wanted for the murder of a Mohawk Warrior in the Snye region of Akwesasne in the September 1993. Other Mohawks believe he had cheated the Chinese in a business deal and was executed pour encourager les autres. Other killings have occurred. Doug George reports that between eight and eleven Akwesasne Mohawks have "disappeared" as well. The Brantford Expositor (one of the few Canadian papers to follow the Black Market in detail) reported in its June 24, 1993 edition, that at least six people had been killed between June 1991 and June 1993. Loran Thompson admits in the Windspeaker article "There have been shootings out on the waters… I don’t know how many people have been hurt physically by it, but I don’t imagine it’s too many. You can probably count them on one hand." The Canadian Coast Guard pulled the bodies of four suspected Mohawk smugglers out of the St. Lawrence as of September 1993, but then announced that it would not respond to distress calls on the river at night because of gunfire from cigarette boats.

With the presence of so much organized crime, the flow in the contraband is moving both ways. It is believed that aliens are being smuggled into the United States and narcotics certainly are. Major R. Johnston is the Prot Authority at the US Customs Post on the American side of the Akwesasne Reserve. A Vietnam vet and Reserve officer, he runs his post like a military unit. Despite an avuncular Dutch uncle image, he is a shrewd operator. Like many Upstate New Yorkers, he has relatives on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence and close ties to many Mohawks — a nephew of Loran Thompson often stays at his home. Johnston understands what lies behind Canada’s smuggling problems. In the two week period before Christmas 1982, his post checked 560 automobiles carrying US citizens returning from Christmas shopping in Canada. The figure for 1992 was three. A $14.09 US load of groceries in Massena, New York cost worth $26.03 in Cornwall in 1992. The post clears about 100-120 Canadian automobiles every day on their way to shop in the US or Akwesasne, the heaviest traffic is on Canada Day and the Canadian Thanksgiving Weekend.

The post has no major problems with Akwesasne Mohawks; Johnston socializes with them on a regular basis. He won’t give them an inch on requests for a Native express lane through his post (Canada Customs has one). He has got most of the Silks to pay duties on major imports from Canada at least once — and keeps copies of the paperwork handy once precedents are established. Also, his men are armed and Canada Customs Officers are not. Shots are often fired at the Canada Customs Post. According to Johnston, sometime around 8-9 November 1993, the post was abandoned for several hours after shots were fired at it. Canada Customs will not comment on the incident, but their union has been demanding for some time that Customs officers are armed.

The American Customs Officers report a 30-40% increase in drug flow through New York posts in the past few years, seizures and arrests are up by 30%. Johnston’s biggest haul came when one of his officers spotted two Vietnamese travelling with a Chinese and concluded that something was amiss given the usual animosity between these people; 6.5 kilos of heroin were in the car.

The Warrior/Smugglers also run cocaine from the US into Canada. One pipeline involved using tow trucks to deliver automobiles to Akwesasne from Syracuse, Malone and other cities in Upstate New York. The cars were then left for other parties to pick up the drugs. Police discovered the system by accident in September 1993; when investigating a seemingly-abandoned car, police found 40 kilos of cocaine inside it. They waited to see who would claim it, a tow-truck from Akwesasne soon showed up. Police believe such deliveries have been going on for some time.

Besides the harassment of Band Police and Canada Customs Officers, police in Cornwall are being threatened too. According to Mayor Martelle, police officers were shot at on November 8^th during a liquor bust. Another officer has a bounty placed on him by an organized crime group and threats were made against his son. Threats on Mayor Martelle made national news in September 1993 after a cigarette boat shot at Cornwall’s Civic Centre (in response to the arrest of smugglers carrying $200,000 in contraband in two new Lincolns), the Mayor went into hiding for a month. While a few Warrior-apologists in the Canadian news media alleged that he was either grandstanding or paranoid, Mayor Martelle has good reason to be concerned about his safety and that of his family.

When Mayor Martelle brought attention to the situation in Cornwall, after the civic centre incident, Art Montour called on him to "shut up" and "stop accusing Mohawks" of gun-play and smuggling. Martelle was later confronted by Montour at a social event. Montour was accompanied by Milton Born-With-a-Tooth. The latter has been cultivating an image as a mystic-warrior archetype after firing a shot at the RCMP during a 1990 stand-off in Alberta over Peigan opposition to the Old Man Dam project. Born-With-a-Tooth has since been proselytizing violence to Other Canadian Native militants.

