Broken Walls was conceived in 1995 by Jonathan Maracle (a Mohawk from Tyendinaga Territory in Ontario, Canada), while attending a conference called the Sacred Assembly in Ottawa/Hull. As different First Nations speakers shared, they spoke about the walls of bitterness that have been built up between the newcomers to this land and the First Nations people, Jonathan began to see the need for these walls to be broken and wrote the song “Broken Walls” on the spot and performed it on the drum at this gathering.