About the Packers

The native peoples of North America have led a difficult life since the Europeans started settling in the 16th Century. It was the European habit to try to occupy their lands and change their traditional beliefs and practices. From a population of up to 20 millions to a low of about 237,000 in the early 1900s there are today about 2.5 million native peoples spread among some 600 reservations across the United States.

Key ‘first nation’ rights were awarded to the peoples in the late 18th Century, as a result of which they were allocated reservations with the unique status of being independent nation states with their own financial, legal and political systems. This independence, however, has brought economic hardship because the amount of land they now occupy is inadequate to sustain the traditional way of life. The result is that the peoples have not shared in the same growth in prosperity as the rest of North America. 

The Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne is a Mohawk Nation territory located across the intersection of the New York State-Ontario-Quebec borders on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River. Its population is around 11,000 with a land area of 26 sq miles that is part of the ancestral lands once held by the Mohawks and the Iroqois Confedaracy to which they belong. In the 2000 census the per capita income for the Mohawk reservation was $12,017. About 19.4% of families and 22.4% of the population were below the poverty line.

However, in 2006 Native Trading Associates, who have been manufacturing cigarettes since 1997, gained a license to distribute these legally outside their reservation. A modern cigarette manufacturing facility has now been established allowing the Mohawks to manufacture for the North American and Export markets. 1st-nation cigarettes are made in this
facility.