Oka Crisis

The Oka Crisis was a land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada which began on July 11, 1990 and lasted until September 26, 1990. Sûreté du Québec (SQ) Corporal Marcel Lemay was killed by a bullet whose source has never been officially determined. Rumours circulated that the reason no source had been determined was that it had been a police bullet and that Cpl. Lemay had been conducting an internal investigation which was connecting the death of two Mohawk men to SQ guns. The dispute was the first well-publicized violent conflict between First Nations and the Canadian government in the late 20th century.

The crisis developed from a local dispute between the town of Oka and the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. The town of Oka was developing plans to expand a golf course and residential development onto land which had traditionally been used by the Mohawk. It included pineland and a burial ground, marked by standing tombstones of their ancestors. The Mohawks had filed a land claim for the sacred grove and burial ground near Kanesatake, but their claim had been rejected in 1986 on technical grounds.