PrefaceThose already familiar with the London Chapter's Occasional Publication series will notice that this contribution is not the usual fare for the series. Indeed, Deeds/Nations, by the Canadian artist Greg Curnoe, is in many ways the opposite of an archaeological investigation. Archaeologists, by definition, study cultural remains, the "things" and features people have left behind. Deeds/Nations on the other hand looks at the Aboriginal individuals who helped shape the past history of southwestern Ontario (the region extending from London to the present Canadian-American border). Deeds/Nations, then, provides archaeologists with an important link between "things" left behind, and the people who shaped that past and left those things behind.
Deeds/Nations also breathes life and meaning into the names found on the southwestern Ontario land surrenders of the 18th and 19th centuries. Traditionally, historians of Canada's Native communities have tended to emphasize a European perspective on the past, generally discussing Native communities only within the context of how European influences and actions affected those groups. As a result, Native communities are often depicted as historic "extras" in the drama of the European shaping of Canada, rather than as the active and critical participants they were in shaping that history. And the First Nations individuals who were active participants in the relationship between Nations (Aboriginal and European) are as obscure and foreign from this historical perspective as their signatures are on European drafted documents - players in the historical dramas of the period whose roles have been muted. Deeds/Nations then, attempts to redress this historical bias.
Until Greg Curnoe's monumental effort to track down, follow up and piece together the personal biographies and family histories of the Native people signing the southwestern Ontario land surrenders of the 18th and 19th centuries, little had been done to make sense of who most of those signatories were, or their roles in local and regional communities. This seemingly simple task of cross-referencing historical documents to piece together the biographical history of an individual had never seriously been undertaken. This is surprising to most who delve into the history of the 18th and 19th century First Nation communities of southwestern Ontario, since so many researchers have reviewed most of these same documents. But most previous researchers, as historians, geographers, anthropologists or archaeologists, were seeking insight into broad historical trends; individuals were simply not the focus of the research. Greg's work, then, is a major contribution towards bridging the gap between the history of Native individuals and communities and the history of Native and European "groups" in southwestern Ontario. We hope that this work will not only give life to the names found on the historical documents from the period of study, but also convey the dynamic role these individuals, their families, friends, foes, and their communities, all played in shaping the history of southwestern Ontario.
Some Notes on This Directory:
As Frank Davey mentioned in the Forward, the intent of Greg Curnoe's research was to learn about and document the people who were the former occupants of the land comprising the Curnoe home at 38 Western Street in the City of London, southwestern Ontario. And since Greg refused to accept the logic of the land registry - that ownership began with the issuing of a Crown Patent to individuals in the early 19th century - he ventured back to the land surrenders signed by the Crown and the Native communities who had lived and died in this region for over a thousand generations. Greg was particularly interested in the major surrenders which dealt with lands now within or adjacent to the City of London. These included Surrenders #2, #6, #7, #21, #25 and #29, as well as a host of other surrenders for specific parcels of land or resource rights which were negotiated in the 19th century. Also, Greg tracked down various 18th century land transfer documents, indentures and private surrenders, many of which were later ruled invalid by the Crown. He also reviewed the many American treaties for lands in Michigan, since some of the individuals who signed the major land surrenders in southwestern Ontario were also involved in treaty negotiations with the Americans. Even the signatories of the Grand Peace Council between the Iroquois and Western Nations, signed in 1701 in Montreal, were tracked down and added to the directory. Finally, Greg also reviewed a host of primary and secondary sources of data, ranging from Indian Department records in the Canadian and Ontario archives to popular histories and local newspaper accounts.
Because of Greg's emphasis on the southwestern Ontario land surrenders, the directory contains many references to Native individuals who were a part of the communities from this region, and directly involved with the major 18th and 19th century land surrenders. This includes the Ojibwa communities of southwestern Ontario (i.e. Anderdon, Walpole Island, Sarnia, Kettle Point, Stoney Point, and the Thames River ), the Odawa and Pottawatomie of the Detroit River and Walpole Island, the Wyandot of the Detroit River, the Delaware of Fairfield and Muncey, and the Oneida of the Thames. In addition, there are less frequent references in the directory to some of the individuals from Ojibwa communities farther afield (Saugeen, Lake Simcoe, Credit, etc.), the Six Nations Iroquois of the Grand River, and a host of others who played a role in southwestern Ontario s history during the 18th and 19th centuries. Collectively, these individuals and the communities they represent helped shape and were shaped by the events of this period.