Martelle’s concerns involve the violence in Cornwall. He reminded Montour that Cornwall does not extend over river into Akwesasne. While recognizing that smuggling profits bring a degree of prosperity to Cornwall, Martelle believes the price is too high. Staff Inspector MacDonald points out that the smuggling industry has shattered family life on the Reserve and is subjecting Cornwall to the same pressures. "What happens when a wife makes as much in a half hour run as her husband makes in a construction job all week? Some students who sell smokes in school are making twice as much as their teachers; what benefit does a student see in education? What happens when it is gone? What of their expectations?"

What indeed?

A "Fifth Estate" report by Victor Malarek, aired on September 28, 1993, secured an admission from Art Montour’s son that he had saved $100,000 by age 17. Art Montour has also talked about his sons’ drug abuse to Dan D’Ambrosio, a features writer with Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Art Montour’s son, Art "Sugar" Montour Junior, has been arrested by the RCMP and charged with nine counts of possession of a restricted weapon. The Branford Expositor article quoted Don Thomas, a local smuggler, who said that he ran 100 to 300 cases of cigarettes per day (with a profit of $150 per case). He admitted to consuming $85,000 in cocaine in one month. Another Akwesasne exile despaired for one of his smuggling cousins who is paid in cocaine. Whatever he doesn’t use himself he can sell elsewhere.

The American government has granted Akwesasne a licence for a casino, planned to be the second largest in New York State. Development is currently on hold because of the instability on the Reserve.

The Oneidas and Chippewas

Reserves in southwest Ontario are home to the Oneidas and Chippewas. The Oneidas are members of the Iroquois and as fierce a people as the Mohawks. The Chippewas belong to the Algonquian family of peoples — none of whom had a particularly militant tradition. The difference is striking. A Chippewa band spent much of 1993 trying to reclaim land sold to the Department of National Defence in 1942. Chippewa elders closely supervised to occupation of part of Camp Ipperwash with the intent of keeping it peaceful. Although a shot was fired at a helicopter and a vandal burned down two shacks, the Chippewas policed themselves and the Military was content to stay at arms length. Both sides were worried, however, by the prospect of Oneida militants arriving to seize control of the issue — hence a firm commitment to keep the issue calm and relaxed. Ipperwash may soon be returned to the Chippewa.

The Oneidas had a warrior society, but this has been re-named the Peacekeepers. Some natives insist that the name is not so much traditional as it is an attempt to confuse outside observers about the nature of the Society. Since 1990, the militants had an increasing influence over Reserve life and have laid in a stock of weapons. The font of the militancy is Howard Elijah described by some natives as a "Huey Long type". Elijah is at times at odds with the Iroquois Grand Council but backs off from serious confrontation. There is a hunger for tradition and ceremony among the Oneida and Elijah is helping to answer it by instituting aspects of ritual and tribal culture into everyday life. On the dangerous side, some Oneidas believe he is taking on the status of a cult leader.

The OPP in the region are not reported to be alarmed by Elijah’s increasing control among the Oneida. Everything seems quiet and he does cooperate with them at times. In February 1992, two Oneida hockey players beat a bartender to death in a brawl in Strathroy, Ontario. Elijah helped to rapidly hand over the perpetrators to the OPP. Five Oneida men, apparently affiliated with peacekeepers from the Reserve, are wanted by US authorities in connection with the destruction of a Band-owned bingo hall on the Oneida Reserve in Upstate New York in 1988. The same five are also suspected of being responsible for the toppling of five hydro-towers in September 1990 in response to the situation in Oka at the time.

Lacking close access to the US border and without a major market other than London and Windsor, the Oneida Peacekeepers are still seemingly involved in contraband cigarettes. Traffic is reported to come through the Walpole Island Reserve on the Ontario/Michigan border and the area is also suspected of being a major conduit for the smuggling of aliens into the US. Since 1991, smuggler’s boats have become a growing problem. A bulletin issued by the Canadian Coast Guard in September 1993 read in part "Due to the great number of non-identified motorcrafts transiting during night time at very high speed and without navigation lights, it is recommended that boating be avoided on Lake St. Clair [the lake the Reserve is located on] between sunset and sunrise. The situation is considered dangerous."

An attempt by Oneida Peacekeepers to foster a Warrior’s Society among the Chippewa was rebuffed for several reasons. The Chippewa have a spirit of sturdy independence and resent the sometimes high-handed ways of the Iroquois. In rejecting the Peacekeepers, the Chippewa also expressed an antipathy towards participating in the contraband tobacco industry.

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John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca