Mohawk Skywalkers: The History Stephen Miller Whitewashed
The Kanien'kéhá:ka Haudenosaunee ironworkers were vital to building Miller's favorite monuments to modern America
Attempting to emphasize that only real “Americans” built the United States’ greatest modern marvels, MAGA Republican President Donald Trump’s Minister of Propaganda* Stephen Miller claimed pictures of construction workers building the Empire State Building didn't include any “illegal” immigrants.
*Minister of Propaganda isn't his official title, but if the jackboot fits…
We'll ignore the fact that most of what Miller refers to as “legal immigration” didn't exist until 1952's Immigration and Nationality Act codified and consolidated existing immigration laws. Laws subsequent to that further refined an immigration system for the United States, replacing the quotas and exclusions based on race, ethnicity, and national origin.
Prior to 1917, visas weren't even a requirement for immigrants to the United States. People's ancestors who “came the right way” prior to 1917 mostly just showed up at a port of entry, weren't diseased, and weren't on the United States’ latest undesirables list.
After 1917, anyone who was the “right kind of people” based on race, ethnicity, and national origin got rubber-stamped visas. That's the immigration system the Trump administration wants to return to: easy entry for White South Africans, but abductions and concentration camps or foreign prisons for brown refugees and asylum seekers fleeing instability and violence—conditions the United States often had a hand in creating.
The people whining the loudest about “illegals” are descended from people whose immigrant-to-citizenship journey involved crossing an ocean and being the right color, nationality, and religion. The people they want gone migrated on lands their ancestors inhabited and traversed for millennia.
Miller added:
“You look at the photos of us landing a man on the moon, you look at the NASA control room, you don’t see any photos of illegal aliens. Americans built this country, Americans sustained this country, Americans have powered this country for two and a half centuries.”
Old photos show only White people—mostly men—because that's who was photographed, not because that’s the only people who contributed.
People like Miller cling to such “proof” to prop up their White nationalism and White supremacy narrative. We now know numerous Black women were so instrumental to the space race that NASA named buildings after them.
But they aren't in the photos and the Trump administration ordered such DEI facts to be scrubbed from federal websites.
Miller's unsaid message?
“Look at the photos that the White people in positions of power took. See, only White people built the Empire State Building.”
Except…
How The Kanien'kéhá:ka Helped Build America
When people fact-checked the latest Trump regime White nationalist rhetoric, they discovered the Mohawk Skywalkers. Legendary among ironworkers since the late 19th century, few people outside of high steel construction have heard of them.
My Mother's people call themselves Kanien'kéhá:ka of the Haudenosaunee. Colonizers labeled them the Mohawk of the Iroquois. For the purposes of this piece, I'll use the colonizer's term Mohawk interchangeably with Kanien'kéhá:ka.
The story began in Quebec, Canada in 1886 when Kanien'kéhá:ka men began ‘walking iron’ to work on the Victoria Bridge being built over the St. Lawrence River.
The story differs on why they were at the construction site. In some versions, they were working as day laborers on the ground. In others, they were just delivering stone from the quarry on their Kahnawà:ke Reserve to the location.
But what’s consistent among the differing accounts is the men's curiosity about the high steel work being done. Wanting to get a better look, they walked and climbed the beams up to where the ironworkers were.
One construction supervisor wrote:
“They were as agile as goats, immune to the noise of riveting which usually makes newcomers to construction sick and dizzy.”
At the time, high steel construction was done mainly by former sailors who had experience walking the masts of sailing ships without harnesses or safety gear.
At the time, few people had any experience with heights.
The Kanien'kéhá:ka's willingness to walk the beams was noted and an initial group of men were hired and trained.
During the shipbuilding boom and while most structures were built with wood, logs were sent down rivers to sawmills. The Kanien'kéhá:ka had been respected loggers and rivermen, climbing old-growth trees, working log flows, walking across the floating logs to steer away from obstructions and break up jams.
It was a bit like whitewater rafting, except standing on a log with other logs crashing into it.
Conway Jocks, a Mohawk Skywalker said:
“We had a reputation as rivermen, and ironworking was a different kind of work. We didn’t have the tools or traditional skills to fall back on. It was our introduction to the industrial age.”
