The Chippewas of Rama First Nation
Our Heritage Place Mzinigan (newspaper)
(spring)
Mnookmi 2022
“Chippewa Indians at Coldwater, Ontario” 1844. Ware, T. Hibbert
Aaniin Boozhoo Miigwech for reading Our Heritage Place Mzinigan. The Mzinigan is a new initiative by Our Heritage Place. What is the “Our Heritage Place Mzinigan? It’s a little booklet about the heritage of Rama. While not a “newspaper” exactly, it is perhaps the closest translation we can find. We will have articles on history and language; fascinating stories that may be new to you or perhaps forgotten; photographs; department updates; art features; community member interviews, and guest articles. What do you want to read about? Let us know. We write this not for ourselves but for the community (and beyond). Our Heritage Place Mzinigan will be printed in limited numbers, and it will be published online for reading from your electronic devices. If you’d like a physical copy, please let us know.
We created this mzinigan to share what we have and know. Our archives hold many stories and photographs that need to be read and seen. We’ve accumulated thousands of documents, photographs, and videos over the years. While preservation is important, it is just as important that these files are shared. They belong to the community. This is why this booklet was created. As a way to share our archives with you. Another way we’ve begun to share our archives is by putting them online. Many of our historical photographs are now available online at http://ramafirstnation.pastperfectonline.com/ . Once again, gchi miigwech for reading. We hope you enjoy what we have to share. The next issue comes out in August 2022.
Our Heritage Place Updates Our Heritage Place continues to offer a wide variety of cultural events for the community. There are always ways to learn more about Anishinaabe Aadziwin (Anishinaabe way of being). See the flyers on the following page for more information. Our Heritage Place organized Anishinaabe Giizhigad, a day to celebrate and honour our past, present and future and learn more about Anishinaabe Aadziwin. The day featured information booths on history, culture, and arts, and in the morning a teaching lodge was built at Hub’s Rock. The teaching lodge had been a dream of many people throughout Rama history, and finally, it was realized. As COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted, we’ve been able to resume our in-person events and gatherings. One such example is the Rama Powwow. Finally, we are looking forward to welcoming dancers, singers, guests, and the community to the Rama Powwow. Last year, we held a small,
community powwow which featured a virtual contest. Although we did our best and the powwow ran fairly smoothly, we missed the big Rama Powwow as we’ve come to know and love it. Check out the powwow poster in this issue for more information. As ever, we welcome volunteers for the event. Volunteers are needed for a wide variety of tasks - contact us for more information! A fasting camp was held in May, preceded by a sweat lodge, and these events were needed and appreciated by participants. We look forward to holding more sweats and ceremony in the coming months. It has been a long time, but thankfully, we are returning to normalcy once again. Finally, hard work on revitalizing Anishinaabemowin in Rama continues. The language committee continues to meet, as they strategize how to ensure Anishinaabemowin in spoken in Rama for generations to come.
