forces took some American prisoners during the encounters, but these were later freed. Dundee land claim In the early 1800s, non-indigenous settlers leased a part of the Akwesnasne reserve located in mainland Quebec, known as Dundee. In 1888, the superintendent of Indian Affairs requested that the band surrender this land. A surrender was given, but the first nation always contested its validity, as it was not their intention to surrender the land. In December 2018, the First Nation of Akwesnasne accepted a specific claim settlement of $240M for the Dundee parcel, 37 years after the claim was first filed with the government of Canada. 20th-century institutions Kana:takon School, originally called the Saint Regis Village School, was run by the Catholic Sisters of Saint Anne until the 1970s. Today, the mission is still active and includes a rectory, the large stone church dating to 1795, and a cemetery. Parish records show that the Jesuits respected Mohawk traditions, recording their Mohawk names through the 18th and 19th centuries, even after they had also taken European names. The Roman Catholic parish at Akwesasne falls under three dioceses because of international borders and provincial boundaries: the Diocese of Alexandria-Cornwall and the Diocese of Valleyfield in Canada, and the Diocese of Ogdensburg in New York. Following passage of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the United States federal government encouraged the tribe to adopt a constitution and elected government. The Mohawk chose to retain their traditional system of hereditary chiefs. In the 1940s, Ernest Benedict founded Akwesasne's first newspaper, Kawehras! ("It Thunders!"). Benedict covered the resistance of many Mohawk to the system of elections imposed by the federal government on the "American" side of Akwesasne; it insisted on representative elections. On May 24, 1948, a vote was held in which "The Six Nations Chiefs," based on historic clans and hereditary office, received 83 votes. "The Elected Chiefs" received only one vote, and "The Seven Nations Chiefs" did not receive any votes. The elected chiefs resigned from office, but the federal government continued to require the tribe to hold elections. Both the federal government and New York State encouraged the tribe to adopt representative elected government, but they resisted. They were put on the congressional list for termination in the 1950s, as part of a policy assuming that assimilation was best for Native Americans, but Congress did not approve the termination of the St. Regis Reservation.