European settlers wrote of the Mohawks’ fearlessness on the rivers, and the ironworkers soon earned the same reputation, leading to the myth that Mohawks were born without fear.
The Kanien'kéhá:ka were willing to let the myth be perpetuated, as long as it meant more work on the rivers and then on the steel. But Skywalkers attributed their success to controlling their fear and learning from elders how to trust one another.
Kyle Karonhiaktatie Beauvais, a fourth-generation Mohawk Skywalker, said:
“A lot of people think Mohawks aren’t afraid of heights; that’s not true. We have as much fear as the next guy. The difference is that we deal with it better. We also have the experience of the old timers to follow and the responsibility to lead the younger guys. There’s pride in ‘walking iron’.”
Soon, more Kanien'kéhá:ka were being brought on to do bridge work, all working single construction opportunities together.
On Aug. 29, 1907, 33 Mohawk ironworkers were killed when a bridge they were working on in Quebec, Canada collapsed. An investigation showed the company in charge of construction cut corners on materials.
In the aftermath, Kanien'kéhá:ka women demanded the ironworkers no longer work together in family groups. Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Kanien'kéhá:ka Nation socio-political structure is based on a matrilineal matriarchy, and the Haudenosaunee are one of several Indigenous American groups to use a council of women as the deciding factor in major tribal matters.
Lynn Beauvais, a Kahnawà:ke Reserve resident and grandmother from a fourth-generation ironworker family shared:
“Women always chose the chiefs because they lived in matrilineal clans and saw the boys grow up. They would choose leaders because they knew about their boys’ characteristics from infancy to manhood.”
So the Kanien'kéhá:ka traveled from their reserve in Quebec to New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto, anywhere their skills were needed.
Mohawk Skywalkers In New York City
Canadian Kanien'kéhá:ka were joined by their kin on the American side of the border, from the Akwesasne region of upstate New York.
By the 1920s and 30s, high-rise buildings joined the bridges ironworkers were being called on to build. Skyscrapers of the era were framed with steel columns, beams and girders fitted together by four-man riveting gangs.
A “heater” fired the rivets in a portable forge until they were red-hot. It was then tossed to the “sticker-in” who caught it in a metal can or glove. The “bucker-up” braced the rivet with a dolly bar and the “riveter” used a pneumatic hammer to mushroom out the rivet stem to secure the interlocking steel.
Beauvais shared:
“It was always windy up there, and in winter the men cleaned off the steel beams of ice and snow before working on them.”
“In the old days there were no safety lines, and they didn’t wear helmets. It was hard work, but they never talked about the danger. Our men have always really enjoyed their work and were proud of it.”
Indigenous riveting gangs spoke their native languages while helping to build such notable NYC structures as the Flatiron Building, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company’s Clock Tower, the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Plaza, George Washington Bridge, and, yes, even the Empire State Building.
Cornell historian Robert Venables stated his research found:
“Virtually every skyscraper … has been built by Mohawk and other Iroquois ironworkers including the new Time Warner building…Rockefeller Center, Empire State building, Chrysler, all these skyscrapers, virtually all the bridges.”
Respected But Not Rewarded
As buildings grew, so did the reputation of the Mohawk Skywalkers. Their success stemmed largely from the occupation becoming a community and family endeavor, with skills being passed from one generation to the next.
Mohawk Skywalker Turhan Clause Jr. said:
“My father once told me, ‘Son, I don’t have a lot of money or a house to leave you when I pass on. The only thing I can do is show you an honest way to make a living.’ So, he took me to my first job as an ironworker. It was exciting and a little scary at the time. And I still haven’t found anything better.”
The Mohawk Skywalkers were sought by construction companies throughout the United States and Canada. It was rare to have a major iron build done without Mohawk Skywalkers.
Initially, the Kahnawà:ke ironworkers would drive to New York City Sunday night, work all week, then drive home on Friday night to be with their families. Eventually, more and more of the workers began to settle in Brooklyn.
By the 1960s, there were 800 Mohawk families living there, establishing Little Caughnawaga on Atlantic Avenue and the Boerum Hill area.
