As the settler state of Canada expanded into Indigenous lands, two traditions clashed in a bruising series of asymmetrical encounters over land use and ownership. One site of conflict was Kahnawa:ke. The Laws and the Land delineates the establishment of a settler colonial relationship from early contact ways of sharing land; land practices under Kahnawa:ke law; and ultimately the Canadian invasion in the guise of the Indian Act, private property, and coercive pressure to assimilate. This meticulously researched book is connected to larger issues of human relations with environments, communal and individual ways of relating to land, legal pluralism, historical racism and inequality, and Indigenous resurgence.
