Sulpician "Montreal Island" April Fools Celebrating 250 Years of Theft from Mohawks

MNN.   April 1, 2007.  The Montreal Gazette announced that the Sulpicians [a Catholic order] are planning events to celebrate the 350^th anniversary of their arrival on “Tianitiotiakon” in 1657.   The colonists call our land “Montreal Island”.  Six years later 19-year old King Louis XIV of France, gave them title to the island.  Whatever happened to nemo dat quod non habet  - “you can’t give what you don’t have”? 

Let’s get back to reality.  The Sulpicians and all their customers, toads and lackeys do not own Tianitiotiakon.  We Mohawk Women Title Holders demand a public admission from the Sulpicians that we never gave up our land or jurisdiction.  We know they have no proof whatever that we ever surrendered or sold our land to anyone.  We continue to be the trustees who hold title to our land for the coming generations. 

Why is Alan Hustak of the Montreal Gazette misleading the public with lies and misinformation?  [ahustak@thegazette.canwest.com].  He is careful not to mention us, the owners.  He should have called his story, “The Great Theft” by the “Gentlemen” of St. Sulpice”.   They treated us as “subhumans” from the start.  It was an excuse for theft and patently illegal under international law.  

There are dozens of events scheduled to mark this theft by these Ecclesiastical “Gentlemen” of New France.  Our ancestors were placed here by creation thousands of years ago.  Now that’s something to celebrate!  The Society in Paris had never set foot on the Island.  They sent a few guys over here with the “deed” to our land which they now blatantly flaunt on a giant screen at Notre Dame Basilica.  They never take their blinders off long enough to acknowledge the fact that we weren’t brought over here from somewhere else like they were. 

When Cartier arrived, the whole island of Tianitiotiakon was being used for agriculture by our people.  We were in the habit of giving the land a chance to breathe and regenerate.  We would go to another location and come back again later.  When the French came back on a second visit, they did not find us at the same place.  We never abandoned any of our land.  Today the land is so polluted it would take a thousand years to return it to its natural productive state. 

“Since they arrived from France the Sulpicians have been an indelible part of the fabric of Montreal”.  “Fabric” means money and commerce.  Their goal was never religion.  It was profit.  They were powerful feudal landlords until 1840. 

According to Hustak, “The scope of their influence is felt to this day”.  Yeh!  We agree.  Such as their continuous attacks on the Mohawks of Kanehsatake on whose land “they squat and shit”, said a community member.  They brag that they planned those God awful pot holed streets and roads of Montreal.  There’s water under the ground which is a river that was used by us to get to our village, Hochelaga, the site of the Place Ville Marie. 

All the street names that are prefaced with “St.” are not saints at all.  They are squatters who were given land by the Sulpicians.    

They licensed the first tavern in 1670, showing their true “spirits” as the first bootleggers profiting from other people’s addictions.  They built St. Patrick’s Basilica for the Irish survivors of British colonization who escaped the potato famine in Ireland.  We sent over the potato that saved many Irish lives.      

They operated the Grand Seminary on Sherbrooke Street West, surrounded by a big wall to keep the “les sauvages” [Indians] out.  They ruled by threats of ex-communication amongst their own.  Rebel Louis Riel was a student there.  So was Joseph Swan of Kanehsatake.  When he found out how they stole our land, he left and became a chief.  He is the ancestor of the current chief, Steven Bonspille. 

They say they watched over the conduct of girls and women also known as “King Louis’ whores” [les filles du roi].  Marquerite Bourgeoys was the head “madame”, the “Heidi Fleiss” of her day.  To clear up her name she gave a lot of money to set up the “Congregation of Notre Dame”.  Monique Tremblay is today’s madame.

Today, they ban books that are not concerned with devotion [to them and to their theft of our lands].  They possessed a “civil status” on the entire island as the judge, jury and executioner.  They appointed the governors of New France like Governor Vaudreuil by lobbying the king.  Vaudreuil had Indian slaves and tried to raise scalping to a military art.  To get a job even as a floor cleaner, you had to have a monarchical slant. 

Even after the British conquered the French in 1760, the Suplicians went their merry way.  Even though the inhabitants were piss poor, they had to give 10% of their income to this cult from hell, or else!  Even today when Habitants enter a village in Quebec, and a family hasn’t paid their tithing, their name is on a sign board for all the world to see. 

