I have been struggling to find a way to write the story about our settler ancestors in the context of the first nations people. Our present day awareness and important ongoing dialogues flowing from the 2009 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. make this an important and necessary part to include with our family history narratives. I want to show how the first nations existed and interacted with our ancestors ..... But how to do that with pure intentions, honor and respect?
To start, I have collected settler stories from various Essex and Kent county pioneers during the same time period of our ancestor's first arrival in Ontario.
Note on Terminology: Terminology, particularly as it relates to Indigenous peoples, is tricky to navigate. In some articles and quotes in this blog post, the term"Indian" is used. Aside from this specific legal context, the term “Indian” in Canada is considered outdated and offensive and is used here only in its original historical context. In every other case, I have used “First Nation” which is a term used to describe Aboriginal peoples of Canada who are ethnically neither Métis nor Inuit.
The "Colonized" Become the "Colonizers"?
My ancestors arrived (c. 1825-1830) in Essex county, Ontario from Ireland which was a country that had been colonized by Protestant settlers from Great Britain.
The history of Ireland preceding my ancestor's departure was one best summarized as:
".. cruel despotism and intolerable religious persecution! In the devising of laws for its government, the most depraved ingenuity would seem to have been exhausted, while in their administration every means calculated to render exceptional and heartless legislation more odious, more oppressive and more humiliating, was employed with lavish prodigality. The laws as enacted were a disgrace - as administered , a public scandal! The religion of the people was prohibited. Its open profession was proclaimed - the solemnization of its rites was by law, punishable. No nuns, no Christian Brothers, no monks were tolerated. To teach a Catholic to read or write was a felony. The son of a Catholic was rewarded for abjuring his creed by the conferring of legal right to rob his father. The Catholic trader could not legally acquire fixed property. Parliamentary, judicial, magisterial and municipal distinctions were, by law, forbidden to the Catholic no matter how eminent his qualifications. Thus, the Catholics of Ireland were, in fact, "aliens in the land of their birth"."
(Quote: Orator-Priest Father Cronin (7 Aug 1875; Detroit Michigan)
The "Oppressed" Become the "Oppressors"?!
Given the historic oppression and circumstances of Irish Catholics, it would be reasonable to expect that when our Irish settler ancestors arrived in Ontario, the persecuted and oppressed would not then become oppressors themselves?
Spoiler Alert: It was Irishman Nicholas Flood Davin (1840-1901 born at Kilfinane, Ireland) who wrote the 1879 Davin Report that called for the establishment of a residential school system in Canada to remove Aboriginal children from “the influence of the wigwam".
Whether or not our ancestors were participants or the architects of something as cruel as the residential school system, we, the descendants of Ontario settlers, have benefited from systems that provided opportunities for our ancestors while robbing first nation people and their descendants of the same. This is an important truth that must form the basis for the stories that follow.
The McKee Treaty No. 2 (1790)
The province of Ontario is covered by 46 treaties and other agreements, such as land purchases by the Crown, that were signed between 1781 and 1930. (See: https://imgur.com/IqdMqCy)
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| Source: https://imgur.com/IqdMqCy |
In May 1790 Alexander McKee, Deputy Agent of the British Indian Department, and the principal chiefs of the Ottawa, Potawatomi, Chippewa and Wyandot negotiated a treaty whereby the British Crown acquired title to what is now southwestern Ontario. This treaty completed the process begun with Niagara treaties of 1781 and 1784, with the result that most of the Ontario peninsula was soon opened to British and Loyalist settlement.
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The Windsor Star
Windsor, Ontario, Canada 16 Sep 1922, Sat • Page 17 |
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| McKee Purchase / Treaty 2 (1790) |
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| Archives Search - Library and Archives Canada |
The treaty text can be read here:
https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1370373165583/1370373202340
The original document (4 Pages) can be viewed here:
Archives Search - Library and Archives Canada
https://www.aadnc-aandc.gc.ca/eng/1370373165583/1370373202340
The original document (4 Pages) can be viewed here:
Archives Search - Library and Archives Canada
Collecting Our Collective Stories
In all my research on Essex and Kent counties in Ontario, I have searched for instances where my ancestor's stories intersect with the stories of the first nation people. I know that when my ancestors arrived between 1820 and 1830, the very trails that brought them to Col. Thomas Talbot in London, Ontario and then to Essex county were trails created by first nation people.