For a number of the individuals whose signature and totem appear on the historical documents examined by Greg, we have reproduced their distinctive totem marks here. Not much is understood about the exact function of totem symbols, or indeed what totems meant to the individuals who made their mark on these documents. The following quote from Benjamin Slight (1844: 82-83), offers a fairly typical explanation of what Europeans of the time believed these symbols to mean:
When their signature is required to any document of any kind, in connexion with their names, they affix what is called their tootams, having the same juxtaposition as the seal of an English transaction. The tootam is a rude sketch of some fish, fowl or animal, which is designative of the tribe to which the individual belongs, or expressive of the name, he as an individual, bears.
Totem symbols may well have reflected band or family affiliation, and may also have suggested territorial or community ancestry, but they may have also referred to personal names or descriptive characteristics of the individual who adopted the symbol. As well, the use of totems by, for example, the Wyandot, may have differed from the role totems played within Ojibwa communities. Finally, the function or functions totems served may well have changed between the 18th and 19th centuries, given the movement of peoples and changes to the landscape that occurred over that time. Generally, these symbols remain a mystery, and perhaps rightly so, given the sometimes quite private and personal importance they had for the individual.
It is important to keep in mind that this directory is not an exhaustive and complete piece of research. Innumerable additions or revisions to this directory lie waiting in the massive pile of historical records that Greg never had an opportunity to consult. Also, it is important to appreciate the usual problems inherent in the documents examined: variable spelling of names from one document to another, the fact that sometimes one or more individuals would have had the same name, and that some individuals were known at different times by several names. Thus the decisions Greg made when determining whether a particular name on a particular document was a "new" individual, or simply a variation of someone s name already included in the directory, had to be based on the data already compiled. And while Greg managed to digest massive amounts of data during his research, as he noted himself on several occasions there were always more documents and materials to read and names to add to the directory. Thus readers should view the directory provided here as a work in progress, one other researchers will no doubt be able to add to and refine for years to come. Indeed, researchers who come across additional references and who can add to this directory, or correct and refine the entries listed, are encouraged to submit their information to the London Chapter of the OAS, so that the directory can be updated and the work Greg had already accomplished can grow and improve further.
How to Use This Directory:
All individuals included in the directory are listed in alphabetical order. Variations in the spelling of a name, or other names by which the individual was known, are highlighted in bold text. When searching for an individual, first look up the name in the directory. If no listing is provided, refer to Appendix 1, Name Variants, and see if the name is included there. If you find it, then refer back to the directory using the formal name indicated in Appendix 1. While all available biographical information for individuals listed is provided in the directory, Appendix 4, listing the location of speeches, may provide additional sources to examine if you would like to learn more about a person. Finally, while every effort has been made to tie together all the loose ends with the manuscript as it was found after Greg s death in November of 1992, some limitations, which are unavoidable when the author can t be consulted, remain. For example, we are not sure why Greg asterixed some of the entries in Appendix 4, or why he did not include some of the individuals listed in that appendix in the main directory. As well, reference citations, particularly for archived sources, vary in degree of detail, depending on what could or couldn't be found in Greg's research materials. While these limitations are minor, it is important also to remember that this directory was not intended to be comprehensive. Rather, it provides a review of what Greg was able to learn during his research of over a thousand individuals who were an important part of this region s heritage, as well as providing a road map for researchers of various interests and disciplines to find out more about these people.
A Brief Historical Overview:
Just as Greg Curnoe's work has demonstrated that the history of any cultural "group" is incomplete without an appreciation of "community" and the people who make up that community, so too is a historical compilation of individuals incomplete without some general historical context. So, by way of overview, we can start by stating that the period of general focus in this directory, ca. 1750 -1850, was one of dramatic and massive change in southwestern Ontario. At the beginning of this period the region was a forested frontier, with sparse French Canadian settlement along the Detroit River and environs, and numerous Native communities settled along the major waterways. By the end of this period, southwestern Ontario was a mostly rural, Euro-Canadian agricultural community, settled primarily by British immigrants and their descendants. Native communities had been relegated to a few reserves of land.
