The Laws and the Land

My 2021 book, titled The Laws and the Land: The Settler Colonial Invasion of Kahnawà:ke in Nineteenth-Century Canada (UBC Press and Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History) is available for order through UBC Press, with your local bookstore. It was awarded the Best Book in Canadian Studies Award by the Canadian Studies Network-Réseau d’études canadiennes, and was co-winner of the Award for Best Book in Indigenous History by the Canadian Historical Association. In 2023 the book was published in audio format (Audible, Spotify, etc) read by award-winning Kahnawà:ke actress Kaniehti:io Horn. Recording of the audiobook was supported by the University of Ottawa Institute of Indigenous Research and Studies and the Faculty of Arts. It is now available on most major platforms.

The Laws and the Land was reviewed by Paul Sylvestre (Carleton University) in Antipode, Isabelle Bouchard (UQTR) in Urban History Review/Revue d’histoire urbaine, Micah Pawling in the American Review of Canadian Studies, Daniel Sims in the Canadian Journal of History, and Bill Parenteau on NiCHE.

Forthcoming Books

Rück, Daniel. French Translation of The Laws and the Land: The Settler Colonial Invasion of Kahnawà:ke in Nineteenth-Century Canada, Les Presses de l’Université Laval. (translation in progress, anticipated publication 2026)

Rück, Daniel, and Mike Steinhauer, eds., Sacred Sites of the Anishinabe and the Ruins of Ottawa, 30 authors confirmed, under contract with McGill-Queen’s University Press (forthcoming 2026)

Rück, Daniel. No Sale, No Surrender: Kahnawà:ke, Canada, Quebec, and St. Nicholas Island, not yet under contract (forthcoming 2027)

Refereed Book Chapters

Rück, Daniel. “Stolen Sacred Lands and the Ruins of Settler Colonial Settlement,” In Sacred Sites of the Anishinaabe and the Ruins of Ottawa. Edited by Daniel Rück and Mike Steinhauer, forthcoming 2026.

Rück, Daniel. “Environment and Settler Colonialism Through Maps and Land Surveys” in AM Research Methods: Interrogating Colonial Archives and Narratives (Marlborough, UK: AM, 2024). DOI: https://doi.org/10.47594/RMPS_0314_CS

Rueck, Daniel. “‘I do not know the boundaries of this land, but I know the land which I worked’: Using HGIS in the Study of Indigenous Environmental History.” In Historical GIS in Canada edited by Jennifer Bonnell and Marcel Fortin, 129-152, (University of Calgary Press, 2014). (free download)

Rueck, Daniel. “When Bridges Become Barriers: Montreal and Kahnawake Mohawk Territory.” In Metropolitan Natures: Urban Environmental Histories of Montreal, edited by Stéphane Castonguay and Michèle Dagenais, 228-244, (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). (pdf)

Refereed Journal Articles (selected)

Rotz, Sarah, Daniel Rück, and Joseph LeBlanc, 2025 “Farming the North: Cycles of Extraction and Dispossession” Antipode, 57, (2), 622-648. DOI: 10.1111/anti.13128

Rück, Daniel. “The Continuity of Settler Colonial Narratives: The diary of a nineteenth-century Dominion land surveyor and the enduring language of harm.” Settler Colonial Studies, 2024. DOI: 10.1080/2201473X.2023.2288789

Rück, Daniel. “‘Où tout le monde est propriétaire et où personne ne l’est’ : droits d’usage et gestion foncière à Kahnawá:ke 1815-1880.” Revue d’histoire de l’Amerique française 70, no. 1-2 (2016): 31-52. (pdf)

Rueck, Daniel. “Commons, Enclosure, and Resistance in Kahnawá:ke Mohawk Territory, 1850-1900.” Canadian Historical Review 95, no. 3 (2014). (pdf)

Online Publications

Carrillo, Maria Fernanda and Daniel Rück, Ottawa Anticolonial History Tour, Interactive map website, 2024

Rotz, Sarah and Daniel Rück, Agriculture in the North: A New Strategy of Indigenous Land Dispossession? Yellowhead Institute policy brief, May 7, 2024

The Shifting Boundaries of Colonial Land Taking: The Continuity of Settler Land Theft and Indigenous Resistance in Kahnawà:ke Active History, Feb 3, 2022

uOttawa Antiracist History, a website providing antiracist history and pedagogy resources (co-writer and website developer)

“Exposing the Settler Playbook: Responses to #ShutDownCanada in Historical Context” Active History (co-written with Sarah Rotz and Sean Carleton) Feb 18, 2020

“Stratégie coloniale 101 : le mouvement #ShutDownCanada et l’histoire“ Histoire Engagée, (translated into French by Catherine Larochelle, Kharoll-Ann Souffrant et Florence Prévost-Grégoire) Feb 25, 2020

“Reclaiming in Indigenous Place Names” Yellowhead Institute policy brief, (co-written with Christina Gray) Oct. 8, 2019

“The Eighth Stage of Genocide” Active History (co-written with Valerie Deacon) July 4, 2019