pictures
From the Archives: Mzinaazwinan
Nina York, Solomon Ingeroll, and Dolly York
George, Eva, Marjorie, and William Shilling. Date unknown
Sadie Fawn
A group of women from Rama, names unknown Sid Snache, Larry Douglas, Terry Smith, and Byron Stiles
Securing Chief Musquakie’s Place in History By J. Patrick Boyer
(republished here with permission from author. First appeared in Unique Muskoka Magazine, May 2022)
Ontario has 22 counties and 11 districts. Many bear names of English noblemen, reflecting the province’s colonial era. Several pay tribute to even longer history, with Indigenous names of First Nation Peoples. Only one of the 33 honours a specific Indigenous person. Because Muskoka District is widely renowned, you might think Chief Musquakie’s story is well-known, too. It isn’t. There were in fact two chiefs of this name, father and son. From warfare to land treaties, both played high-level roles in history. The understandable blurring of their lives, especially in the minds of non-Indigenous people, has magnified confusion about the two. A third Chief Musquakie was designated, nephew Isaac, but further potential mix-ups never occurred because a different person was chosen instead. The first Head Chief of the Chippewas was referred to in British records of the 1790s as “The Yellow Head, Chief of Lake Simcoe.” In 1796 he canoed to Fort York on Lake Ontario’s north shore to check out the new government of British people. Five years had now passed since western Quebec had been severed to form a separate colony, Upper Canada. In 1797, Musquakie returned to assess things, this time continuing on to Niagara as well. Upper Canada’s governor, John Graves Simcoe, a military man who’d fought American rebels on Long Island using irregular tactics more akin to Indigenous warfare than regular British military maneuvers, was impressed. The power of the Ojibwe, he wrote, was “not to be slighted since, though they are not numerous themselves in this part of the country, they can draw to a head very formidable numbers.” When war erupted in 1812, Chief Musquakie did indeed marshal numerous warriors, including his son, and they travelled south as a war-party to repulse the American invaders. From Lake Nipissing, Chief Commanda led large party of Nipissings down Lake Huron and into battle. Both men, discerning leaders, wanted to keep Canada British. This was not because of unbounded affection for the Crown, as the British colonial narrative suggests, but clear-eyed strategic opposition to an American takeover. It was astute to defend the lesser of two evils: the United States government and American settlers were even more aggressively removing Indigenous people from their lands. When these First Nation allies materialized at York and in the Niagara Peninsula, the British command-
ers were awed by the artful way they waged war –scouting out enemy positions, combining deception and surprise, deploying fear and unleashing savagery, shifting from strategic design to tactical operation. In 1813, the war’s second year, American forces invaded York, the new capital of Upper Canada chosen in 1797 by Simcoe because Newark (renamed Niagara in 1798) was just a musket shot from the U.S. border – as Chief Musquakie directly observed that year when scouting the area to understand the threat from invaders. The first wave of 300 American soldiers landed on April 27, and were opposed only by the native warriors, some 50 Ojibwe and Mississauga. The British withdrew, leaving the settlement to the Ojibwe and Canadian militia to defend. Chief Musquakie, then in his mid40s, was severely wounded by a musket ball shattering his jaw. His son, who also sustained wounds, continued leading the warriors until the Americans, after looting and burning much of York, were driven off. It was four years after this, in 1817, that the second Musquakie, “at the desire of his father,” became head chief of the Ojibwe around lakes Simcoe and Huron. Two decades on, Upper Canada’s oligarchic colonial regime faced armed rebellion by white members of its’ own society, the unrest continuing into 1838 with American border raids. Based on how fearless the Ojibwe had been in the War of 1812, the government called them to arms, as if they were a standing militia, to serve as a local defence force. The younger Chief Musquakie dutifully assembled warriors and led them south to the Holland Landing military depot, where they camped in readiness for battle. After some time they were dismissed, the government deciding conditions had stabilized without their having to fight. They had not been paid their stipend. Their food rations were suspended. Their families were languishing because they’d had to abandon their fall hunt in Muskoka for winter food. The list of chiefs and warriors at Holland Landing includes the names of Yellowhead, Bigwin, and many others who would have been hunting north of the Severn River. Armed battles were one dimension of the continental struggle to control land. Another was the treaty process. By negotiations and signings, Indigenous lands might be “ceded” to settlers. minds. The process was simply more obtuse.