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| Aspects of Land Acquisition in Essex County, Ontario, 1790-1900 |
Later, as a young girl visiting Windsor, I noticed the "Indian names", Wyandotte, Tecumseh and Ottawa, that were used widely (and curiously almost invariably for east-west streets).
Here are a few of the Essex and Kent county stories that I have collected.
My great-great-grandfather Jeremiah Moynahan was born in Essex county in the year of the Rebellion 1837. In the years following the rebellion, Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle, a lieutenant-colonel in both the Royal Engineers and the militia of Upper Canada, left a vivid description of Southwestern Ontario These descriptions are found in two books, "The Canadas in 1841" and "Canada and the Canadians in 1846"
Here is a description of what Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle, wrote about what he saw on the banks of the Detroit River:
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The Windsor Star
Windsor, Ontario, Canada 15 Feb 1947, Sat • Page 23 |
"I settled in Sandwich township, eleven miles from Windsor, engaging in the occupation of farmer. The hunting was fine, there being plenty of deer, bear, rabbits, squirrel and raccoons. I counted twenty-nine black squirrels in a tree one day. There were fine shots in our neighborhood, and the decapitation of a squirrel in the tallest tree was not reckoned an extraordinary feat of marksmanship. The Chippewa Indians roamed the country at the time, but they never gave us any trouble."
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| Pictured here is a band of First Nations on Wapole Island after participating in a Sandwich Town celebration and river pageant in August 6,1909. |
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| Indigenous man and his horse on Wapole Island, 1910. http://swoda.uwindsor.ca/node/3141 |
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| University of Windsor: SWODA: http://swoda.uwindsor.ca/node/1686 |
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| University of Windsor: SWODA: http://swoda.uwindsor.ca/node/1686 |
In the late 1600s and early 1700s, what is now known as Walpole Island and the surrounding area was settled by people from the Ojibwe and Odawa nations. Today it is still considered a reserve. https://walpoleislandfirstnation.ca/
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The Windsor Star
Windsor, Ontario, Canada 18 Jul 1925, Sat • Page 17 |
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| Source: The Windsor Star; 1929 |
Robert John Herdman (born the 12th of August 1834 on Huron Line in Sandwich South), on the occasion of his 94th birthday, shared memories of the early pioneer days "when wolves howled and prowled about, when oxen furnished motive and hauling power, and when Indians still roamed about in bands hunting game for a living."
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The Windsor Star
Windsor, Ontario, Canada 19 Jul 1929, Fri • Page 8 |
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The Windsor Star
Windsor, Ontario, Canada 09 Dec 1960, Fri • Page 3 |
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| Source: Sandwich South Archives: http://weblink8.countyofessex. |
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The Windsor Star
Windsor, Ontario, Canada 08 Aug 1936, Sat • Page 15 |
Descendants like 12-year-old Ken Moynahan (of Tilbury, Ontario) found native artifacts in his grandfathers farm field in St Joachim, Ontario.( In a future post, I hope to write in more detail about "Indian artifacts"in southwestern Ontario.)
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| Clipped from The Windsor Star Windsor, Ontario, Canada 04 Aug 1993, Wed • Page 5 |
The Conclusions of a "Not-Knower"
This collection of stories is just a beginning as I try to figure out a way to become part of the massive truth telling about Canada’s past and present relationship with the original inhabitants of this land and how to include a critical Indigenous counter-narrative that is urgent and important for genealogists and family historians to include in their stories. Below are ten suggestions for continued work:"Settler stories as counter-narratives that create decolonizing space are both interior and relational. As such, they require us to risk revealing ourselves as vulnerable “not-knowers” who are willing to examine our dual positions as colonizer-perpetrators and colonizer-allies."
Ten things that genealogists and family historians can do:
- PLACES: Learn what places were and are important to Indigenous people by finding a book about Indigenous local histories. Learn the original names of places.
