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Grab a cuppa and and perhaps reach for the Mohawk Trilogy. After all, you may try to ignore colonial misdeeds, but, really, you know better. You cannot ignore the voices of the unavenged. If Indigenous residential school tragedies have taught us nothing else, they have taught us that.
Minsos tells a tale of wretched malfeasance, one that rivals David Grann's story of the Osage Nation located in Oklahoma: Killers of the Summer Moon.
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ROBBIE ROBERTSON
Martin Scorsese has just completed the filming of Grann's book.
Six Nations' musician Robbie Robertson (1943-2023) wrote the score.
Here's an irony. Robertson's matrilineal family hails from the Grand River Settlement. Robertson might have written the score for yet another gross tragedy, a story of rampant theft and mass starvation in the 1840s, a terrible story, which, in place, space, and roots, is far closer to his reality (than Oklahoma of the 1920s). Writers Grann and Minsos share a mission: They let the contemporary world know, in the best way they can, why speaking out matters. Even semi-open societies try to keep silent about past follies.
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From Wikipedia
"Frequent Scorsese collaborator Robbie Robertson, the principal songwriter for The Band, composed the score, which critics have described as "old-timey," "bluesy," and "percussive." The film also features a soundtrack of popular music from the 1920s and Native American songs. It was Robertson's final completed film score before he died, August 2023."
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If you believe Robertson and his musical legacy will never leave us, good for you. You you and I may just find Robbie enjoying a cuppa at Nick's Cafe, Somewhere Down the Crazy River.
S. Minsos is a Canadian Author and philosophical theorist who has written seven published novels and academic works including the Mohawk Trilogy and the Culture Club Series, with its most recent addition to the series, her newly released book, Culture Clubs: The Real Fate of Societies.
All times and places mentioned in Minsos' novels are based on fact. The arc of the narrative is cast from the adventures and trials of her great-great-grandparents, Mohawk-Oneida (Grand River Settlement) Tehawennihárhos (Squire Davis) and Scottish immigrant Jennet Ferguson. Matters come to a head when Tehawennihárhos and Jennet tangle with David Thompson 1, his ruthless employees, the complicit military, and Thompson's Indigenous allies. Thompson was the builder of Ruthven Hall in the canal town of Indiana and a nefarious former director of the Grand River Navigation Company. The protagonists observe, first-hand, the scandalous activities of the Grand River Navigation Company and the Navigation's shoddy, unlawful treatment of the Haudenosaunee, many of whom starved to death because the nations had no access to their wealth, which without council's consent was being invested in the Navigation.
*Disclaimer: Characters, if real, are fictionalized.
In 2017 the Grand River Saga was recognized for courage, accuracy and verisimilitude in fiction: S. Minsos was awarded a Canada Bicentennial pin for Books 1 & 2 of the Mohawk Trilogy for their contribution to the truth and reconciliation of First Nations, Inuit and Métis.
In 2018 Foreword Magazine reviewer Lillian Brown accorded Book 3 of the Mohawk Trilogy, Sky Walker: Tehawennihárhos Charter, the magazine's highest designation: five stars: "The satisfying third and final book in S. Minsos’s historical trilogy, Sky Walker Tehawennihárhos Charter follows the nineteenth-century disruption to Indigenous lands caused by European and American settlers." The Navigation's story needed to be told.
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Researching the family of Squire Davis, Minsos discovered Bruce E Hill's book at Iroqrafts: The Grand River Navigation Company. Hill documents the great theft. There could be millions of dollars involved in a settlement. Perhaps that's why a deathly silence greets anyone writing about this tragic event.
Let us not silence the chroniclers. We must know the truth and grapple with the facts, however displeasing. If the past has a story to tell we should hear it. We might see a bit of our wonderful selves – or our enemies – in Thayendanegea, Squire Davis, Jennet Ferguson, William Ferguson (Sr and Jr), Barton Farr, David Thompson 1, Lucille Goosay, Jeddah Golden, Nellah Golden, Jake Venti, Aughguaga Polly, Sara Johnson, Lizzie Bosson, Bride Munny, Boy Hewson, to name a few of the trilogy's colourful characters.
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1 Jennie Butler, Effie Burr, Birdie Burr (granddaughters of Squire Davis and Jennet Ferguson) 2 Emily Pauline Johnson. 3 Chief George H.M. Johnson and Emily Howells. 4 David Thompson1
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