They’re right next door to City Hall and still have influence.  Today’s mayor, Gerard Tremblay, is in their clutches.  In February a history of the Sulpicians “Liar’s Club” was launched at a gala attended by Cardinal Jean Claude Turcotte, Archbishop of Montreal, Sulpician Superior Jacques D’Arcy and Montreal Mayor Gerard Tremblay.  The circle of thieves is tight as ever.  The propaganda, “Les Sulpicians a Montreal, une Histoire de Pouvoir et de Discretion” was written by a committee of cult members.  “For all its academic restraint, the work might more appropriately titled a “discreet history of power”.  There is nothing discreet about it.  These crooks are not fooling anybody. 

Like any secret cult, “they remain virtually unknown to the general public”,  said Dominique des Landres, a history professor at the Universite de Montreal, who was in charge of the book project.  She’s a lousy historian.  We give her an “F” for being totally biased against us.  She forgot to say we own the land and are still here.  She correctly called the Sulpicians “a select club”.  They lobby to put their selections in office. 

Now here’s a laugh.  They are not bound by “vows of poverty”!  Someone who knows about them said, “They’re all fat pigs.  They eat well and drive fancy cars.  They get free room and board.  They get a stipend which is not taxable.  That’s how they can afford their “young luxuries”.  About 5 years ago American priests were caught coming up to Montreal to look for these young luxuries”. 

Their numbers are getting smaller because they are getting older and not being replaced.  The Quebecois are throwing off their feudal mentality.  They want equality like everyone else.  Further down the road, there will be no priests left.  It’s time for the Sulpicians to acknowledge their sins and give back what they stole.  Our lands have almost been irreparably damaged now, but at least this would be a start.       

“They are the original colonizers in the name of religion.  At any given time there have never been more than 700 Sulpicians worldwide.  Although generally associated with Quebec, about 40% work in Japan, South America and the United States”. 

De Landres said, “The most difficult myth to dispel about the Sulpicians is they are rich”.   Maybe they aren’t as rich as they want to be, but they are rich.  She obviously has not seen their financial statements.  Dominque, you don’t know what you’re talking about when you say that their [our] money went to education and to build foundations. 

If their fortune was lost in the Depression and they were taken to the cleaners, that’s because they were a bank and had stock portfolios.  They were and are a financial institution.  They did not make their money just selling rosaries and crucifixes in the back of the church.  They have the cemetery on Mount Royal.  Are they planning to take it all with them when they go?  Or will it all go into off-shore accounts or to Rome?  According to the deed, the mission was established to convert the Indians.  Theoretically, the land legally reverts to us, the real owners.   They know about this.

In 1937 the Quebec government placed the Sulpicians holdings under trusteeship.  Why?  Mismanagement, of course!  They have a history of that.  “In every century they have stepped up to the plate whether as cofounders of the city in the 17^th century, seignieurs in the 18^th century, civil–church middlemen in the 19^th century, or as a pool of Episcopal leaders in the 20^th century”.  They’ve been like lice!  They’ve been in our hair since they got here and we can’t get rid of them.  Unless they die out which is imminent! 

To get these gnats off our island, in 1721 the King of France gave them another piece of Mohawk land he does not have a right to give to anyone.  It is one of our favorite hunting grounds. This was the so-called “Seigneury of the Lake of Two Mountains”, better known as, you guessed it, “Kanehsatake”. 

Now dozens of cultural religious events are planned to mark the arrival of the first four Sulpician missionaries to Quebec in July 1657.   Shouldn’t the Natives be at the Place d’Armes on the 3^rd Saturday of May to invite them to get on their boats and go home?  They’ve overstayed their welcome by a few centuries. 

In 1760 the Sulpicians negotiated a land claim settlement with the British enabling them to remain seigniers of Montreal Island after the conquest.  They never asked us about this.  350 years is enough of these leeches.  The con game is over.  Colonialism is dead!  So pack your bags and go home.  Take what you brought with you, which is nothing. 

Readers, let’s tell them to decolonize their minds and their habits:  Robert Gagne & Jacques d’Arcy info@basiliquenddn.org; Yoland Tremblay cimetiere@cimetierenddn.org; Monique Tremblay cnd@cnd-n.com; Mayor Gerald Tremblay 514-872-3101 and J.C. Turcotte infos@diocesemontreal.org.   

Kahentinetha Horn

MNN Mohawk Nation News