On September 9, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante announced five metro stations that Société de transport de Montréal (STM) is expected to open and be completed by 2031, known as the Blue Line project. This plan follows the Quebec government’s pledge to revitalize the East of Montreal past the corner of Jean-Talon Street East and Viau Boulevard. The stations’ names call to strengthen collective memory, particularly the legacy of Mary Two-Axe Earley, who will have a station named in her honour as an activist for the rights of Indigenous women and children.
“Naming a station for Mary Two-Axe Earley is a good step,” wrote Mia Alunik Fischlin to The McGill Daily, the Administrative Student Affairs Coordinator in the Indigenous Studies Program at McGill (MISC). “Hearing powerful Indigenous names in daily life matters,” she continued. “It reminds people that these are Indigenous places and that Indigenous women and Peoples fought for their rights.”
Mary Two-Axe Earley was a member of the Kanien’kehá:ka nation (Mohawk), born in Kahnawà:ke, which is located on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River. This is the easternmost point of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, of which the Kanien’kehá:ka Peoples are the “Keepers of the Eastern Door.” At the age of 18, Two-Axe Earley relocated to New York City, despite being separated by the colonizer-determined Canadian-American border. She then lost her “Indian Status” in 1938 upon marrying her non-Indigenous husband, Edward Earley. According to Section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act of 1876, Indigenous women who married non-status spouses lost their status of Indigeneity and could not pass it down to their children.
Additionally, Indigenous women could lose their status upon divorcing their husbands. This was not true for Indigenous men with non-status spouses. This is because status was inherited patrilineally, rendering Indigenous women status-dependent on Indigenous men to “displace our matriarchs and destabilize our society,” writes Dr. Wahéhshon Whitebean to The McGill Daily, a Wolf Clan Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) scholar and professor in MISC at McGill.
“We pass our identity and citizenship through our matrilineal Clans,” states Whitebean. “Status is manufactured and determined by the colonial state and imposed on us to undermine our traditional Haudenosaunee Clan System,” she says, which is particularly evident in the institutionalization of Indigenous women’s disenfranchisement. Losing status meant losing distinct legal rights to Band Council membership, treaty benefits, and reserve property ownership.
According to the Montreal Gazette, Two-Axe Earley’s activism was prompted by the death of a close friend, Florence, who was unable to return to Kahnawà:ke after losing her status and property. In 1967, the same year the Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW) was established, Two-Axe Earley founded Equal Rights for Indian Women (ERIW), a provincial organization that later evolved nationally into the Indian Rights for Indian Women (IRIW). The timing of the RCSW, which called for the amendment of the Indian Act to allow Indigenous women to keep their status and pass it down to their children, was an objective shared by the IRIW. Two years after the commission, Two-Axe Earley returned to Kahnawà:ke with her daughter, who had gained status from her Kanien’kehá:ka husband and could thus own housing on the reserve. There, Two-Axe Earley continued her activism as a founding member of the Québec Native Women’s Association (QNW) in 1974.
“My grandmother [Millie, who was stripped of her status] was part of these movements and joined meetings with Mary Two-Axe Earley,” recalled Dr. Whitebean. “She spoke highly of her, and as a result, I grew up thinking of her as a hero for fighting against one of many inequalities that Indigenous women face in our lifetimes,” added Whitebean. This perception of Two-Axe Earley was shared by many, as her work spread internationally in 1975 when she and 60 women from Kahnawà:ke attended the International Women’s Year conference in Mexico City. During this time, the Kahnawà:ke Band Council sent eviction notices to the Kanien’kehá:ka women participating in the conference, which were repealed when Two-Axe Earley publicly revealed the discriminatory nature of these actions at the conference. The council’s actions are examples of “what colonialism does,” which, according to Dr. Whitebean, “[destabilizes] communities and destroys relational bonds,” as “[the] pain and struggle [Whitebean’s grandmother] endured was mainly at home, inflicted by her own people.” This is still apparent now. For example, the Quebec Superior Court ruled the Kahnawà:ke Band Council’s membership law, known as the “marry out, stay out” policy through which Indigenous residents with non- Indigenous spouses were evicted from the Kahnawà:ke reserve, as a Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Charter) violation in 2018. Nonetheless, Two-Axe Earley and Dr. Whitebean’s
grandmother Mille “remained on the reserve through all of the tensions and violence.”
Moreover, “[m]any people do not realize that it was at least two decades of advocacy and activism at local, regional, national, and international stages that built enough momentum to push those changes through the legislature,” reflected Dr. Whitebean. In 1982, Two-Axe Earley’s activism pressured the federal government to address the discrimination First Nations women faced. This was done with the support of Quebec’s former Premier René Lévesque, who at the First Minister’s Conference, gave his seat to Two-Axe Earley after she was denied time to speak. The conference regarded the inclusion of “Aboriginal and treaty rights” into the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982 and its protection in the Canadian Charter. Today, Section 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 guarantees these rights for all Indigenous Peoples, including women, as stated explicitly in subsection 4. Nonetheless, Section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act remained in place. Ultimately, it was in 1985, with Bill C-31, that the section was amended. That same year, at the age of 73, Two-Axe Earley became the first Indigenous woman to have her status reinstated and was awarded the National Order of Quebec for making contributions of the highest order to the province’s development.
It is important to note, however, that many Indigenous women and children did not regain their status following the amendment. It took until 2011 for Bill C-3 to reinstate status to those after the second-generation cut-off — where third generation children don’t hold status despite being Indigenous after two previous generations of parents lost their statuses — and until 2017 for Bill S-3 to grant status to the grandchildren of the Indigenous women who were reinstated. According to the Government of Canada, “[w]ith the full enactment of Bill S-3 on August 15, 2019, all known sex- based inequities have been eliminated from the Indian Act.”
These amendments are a result of decades of activism pioneered not only by Two-Axe Earley but also by Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, Yvonne Bédard who challenged Section 12(1)(b) at the Supreme Court of Canada, and activist Sandra Lovelace. “Although these legislative changes were a [product] of collective activism,” wrote Dr. Whitebean, “they also required personal sacrifice.” Thus, names like Mary Two-Axe Earley “should be raised up,” especially since many government-subsidized public spaces “are
named after colonial settler men or religious figures.” Dr. Whitebean reminds us that “[t]here is power in naming”; the metro stop named in Two-Axe Earley’s honour represents “the power of Indigenous women and Kanien’kehá:ka matriarchs.” These efforts have not ceased; Whitebean affirms, “we’re still here fighting for our future generations.”