Securing Chief Musquakie’s Place in History In part this was due to non-disclosure by the British of how stipulated provisions would operate. In part it was also because a treaty, being only in English, was interpreted by translators who tried to explain far-reaching provisions and English legal concepts not fully grasped. Beyond these fatal flaws in basic contract law, the British failed to make required payments and refused to restrain settler encroachments on Indigenous lands, which meant the agreements were fundamentally breached and, in reality, at an end. Euro-Canadians either failed to understand or were unwilling to accept that First Nations considered the document to be a solemn invitation for others to share their territory, not a land-sale contract. In 1815, acting as head chief in his father’s place, Musquakie and two other chiefs signed a treaty “surrendering” 250,000 acres in Simcoe between the north shore of Kempenfelt Bay and Georgian Bay for £4,000. In 1818, when Musquakie had formally succeeded his father as Head Chief, representatives of the Crown negotiated with him and other Ojibwe chiefs for further “surrender” of more than a million and a-half acres now parts of Grey, Wellington, Dufferin, and Simcoe counties – all for a “perpetual” annuity of £1,200. These two treaties, together, covered most of their territory. The British felt they’d acquired it – treaty as purchase agreement. Yet Musquakie and the other chiefs, operating within the land-use framework they understood, reserved their right and that of their people to range and hunt this same territory – treaty as invitation to share land with others. Payments were just part of the bargain: to the British, compensation; to the Ojibwe, earnest money. A complete non-meeting of minds and, ultimately, non-binding agreements – especially once the Crown and settlers breached both in fundamental ways. Musquakie and his people continued using their lands around Lake Simcoe and in Muskoka the way they always had – not because they were violating these treaties concerning their traditional lands but living in accordance with their understanding of it. This phenomenon reveals the unbridged gulf between, on one side, a First Nation concept of “One Bowl One Spoon” for shared use of land and, on the other, British thinking that treaties effectively ended Indigenous presence on the land. Musquakie’s beliefs, and the continuity of Ojibwe practices, were squarely at odds with what the Crown’s representatives intended. The land in question was territory on which he and generations of Ojibwe people had hunted and fished to feed their families. They did not believe they had surrendered their survival rights. There was plenty for all those present to share. While English
glommed onto personal ownership of land in fee simple, and some even spoke of land ownership as an individual’s right, First Nations saw land more like a public park, or akin to the English concept of “the Commons” – a space to be shared, under certain conditions. Chief Musquakie’s historical importance thus exceeds fighting for the British in times of invasion and insurrection, goes beyond signing treaties and then pushing the British colonial powers to live up to their provisions, appealing to them to make required payments, and ensuring his people had the secure long-term foothold along Lake Couchiching’s shores that continues to this day. His higher role extended to treaty interpretation and peaceable uses of Indigenous land, a vital and enduring issue in contemporary Canada. The One Bowl One Spoon concept in treaty-making had been used by people of the Americas since the 12th Century or earlier. It is a pathway to peaceful coexistence for people living and using the resources of the land in a spirit of mutual cooperation. One of the best-known One Bowl One Spoon treaties emerged from the long-running conflicts through the 1600s between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee – the former the culturally related Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississauga, Nipissing, and Algonquin peoples around Great Lakes territory now parts of Ontario, Michigan, and Ohio; the latter, the six nation confederacy of Seneca, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, and Tuscarona peoples on territory south of lakes Ontario and Erie now part of New York and adjacent states. The lands around Lake St. Clair in particular were considered “the soul” of Anishinaabe territory because they “had resources integral to their way of life and identity,” Chief Dean Jacobs and colleague researcher Victor Lytwyn explain. The Anishinaabe defended this territory against Haudenosaunee warriors through the 1600s but by 1701 the warring sides finally met for two weeks in great numbers at Montréal and agreed to live in peace – “a key element of which was the Bowl with One Spoon” principle. This metaphoric Bowl represents the land, and the notional Spoon symbolizes that that people from other territories would be able to eat together as one – while peace was maintained. There was a Spoon, but no knife – meaning no bloodshed. Sometimes the term is used to denote a treaty itself, as was the case for the 1701 Anishinaabe-Haudenosaunee peace accord. A wampum belt, created to symbolically record the agreement, might subsequently be invoked