The Wigwam Bar and local storekeepers catered to their preferences. Shops supplied ingredients for Kanien'kéhá:ka staples. Rev. David Munroe Cory even learned Kanien'kéhá— their language—to give sermons in their native tongue.
Above the entrance to the Wigwam Bar was a sign that read:
“THE GREATEST IRONWORKERS IN THE WORLD PASS THROUGH THESE DOORS.”
Despite their heavily lauded skills, Indigenous ironworkers were paid lower wages than their White coworkers. They were also restricted from joining many labor unions, which were still mostly White only organizations.
The Kanien'kéhá:ka workers would finally be allowed to join Brooklyn Local 40 & 361 Ironworkers’ Union, finally gaining them some wage parity.
During the mid-part of the 20th century, 15 percent of ironworkers in New York City were Kanien'kéhá:ka. Today, they make up 10 percent.
According to the most recent census, Indigenous peoples made up only 2 to 3 percent of the United States population.
World Trade Center
Mohawk Skywalker Joseph Jocks worked on several New York City landmarks. In his later years, he worked on a pair of buildings that would be taller than all of them, the World Trade Center's twin towers.
Hundreds of Mohawk ironworkers began work on the World Trade Center towers in the late 1960s. Joseph Jocks retired from ironworking on that job as his grandson, Kyle Beauvais, began his career on it.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks destroyed their work, Mohawks trained in steelwork and crane operations went to Ground Zero to help clean up—including Joseph Jocks’ descendants.
His granddaughter Lynn Beauvais said:
“My brother Kyle went in eight hours after the towers came down. My grandfather had worked on the construction of the towers and retired from that job. My brothers worked on their final demolition and sent them to the scrapyard.”
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum ran an exhibition of tintype photographs by artist Melissa Cacciola, titled Skywalkers: A Portrait of Mohawk Ironworkers at the World Trade Center, to recognize their contributions to the construction and help in the aftermath of the attacks.
When construction began on One World Trade Center, the Mohawk Skywalkers were there.
Over 200 Kanien'kéhá:ka—many who also dismantled the wreckage of the towers—were on site to build One World Trade Center.
Canadians Working In The United States?
By the early 1920s, Kanien'kéhá:ka regularly crossed the border to work on bridges and buildings up and down the Eastern Seaboard, traveling together in four-man rivet gangs, communicating in Kanien'kéhá, and finding inexpensive temporary lodging together.
Neither visas nor work permits were requested or required.
In Philadelphia in 1925, a Kanien'kéhá:ka ironworker was arrested for illegal immigration. The case and the appeal, McCandless v. United States ex rel. Diabo, resulted in a 1927 landmark federal court decision citing the Jay Treaty of 1794.
According to the Department of Immigration, Paul K. Diabo—a thirty-six-year-old Kanien'kéhá:ka ironworker from Kahnawà:ke—had violated the Immigration Act of 1924 and should be considered an illegal alien, deported to Canada, and denied reentry.
As a member of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Diabo contended he had a right to cross the international border without interference and restriction under the terms of the Jay Treaty.
Diabo’s 1927 favorable judgement and win against the subsequent appeal by the Immigration Department in 1928 became an important test of Haudenosaunee sovereignty and treaty rights.
Federal Judge Oliver B. Dickinson ruled that Mohawks, whose ancestral land overlapped parts of both countries, were entitled to pass freely over the border from Canada into the United States.
So it seems, by the Trump administration’s own definition, illegal aliens did build the Empire State Building after all.
I guess Stephen Miller missed them in his photos…
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In addition to writing for The Big Picture, Amelia writes Auntie Mavis’ Musings
For more little-known Indigenous American history, check out On Indigenous American Foods.
Thank you for sharing this. There are other great examples of non-whites who helped build this country. Union units made up of freed slaves helped the Union win the war and pave the way for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution. One of General Grants top aides was Iroquois. And who can forget the contributions of the Tuskegee airmen in WWII. Only a creep like Miller can overlook the many contributions to our country from non-whites!
Fascinating! Thank you for this!!