The community of Kahnawake is located on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, Canada, approximately 20 km from Montreal. It is one of eight communities that make up the Mohawk Nation.The population of Kahnawake is approximately 7500. Residents originally spoke their Mohawk language, and some learned French when under French rule. Allied with the British government during the American Revolutionary War and the Lower Canada Rebellion, they have since become mostly English speaking. The territory is described in Mohawk as "on, or by the rapids" (of the Saint Lawrence River). In French, it was originally called Sault du St. Louis, also related to the rapids. The village was located along the natural rapids of the old river, until the Saint Lawrence Seaway canal cut through the village,  permanently separating it from the natural river shore.

In 1680 the French Crown granted 40,320 acres in what was known as the Seigneurie du Sault-Saint-Louis, to the Jesuits for the protection of newly converted Mohawks. The territory was intended to be closed to European settlers, but the Jesuits allowed whites to rent land there. After the British assumed rule in 1762, the reserve was ordered to be exclusively for settlement by the Mohawks.  Despite this order, the land was contiunally mismanaged by agents for the Mohawk resulting in the loss of much of the reserve to non-Natives. In addition the Mohawk were forced to surrender more of the land to railway, hydro-electric, and telephone companies. Today, Kahnawake is left with only 13,000 acres.

In an attempt to prevent further loss of land, the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake passed laws regulating who is eligible to reside on the Reserve. In 1981 non-natives were prohibited from living in the community and the Membership Law of 2004 ruled that Kahnawake members who married non-Mohawk would no longer be able to live on the reserve.

Kahnawake men have worked for generations as highsteel workers. In 1886 and 1887,  when a new bridge was built across the river from Kahnawake to Montreal Island many men from Kahnwake worked as bridgemen and ironworkers. During the first half of the 20^th century ironworkers from Kahnwake continued to work in Canada while some went to work on New York City's many skyscrapers, including the Empire State Building. With their families, they established a community in Brooklyn they called “Little Caughnawaga”. The families would return to Kahnwake in the summers to stay with relatives. Some residents of Kahnwake who grew up in Brooklyn still have a New York accent. When the Quebec Bridge collapsed in 1907, thirty-three Kahnawake (Mohawk) ironworkers died. Crosses of steel girders were erected at both ends of the reserve in honor of the men.

The Kahnawake Gaming Commission offers gambling licenses to Internet-based poker, casino, and sportsbook sites.  In 1998 Kahnawake established Mohawk Internet Technologies, a data center that hosts and manages a number of Internet gambling web sites.  MIT has become the nearest source of “legally hosted” online gambling for North America.