Securing Chief Musquakie’s Place in History to settle disputes. Through the 19th Century, the relationship between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee remained friendly, with intermittent disputes resolved through diplomacy and invocation of the One Bowl One Spoon concept. In January 1840, Chief Musquakie took with him to a Credit River Council meeting between Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee leaders a One Bowl Many Spoons wampum belt, of which he as Head Chief was custodian. It documented an agreement, based on the core principle but using a “many Spoons” variation, made at the Narrows between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching. In his role as a peacemaking elder, Musquakie explained to the Council that one of the Spoons was for the Haudenosaunee, who had promised that the bowl should never be emptied – meaning its wildlife (especially beaver) should not be depleted. Mohawk Chief John Smoke agreed that the Bowl and Spoons represented the abundant game and food in that territory. Chief Musquakie continued, stating that a Bowl was also placed at the Credit River and, as the 1840 Council minutes record, that “the right of hunting on the north side of the Lake [Ontario] was secured to the Ojibwe, and that the Six Nations were not to hunt here only when they come to smoke the pipe of peace with their Ojibwe brethren.” Clearly, careful interpretation was needed for who could share the land and its resources, and when, and how. The two key points, in terms of Chief Musquakie’s historical importance, is that he was a peace-maker infused with this “One Bowl” principle, and that it informed his approach to land-use treaties, especially those he signed pertaining to lands of Greater Muskoka. His continuing application of the One Bowl principle was on the basis that each nation clearly understands its own territory, and that each nation’s independence and distinct identity needs to be recognized – wisdom that accommodated the diverse nature of First Nation communities and cultures. In the mid-1800s, Indigenous peoples around the Great Lakes still actively embraced this concept of aboriginal co-sovereignty. It had shaped their thinking and action long before the coming of the Europeans. Musquakie and other Ojibwe chiefs now sought to apply it to their post-Contact circumstances. As historian Lisa Brooks puts it in her book Common Pot, “The Bowl with one Spoon was a geographic-social configuration and political concept.” This vision depended on recognizing equality and building consensus
among all nations who ate from the Bowl, “a joining of minds that would enable the political system to mirror the geographic one.” Certainly it rejected the colonizers’ vision of confining Indians to small reserves, often on marginal land, so that all the rest of the territory could then be surveyed, subdivided, and sold or even given away as “free grant land” to homesteaders. The Bowl is the land, the Spoons the political plays going on within it. This was the First Nation political context in 1830 when Governor John Colborne sought to impose order in the neighbourhood south of the Severn. The Ojibwe were now being referred to as “Chippewas,” which is “simply a bastardization of the word Ojibwe,” as Ben Cousineau, a member of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation and the community’s researcher and cultural archivist, explains. “Over several generations, Ojibwe/ay became Ochipweay, became Chippeway, became Chippewa.” Indian Affairs officials in government unilaterally “assigned that name to our communities and status cards.” At an abstract level, Colborne aspired to uphold English assumptions about contract law and property law for land ceded by treaty to the Crown. At the pragmatic political level, he just wanted to calm the agitated EuroCanadian settlers around Lake Simcoe who’d erected fences between neighbouring properties and now took angry exception to the Chippewas’ migratory life unfolding around their neat plots of land. In response to their petitions to “remove the Indians,” Colborne set aside lands for the Chippewas at The Narrows between lakes Simcoe and Couchiching, and persuaded them to settle there. In time, and despite knowing them to be not the best of available lands, the Chippewas used treaty money to buy these lands outright – under the colonists’ real estate law – to control them on their own terms in accordance with Indigenous law and custom. As for knowing more about Musquakie’s historical significance, one way rising generations understand times past is by the accounts they get about people and events. But whoever writes those stories controls the narrative, as we see from the wording on “historic plaques.” Ontario’s Archeological and Historic Sites board was created in 1953, as a unit in the Department of Education, after Premier Leslie Frost returned from touring U.S. Civil War battlefields deeply impressed by the informative site markers on America’s numerous blood-soaked battlefields. By 1965, the Historic Sites Board unveiled its prototype site marker beside the Port Carling locks with
Securing Chief Musquakie’s Place in History Premier Frost himself and Muskoka’s MPP Robert Boyer among the many dignitaries proudly officiating. This inaugural Ontario plaque was keynote for the hundreds more to follow, from its distinctive blue-and-gold appearance to its exclusion of pre-colonization history:
The first white settlers on the site of this town, then known as Indian Village, arrived about 1865. In 1869, it was named after the Honourable John Carling, Ontario’s first Minister of Public Works and Agriculture. Water transportation, so vital to the early farmers and lumbermen, was greatly aided by the construction of these locks, 1869-71, by the provincial government. The village was incorporated in 1896. No reference is made to “Indian Village” having been a permanent settlement of Ojibwe people under Chief Pegahmagabow, with some twenty homes, field crops, and other attributes of the significant village Obajewanung – “narrows with a current.” Unmentioned, it didn’t exist. Today Ontario Heritage Trust (successor to the Historic Sites Board) acknowledges that many plaques erected during the past 60 years are “exclusionary in interpretation and use outdated terminology.” One is this carefully vetted official plaque about Chief Musquakie’s importance, awkwardly located in Orillia’s Couchiching Beach Park and obscured by trees:
Born about 1769, Yellowhead (Musquakie) served with the British during the war of 1812. Named Chief of the Deer tribe of the Chippewa (Ojibwa) Indians in 1816, he settled with his band at the site of Orillia in 1830 in accordance with Lieutenant-Governor Colborne’s plan for gathering nomadic tribes on reserves. Pressure from white settlers forced the Indians to relinquish their land and Yellowhead’s band moved to Rama in 1838-39. It is believed that the Muskoka District, which embraced his hunting grounds, was named after this greatly respected chief who died in 1864 and was buried in St. James’ churchyard, Orillia. Apart from problematic dates and conflating two men as one, this version of history suggests “the greatly respected chief” had assimilated and that his roles were small in the scheme of things – he “served with the British” in wartime, he “settled with his band…in accordance with” a lieutenant-governor’s plan, and “it is believed” Muskoka District was named after him. Diminish, cast doubt. Imply the English name “Yellowhead” is a translation of “Musquakie.” The overall message is that the government had been, and remains, in complete charge – from determining the lives and location of “nomadic bands of Indians” in the 1830s, to rendering for public education today its selective version of those events. At Rama itself, another blue-and-gold Ontario site
marker, more prominent on the west side of Rama Road between Williams Road and Snake Drive, reiterates the message and updates progress on controlled assimilation:
In 1830 Sir John Colborne, lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada (18281836), settled several nomadic bands of Indians on a reserve stretching along the portage between the Atherley Narrows and Georgian Bay. They were placed under the superintendency of Captain Thomas Gummersall Anderson. The Ojibwa (Chippewa) tribe led by Chief William Yellowhead (Musquakie) were located at the Atherley Narrows. Pressure on the government by land-hungry white settlers forced the Indians, in 1836, to relinquish their holdings, and Yellowhead’s band was moved to Rama in 1838-9, where they purchased 650 hectares. By 1846 they had 120 hectares under cultivation and their settlement contained twenty houses, four barns and a school house. This encapsulated version of a place and its people’s significance sanitizes history and projects smooth progress in the unfolding of colonial society. When this RAMA INDIAN RESERVE plaque was unveiled July 28, 1965, the only Indigenous person posing for the official publicity photograph, Chief Irvin J. Douglas, wore a full feather headdress and business suit with white shirt and tie – the dilemma of an Indigenous person living in two worlds. The five others, rounding out this cultural snapshot of mid-1960s Ontario, were the superintendent of the Simcoe Indian Agency, Ontario’s Health Minister, manager of the Orillia & District Chamber of Commerce, the minister of St. Paul’s United Church in Orillia; and a Jesuit member of the province’s Historical Sites Board. In the 1960s the Reserve landscape resembled “an impoverished third world county,” as James Bartleman, a member of Rama First Nation who grew up in Port Carling and became Ontario’s first Indigenous lieutenant-governor, wrote decades later. It would be like that for three more decades until 1996 when, also late July, Casino Rama opened its doors to jobs, prosperity, and opportunity for true self-government. Meanwhile, over in Orillia at St. James Anglican Church, two sequential messages reinforce how history can be the tool of whoever writes it. The first, a white marble plaque mounted on the church building many decades ago by the Orillia Historical Society, was “In tribute to William Yellowhead Musquakie.” Members of this organization were not only locals well informed about their history but closer in time to the events they summarized. They made clear the chief’s two names were not a substitute or translation for the other. As repositories of cultural memory in the region, they authoritatively confirmed “Muskoka, wherein lay his hunting ground, was named for him.”
