[Tagging] Ahkwesáhsne, a territory of the Kanien'kehá:ka Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Was:Should admin_level=1 tag be applied to EU?

[Kevin Kenny]

On Sat, Aug 1, 2020 at 2:25 PM Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us>
wrote:

> After some digging, it appears that Saint Regis Mohawk Indian Territory is
> in OSM. Just across the border, on a Saint Lawrence River island, is the
> Akwesasne 59 First Nations tribe is also in OSM. According to Wikipedia [1]
> the Mohawk consider their territory to be a single nation, with no border
> separating its parts.
>
> It seems to me that we should map the tribal areas as one. Possibly as a
> super relation, though I'm not sure if super relations are used for
> boundaries. What I find interesting is that the Canadian Border Crossing is
> located on the North side of the Saint Lawrence River while the US crossing
> station is located on the South side of the river. It seems to imply that
> the Akwesasne Nation is not in either country.
>
> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Regis_Mohawk_Reservation
>

It's complicated. (When are sovereignty disputes _not_ complicated?)

Both the US and Canada consider the river to be the US-Canada boundary, and
that the reservations are their separate dependencies. The Canadians
recognize the Six Nations as domestic dependent nations, and they enjoy
limited sovereignty on their own lands. The US recognizes certain
Haudenosaunee lands as dependent nations, but Akwesáhsne is not one of
them, owing to the fact that they have not adopted a written constitution
and a representative democracy. (In completely open elections, they
consistently prefer their semi-hereditary chiefship, and elect the
traditional chiefs to the political offices. In current practice, the
traditional chiefs are disqualified from standing for election.)

The Jay Treaty of 1795 recognizes that the Akwesáhsro:non have freedom to
travel their land on both banks of the river.  The current rule is
particularly burdensome: an Akwesáhsro:non wishing to return to Cornwall
Island from Saint Regis must first cross a second bridge into Canada to
clear customs and pay duty if necessary, and then return to Cornwall
Island. There have been recurring discussions of placing the Canadian port
of entry on the US side of the river to avoid this situation.

There was an earlier query in the thread about government web sites: The
respective tribal governments maintain Web presence at
http://www.akwesasne.ca/
and https://www.srmt-nsn.gov/

I've refrained from trying to map the situation, not being qualified. (I'm
an Old White Guy with a trace of Six Nations ancestry,)
-- 
73 de ke9tv/2, Kevin
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