OTTAWA — With concerns growing over fuel shortages and layoffs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came under increasing pressure Tuesday to end a rail blockade by Indigenous protesters that has shut down the eastern operations of Canada’s largest freight railway and curbed passenger rail service across the country.

The blockade in Tyendinaga, Ontario, east of Toronto, was set up along the Canadian National Railways by Mohawks as a gesture of support for hereditary leaders of the Wet’suwet’en First Nation in British Columbia. They have been trying for more than a year to stop a natural gas pipeline from being laid through a portion of their land.

The Mohawk blockade, which was entering its 12th day and began after the Royal Canadian Mounted Police began arresting Wet’suwet’en protesters, has been accompanied by widespread protests of shorter duration that have snarled traffic and blocked ports and other rail lines.

Looming over Mr. Trudeau and his cabinet as they looked for a solution to the blockade are memories of earlier protests by Indigenous people that turned violent. In the 1990s, attempts by the police to end land occupations at Oka, Quebec, and Ipperwash, Ontario, led to protracted standoffs and deaths on both sides.