Securing Chief Musquakie’s Place in History More accurate than the government’s version, their chiseled tablet also recorded that Musquakie with his father and other Ojibwe warriors fought alongside the British in the War of 1812, was a professing Christian, and had lived about 100 years when he died and was buried in this churchyard. The local historians also put plainly on record that the Indian Council House on this site became the first Anglican Church, while Musquakie’s house itself served as the Anglican parsonage.
Doctrinally, the doctrinal differences between these two Protestant groupings seemed obscure, and so the Head Chief astutely switched to the Anglicans. He’d now eat blueberries instead of raspberries.
The simple wood marker on Musquakie’s grave did not last. The cemetery burial records, had they existed, were lost. Nobody alive knew where he’d been laid to rest. But to salvage its heritage with contemporary people more interested in the past, the church installed a modern tombstone to resemble Chief Musquakie’s actual grave. It is black marble. Etched into a large oval at its top is artwork depicting a large buck in the foreground, while behind a tall Christian cross in Muskoka wilderness is illuminated at sunrise, doubled by its reflection in the mirror of a small lake surrounded by rock and pines. The connection between Chief Musquakie and Muskoka is now reduced from explicit statement to poetic inference. Moreover, this new grave marker projects the significance of Musquakie far more narrowly, almost exclusively as ardent Christian. The wording “In tribute to William Yellowhead Musquakie” of the Historical Society is recast as “To the memory of William Yellowhead (Musquakie).” The information on the white plaque is now superseded by just four sentences selected from the more extensive prior summary, sanitized by removing all reference to conflicts over land whether by settlers arriving in Simcoe or American soldiers invading over the border:
The first Chief Musquakie’s origins are obscure. Sources indicate he was born between 1764 and 1769, possibly around Montreal, but without indicating parentage. Enhancing the chief’s legend was the oft-repeated statement in English-language books, including Bracebridge emigration agent W.E. Hamilton’s widely consulted 1879 Guide Book and Atlas of Muskoka and Parry Sound Districts, which as Crown Lands agent he knowingly explained, about Muskoka taking its name from the great “celebrity” warrior Musqua Ukee – only to then give reign to his poetic Irish flare by explaining that this name means “Not easily turned back in the day of battle.” While Hamilton’s statement about Musquakie’s courage is patently true, his jab at linguistics is not even close to an accurate translation.
Head Chief of the Deer Tribe of the Chippewa Indians in the Orillia area when pioneers arrived in 1832. Died 1864, aged 100 years and buried in this churchyard. A devout Christian, he donated this property for the first Anglican church on this site. Yellowhead’s house became the Anglican parsonage. That’s it! Clearly, the further away in time, the weaker the historic memory and the greater the distortions. The Anglican Church reduced resolute Musquakie’s historical significance by portraying him essentially as no more than a devout Christian waiting with open arms to welcome white settlers and give them his land and his house. On this religious front, the presence of Methodist missionaries in their midst had resulted in Musquakie, other chiefs, and many community members converting as a block to Methodism in 1828. Later, when Anglican adherents arrived in the vicinity, Musquakie discerned how the Church of England and the province’s governing English elite were closely entwined.
