The Anti-Sovereignty Actions of the Warrior Society

The Great Law of Peace is very clear that the purpose of human life is to promote peace. As the Haudenosaunee, we are to be the people who build a long house of peace. We were to bury the weapons of war and not shed blood among one another. The Warrior Societies within our communities have subverted the Great law and have sought noting short of the total destruction of the Haudenosaunee Council of Chiefs for the mere purpose of making money for themselves. It is this perversion of the Great Law and the use of violence against their own people that casts each and every "warrior" outside of the circle of the Great Law of Peace.

In 1989, a group from the Mohawk Warrior Society, led by Loran Thompson, and Paul Delaronde, entered the longhouse at Onondaga to disrupt a Grand Council. Francis Boots entered carrying a large wooden club and placed it inside the doorway, with the implied threat they were there to club the chiefs who oppose them. The warriors stated that they no longer recognize the authority of the Chiefs over them and walked out, leaving the protection of the circle of the Great Law. Louis Hall, the warrior leader, stated in a 1991 interview that the Warrior Society would not go to the Grand Council at Onondaga to seek recognition. Hall viewed himself as a "spiritual general."

The Warrior Society was dedicated in provoking a violent showdown with Canadian authorities in order to create bloodshed that would then give themselves leverage to negotiate their view of sovereignty. In a press release during the confrontation at Oka that turned violent after the arrival of the warriors, the Mohawk Nation News Service stated: "Now that war is being forced upon us, we will turn our hearts and minds to war and it too we will wage with all of our might." (Toronto Star, aug 28, 1990)