By the late 1760's, following a period of conflict between British, French and Native nations (including the relatively successful seige of British posts by Native nations under the leadership of people like Pontiac), southwestern Ontario was home to several Native and European communities. Small centres of French Canadian and British settlement could be found along the Detroit River and south shore of Lake St. Clair, primarily around the fort and settlement of Detroit. In the same general area were communities of Odawa, Pottawatomi and Wyandot, mostly concentrated in villages or relatively tight areas of settlement along both sides of the Detroit River. Ojibwa communities were more widely settled in camps along the Thames, Detroit and St. Clair Rivers, Lake St. Clair and lower Lake Huron drainage, and along the drainages of eastern Michigan and Saginaw Bay. Further afield various Native communities could be found along the shore of Lake Erie in northwestern Ohio and southeastern Michigan. These included groups of Wyandot, Miami and Shawnee. While settled village communities such as the Odawa and Wyandot maintained large fields of corn and other crops, and lived in relatively fixed village locales in somewhat permanent structures, more mobile communities such as the Ojibwa relied on the pursuit of a wide range of seasonally abundant resources over much larger areas. So, given the time of year, Ojibwa communities of several hundred individuals could be gathered together at a single locale such as the St. Clair River rapids to harvest spring spawning runs of fish, or dispersed over a wide area at single family winter hunting camps, or in groups of 30-60 individuals (5-10 families) at sugaring camps, or summer agricultural base camps. While this mobility was a constant feature of Ojibwa life, it was not random or nomadic. Rather, territorial communities gathered together or dispersed to specific locales within a relatively well defined geographic region. These communities were able to pick up their homes (wigwams) and possessions, and move them to the next location, in order to harvest resources like fish, deer, or plants, rather than always travelling back and forth from a specific village site. European travellers passing through the region would often comment that they had observed "ruined Indian villages" or "the skeletons of wigwams." But these travellers were actually passing by locations which, at another time in the year, would be inhabited by Ojibwa families carrying out various domestic activities, the wigwam skeletons covered, and generally looking anything but "abandoned". In southwestern Ontario and southeastern Michigan, Ojibwa communities occupied several loosely defined territories, such as the Thames River, Lake St. Clair - St. Clair River corridor, and others. While each of these community territories could extend over a wide area, they were as well known to the members of one of those community as the laneways and buildings of the post at Detroit were to the inhabitants of that locale.
The region of western Lake Erie and southern Lake Huron was a main stage for the drama of historic events in northeastern North America during the second half of the 18th century. This was because the region was an important economic and transportation link between the upper Great Lakes and the centres of trade in eastern Canada and the United States, and because of this region s proximity to the ever-expanding frontier of American settlement, along with all the tensions and hostilities that expansion brought.
The history of the second half of the 18th century is one of seemingly continual conflict and warfare. Following a decade of relative calm after the conflicts of the early 1760's, the American Revolution of the mid-1770's led to many years of skirmishes on the western frontier. The period following the American Revolution saw a number of unresolved disputes fester, leading to more and more open conflict primarily between American and Native communities such as the Shawnee, Miami and Wyandot of northwestern Ohio. While that conflict formally ended in the mid 1790's, continuing unresolved issues between American, Native and British powers would again boil over and culminate in the War of 1812. And while the communities of southwestern Ontario were on the "hinterland" of these skirmishes (with the exception of the War of 1812), nevertheless these groups were active participants, as military allies with the British against the Americans, and as the recipients of many refugees from the conflicts in northwestern Ohio. Native families to continue traditional ways of life. This was particularly true of seasonal hunting rounds, where mobility was essential. Hunting now largely had to be accomplished from reserves. And as the region around reserves became settled by immigrants, a family would have to travel further and further away to find plentiful game, and not have to avoid competing for that game with their Euro-Canadian neighbours.
During this period, however, Native communities demonstrated remarkable flexibility. While hunting could no longer be maintained as a primary subsistence activity, reserves were still situated in areas where other resources, such as fish spawning runs and sugaring, could continue to be harvested. Also, if hunting could not be relied on as before because of restricted mobility and changes to the surrounding landscape, then increased agricultural activity became important, particularly for Ojibwa communities. However, unlike their Euro-Canadian neighbours, most Ojibwa communities did not develop a cash crop economy, as was the hope of Indian agents and missionaries. Rather, agricultural efforts tended to be largely garden plots for personal and community use. Basically, agricultural produce replaced the food staple that hunting had been. Rather than abandoning traditional lifeways, these communities had simply adjusted. Close ties to the land, and distinct community identities were not lost, despite massive and rapid change through the 19th century. And indeed, many of the communities mentioned in Greg Curnoe's directory are still vibrant and active today, and continue to contribute to the growth and identity of this region of Ontario.
Neal Ferris
September, 1995Readers interested in learning more about southwestern Ontario s Native heritage should refer to the following references. These are simply intended to get you started. Once there, these references will lead you to other sources, and, appropriately, to the historical documents themselves (please refer to the reference section for full citations):
Prehistoric Past: Ellis & Ferris
Regional Historical Overviews, Aboriginal and European Relations: Cleland; Allen 1975, 1992; White; Graham; Surtees; Trigger 1978
Native Communities:
Ojibwa: Kahkewaquonaby 1861; NinDaWaabJig; Ferris; Schmalz; Smith 1990
Delaware: Gray; Kjellberg
Wyandot: Clarke; Clifton 1983; Leclair 1988a
Pottawatomi: Clifton 1975
Oneida: Mayer