University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2013 493 pp., illus., $37.95 paperback
This book is about a group of Mississaugans that few people who live in Mississauga, Ontario, today are likely familiar with. The people profiled are none other than a handful of the original inhabitants of much of the land that is now covered by the sprawling city of more than seven hundred thousand people in the Greater Toronto Area.
The nineteenth-century Ojibwe people profiled by Donald B. Smith all have one thing in common: Educated by Methodists, they were able to read and write in English, which was uncommon even among many non-Aboriginal people at that time. Being literate, they left behind journals, letters, and other writings that tell the stories of their lives and of their mostly unsuccessful struggles to be treated fairly by colonial authorities. Some became Methodist preachers.
One of the men profiled is Kahgegagahbowh — usually known as George Copway (1818–1869). Copway became a literary celebrity, publishing three books, including his autobiography, a history of the Ojibwe, and an account of his European travels in 1850. In the mid-nineteenth century, he was Canada’s most successful author in the United States.
Copway’s degree of English literacy contrasted sharply with the Mississauga leaders who had negotiated a land deal with the British the year he was born. The Rice Lake Treaty of 1818 transferred about eighty thousand hectares of land to the British. The Mississauga understood during talks carried out in the Ojibwe language that they would retain the rights to islands, points, and river mouths; surviving minutes of the negotiations, in English, confirm this. But this key provision was left out of the treaty they signed but could not read. As Copway later wrote, his people had been “grossly abused, deceived, and cheated.”
Nahmebahnwequay — commonly known as Nahnee, and, after her marriage, as Catherine Sutton — is the sole woman profiled. Nahnee lost her rights as an Aboriginal when she married William Sutton, an English Methodist. But Nahnee, a brilliant and determined woman who spoke with great eloquence, remained a respected leader and was selected by the Ojibwe of Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay to take their land grievances to the British Crown. Pregnant and unaccompanied by her husband (who stayed home to care for their other children) Nahnee travelled to England in 1860 to petition Queen Victoria. Against great odds, she succeeded in drawing widespread attention to the plight of her people.
Shawundais — known as John Sunday — was a War of 1812 veteran who, after the war, overcame a serious drinking problem after converting to Methodism and becoming a preacher. But, as Smith reveals, his understanding of Christianity was blended with his Aboriginal world view. He encouraged his people to become farmers and to educate themselves and their children, in this way strengthening their hold on their land. Under his leadership, the Alderville Mississauga successfully resisted removal from the Rice Lake area.
Leaders such as Shawundais strongly supported a formal British education for their children and even favoured putting them in residential schools. Tragically, too many of the Aboriginal students who showed promise as future leaders died young, since they were especially vulnerable to smallpox and other diseases brought over from Europe.
The theme of the struggle against injustice runs deep through all of the Mississaugans profiled in this book. Unfortunately, their best efforts were often not enough to turn back the strength of the tide of British settlement. Their struggle followed a pattern: They were removed from their traditional territory — usually by signing an agreement they didn’t fully understand — and enticed to move to a less desirable place. After settling in the new location, where they had built houses and cleared farms, they did not receive clear title to the land because of the fact they were Aboriginal. Thus they would again be pushed off their land as non-Aboriginal settlement expanded.
Smith’s book goes into quite a bit of detail on how all this took place within the letter of British North American law. As he points out, “had the Credit Mississauga received a title deed to their Credit River lands, a major Indian reserve would be situated in the Toronto area today.”
Anyone with an interest in First Nations history will find this book enlightening. Smith, who is professor emeritus of history at the University of Calgary, has done a fine job of distilling material gleaned from forty years of research into primary documents he uncovered from various sources.
The writing is mostly straightforward and accessible. There is some repetition but not much. As a bonus, the book is well illustrated with historical photographs sprinkled throughout.
— Nelle Oosterom (Read bio)
Nelle Oosterom is the Senior Editor of Canada's History magazine.