James Gabriel (Mohawk) is a politician, a former chief of Kanesatake, a First Nations settlement within the boundaries of the city of Oka, Quebec). He was elected three times as Grand Chief, serving from 1995 to 2004. His tenure in office was controversial, marked by bitter divisions between his supporters and opponents that resulted in violence in January 2004. Early life and education James Gabriel was born to a European-Canadian mother and Mohawk father. Under the matrilineal kinship system at Kanesatake, children are traditionally considered to be born into the mother's clan, so Gabriel did not have a formal kinship relationship through his mother with the community. He grew up at Kanesatake, and both he and his father are registered as members of the community. He grew up bilingual in French and English. (In a 2004 article, Benoit Aubin suggested that such differences between maternal ancestries was part of the divide in the Nation between modernists like Gabriel and traditionalists like Steven Bonspille, John Harding (Sha ko hen the tha), and Pearl Bonspille, his opponents on the chiefs' council in the early 2000s, after he was re-elected as Grand Chief.) Cultural context In 1991, following the lengthy Oka Crisis, which brought federal troops to the community, the 1700 members of Kanesatake changed their means of selecting leaders. Until then the people had continued their traditional selection of chiefs by clan mothers, from those persons with hereditary rights to the position. Inheritance and property was passed through the maternal line. Clan mothers could remove chiefs of whom they disapproved. In 1991, the Nation conducted its first popular elections to choose persons as chiefs for the six-person council and as Grand Chief. Jerry Peltier was the first to be popularly elected as Grand Chief. A number of issues have increased political competition in the community. Career Gabriel became active in tribal politics during and after the Oka crisis. He was first elected as grand chief in 1995, succeeding Peltier. He was elected three times, serving into 2004. By his last term in office, the six-person chiefs' council was evenly split among opponents and supporters. Gabriel was concerned that increases in the sales of contraband cigarettes, were becoming an avenue of the drug trade and organized crime in Kanesatake. In an interview he said, "When tax rollbacks killed the cigarette trade, they recycled into booze, drugs, weapons, illegal immigrants, anything with a cash