- LAND OWNERSHIP: When researching your ancestor's land holdings, pay attention to who signed the papers, how did they get authority to grant land and is it ceded or unceded territory?
- LOCAL MUSEUMS: When visiting a museum, do so critically. What stories are being told and by who? What artifacts are on display, how did they get there, and what processes are in place around repatriation. If there isn't an indigenous section, ask the staff why not.
- WATCH YOUR WORDS: Learn the difference between Indigenous, Aboriginal, First Nation, Métis, and Inuit. Don't not call your group of friends a “tribe,” describe a meeting as a “pow-wow,” call a non-Indigenous leader “Chief.” or describe your pet as your "spirit animal"
- TEACH YOURSELF: Learn what they neveer taught you in scool about indigenous history by reading ("The Inconvenient Indian: a curious account of native people in North America" by Thomas King) or listening to podcasts (CBC Massey Lectures "The Truth About Stories" or )
- RESEARCH: Consider using Indigenous research methodologies in your work. Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s Decolonizing Methodologies (1999) is the singular most important book for this. (Video lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZXQC27tvg)
- FIND OUT if there was a residential school where you live. Memorize its name and visit its former site. https://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/beyond-94-residential-school-map/
- GOOGLE: "One Dish One Spoon", (the law used by indigenous peoples of the Americas since at least 1142 CE to describe an agreement for sharing hunting territory among two or more nations)
- CONSIDER your own position as a settler Canadian. Do you uphold practices that contribute to the marginalization of Indigenous peoples? Dispel common misunderstandings and myths.
- Look for and share the positive stories about Indigenous people, not just the negative ones.
Max FineDay's Lecture "Promised Land: quote:
TREATY LINKS: ”The Promised Land", as this lecture is titled, is an homage to the question that we have yet to answer. It's a reminder of what my ancestors and yours agreed to.
It's the ending of the story that we're writing right now,' “
- Addressing Aboriginal Land and Treaty Rights in Ontario: An Analysis of Past Policies and Options for the Future https://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/ipperwash/policy_part/research/pdf/Coyle.pdf
- The McKee Treaty of 1790: British-Aboriginal Diplomacy in the Great Lake (thesis) https://harvest.usask.ca/bitstream/handle/10388/8168/PALMER-THESIS-2017.pdf
- The People of the Three Fires https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED321956.pdf
- Amherstburg Wyandotte "Indian cemetery"
https://www.essex.ogs.on.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/10/amherstburg-wyandotte-indian-cemetery-1836-index.pdf - The Canadas in 1841 http://caid.ca/ActUni1840.pdf
- Resources Related to First Peoples | Leddy Library http://leddy.uwindsor.ca/resources-related-first-peoples
- Walpole Island First Nation Boblo Island Inquiry http://sclaimswp.bryan-schwartz.com/wp-content/uploads/images/stories/specific_claims_docs/03-ICC_CRI_Docs/ICCP-ACRI/Volume_13/WalpoleIslandFirstNation.pdf
RECONCILIATION LINKS
- Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada https://www.ubcpress.ca/asset/9215/1/9780774817776.pdf
- 150 Acts of Reconciliation for the Last 150 Days of Canada’s 150 http://activehistory.ca/2017/08/150-acts-of-reconciliation-for-the-last-150-days-of-canadas-150/
- Principles for living reconciliation meaningfully http://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/principles-for-living-reconciliation-meaningfully/
Miscellaneous: Detroit Native
Was Well-Known "Indian" Interpreter
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Clipped from
Detroit Free Press
Detroit, Michigan 15 Nov 1860, Thu • Page 1 |
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| https://www.anishinabek.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/AnishinabekNationMap.jpg |
A fascinating subject and well researched and written. My family didn't come to Canada until the 20th Century and they settled in Toronto so I have no connections. However, I have recently moved to Windsor and am slowly learning the very historic past this area has.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this Cindi. I am researching my partner’s settler roots in Lambton and Oxford counties and this reminds me of the importance of including those who were already living in the area.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate posts like this, especially all the links. I too am on a journey to decolonize genealogy: https://maltsoda.wordpress.com/category/decolonizing-genealogy/
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