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OTTAWA — The federal cabinet has approved an agreement that will see Canada pay nearly $240 million in compensation to the Mohawks of Akwesasne to settle a land claim.

The agreement is the result of decades of negotiations between the Mohawks of Akwesasne and the federal government over an 8,000-hectare parcel of land in the most westerly portion of southern Quebec, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River.

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The territory is known in the province as Dundee, but is recognized by local Indigenous residents by its traditional name of Tsikaristisere.

In 1981, the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne filed a claim asking for the land to be returned , asserting that an alleged surrender of the land in 1888 was invalid because they never intended to surrender it.

The Mohawks have long maintained they intended to gradually reclaim the land rather than permanently hand it over to the federal government.