Joseph Onasakenrat (September 4, 1845 – February 8, 1881), also known as Sosé Onasakenrat, was a Mohawk chief of

Kanesatake Kanesatake () is a Mohawk (''Kanien'kéha:ka'') settlement on the shore of the Lake of Two Mountains in southwestern Quebec, Canada, at the confluence of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers and about west of Montreal. People who reside in ''Kan ...

, one of the

Seven Nations of Canada The Seven Nations of Canada (called Tsiata Nihononhwentsiá:ke in the Mohawk language) was a historic confederation of First Nations living in and around the Saint Lawrence River valley beginning in the eighteenth century. They were allied to New ...

in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Onasakenrat (meaning ''Swan'' or ''White Feather'') was born to a Mohawk family near

Oka, Quebec Oka is a small village on the northern bank of the Ottawa River (''Rivière des Outaouais'' in French), northwest of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Located in the Laurentian Mountains, Laurentians valley on Lake of Two Mountains, where the Ottawa has ...

. He was baptized Catholic and named Joseph, and was fluent in Mohawk and French. In 1860, he entered the

Petit Séminaire de Montréal Petit is a French-language surname literally meaning "small" or "little". Notable people with the surname include: *Adriana Petit (born 1984), Spanish multidisciplinary artist *Alexis Thérèse Petit (1791–1820), French physicist *Amandine Peti ...

where he studied for the priesthood for about three years. He returned to Oka and was appointed as secretary of the

Sulpician The Society of Priests of Saint-Sulpice (; PSS), also known as the Sulpicians, is a society of apostolic life of Pontifical Right for men, named after the Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris, where it was founded. The members of the Society add the ...

mission. On July 25, 1868, Onasakenrat was elected chief of the Mohawk community. Almost immediately, he travelled to

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

to meet with the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Onasakenrat petitioned the government to return land to the Mohawks which was, at the time, held by the Sulpicians. The Mohawk had learned that the Sulpicians had changed the terms of an earlier land grant deed and, rather than holding the land in trust for the Mohawk, had taken control of it. They were already selling it off to settlers. Onasakenrat accused the seminary of exploiting the natives and of intentionally keeping them impoverished. The bishop threatened to

excommunicate Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in communion with other members of the co ...

anyone involved in the petition, prompting Onasakenrat, along with most of the Mohawk community, to leave the Catholic Church that winter and convert to

Methodism Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

. On February 18, 1869, the chief confronted the Sulpicians again, challenging their authority over the land by cutting down a large

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

tree without permission. One week later, backed by an armed band of forty men, Onasakenrat demanded that the Sulpicians leave Oka within eight days. The priests refused to leave, and instead obtained a warrant for his arrest. Montréal police arrived and arrested the group, although they were released a few days later. In 1877, Onasakenrat was charged after the Catholic Church in Oka was destroyed by fire in the early morning of June 14. At the time, the Mohawk were engaged in a dispute with white Canadian settlers over logging rights on their reserve. A group of Protestant Mohawks were accused of starting the fire. The group was tried quickly, and found not guilty by a jury. A devoutly religious man, Onasakenrat became an ordained Methodist minister in 1880, and worked to translate religious works into the Mohawk language. He translated the

Gospels Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the second century AD the term (, from which the English word originated as a calque) came to be used also for the books in which the message was reported. In this sen ...

(1880) and several hymns. At the time of his sudden death at Oka in 7 Feb. 1881 at age 35, he was working on a translation of the remainder of the

Bible The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) originally writt ...

, having completed up to the

Epistle to the Hebrews The Epistle to the Hebrews () is one of the books of the New Testament. The text does not mention the name of its author, but was traditionally attributed to Paul the Apostle; most of the Ancient Greek manuscripts, the Old Syriac Peshitto and ...

Notes

References

* * * *{{Cite Appletons', wstitle=Ouasakeurat, year=1900 Translators of the Bible into indigenous languages of the Americas Mohawks of Kanesatake people