Both names “Musquakie” and “Yellowhead” ache for clarification. Much effort has been expended by First Nations over a couple centuries to nail this down, yet enigmas remain.
Musquakie means red earth. The different spellings of “meskwi/miskwaa” for red simply vary with whoever is writing it. Spelling of “aki” for earth is, understandably, pretty consistent. “Musquakie” appears in attested historical records also spelled as “Misquuckkey” and “Mesqua Ukee.” In Iowa, a Meskwaki Nation at Tama is known as “People of the Red Earth.” Several imaginative non-Indigenous individuals have seized on this translation to suggest that Muskoka District is named for its red soil. Whatever the chief did to earn his “Red Earth” name, the reality is that the District is named for him, not for the colour of its soil which, lacking iron to oxidize to rust colour, has never since the last Ice Age appeared red; nor even the pinkish hue in occasional strata of its Canadian Shield gneiss bedrock. Musquakie operated under several other names, when with his Deer Clan members around Lake Couchiching, his Chippawa allies of lakes Huron and Simcoe, government officials, and fur-traders – just as today some individuals have many handles or nicknames depending on who they are with. Ben Cousineau sees merit in consistently adhering to one easy spelling for the sake of clarity in communications. “We always use Musquakie, even though it’s technically not correct in terms of Ojibwe language.” Yellowhead,” a name by which both father and son were known, is not a translation of “Musquakie” as one might imagine from how the names appear in certain writings
Securing Chief Musquakie’s Place in History and on some plaques. Yellowhead is Wezaawindibe. Other attested spellings include Mayawassino and Waisowindebay. Perhaps this name was simply descriptive – if, say, Musquakie had blonde hair – the way the British referred to “The Yellowhead.” Or it might be a clue about the chief’s origins, Yellowhead being a widely known name in Western Canada. One of the Prairies many Chief Yellowheads, for instance, is referenced in historical records as bringing a party of his men to Winnipeg for work building the Canadian Pacific Railway. And widespread use of the Yellowhead name in Alberta includes the electoral district which Prime Minister Joe Clark represented in the House of Commons. Whatever caused this Yellowhead name to attach to Musquakie, it seems of a piece for the British in the 1790s, with their colonizing practice of anglicizing, converting, and assimilating natives, to routinely call him “William Yellowhead.” Non-Indigenous people, when having to deal with Chief Musquakie, frequently portrayed him in narrow ways that diminished and misrepresented him, as earlier examples show, because the lesser a personage he was, the more it helped them impose settler cultural values on First Nations and control over their land. The territory occupied by Chief Musquakie’s Ojibwe peoples ran from lakes Couchiching and Wahweyagahmah [Simcoe] west to Georgian Bay, much of it cultivated with crops of corn, potatoes, beans, black tomatoes, and tobacco. For hunting, land under Chief Musquakie’s exclusive patrimony lay north of the Severn, along the south branch of the river draining Trading Lake [Lake of Bays] downstream to below present-day Bracebridge. In comparison to their flatter farming lands south of the Severn, this area on the Canadian Shield was richer in game, fish, berries, medicinal plants, and scenic delights of forest spaces, dramatic rock outcroppings, ragged waterfalls, cool rivers, and splashing streams. Muskoka’s lush variety of trees included birch with its all-purpose bark, maples whose sap made tasty syrup, cedar with its medicinal properties and pliable trunks and branches for furnishing containers and shaping furniture and canoe frames, and mature pines with their deeply comforting scent and pitch for sealing canoes. In February 1868, in their first session following Confederation, Ontario’s newly elected legislators enacted the Free Grant and Homestead Act to encourage settlers to claim and farm these lands north of the Severn River up to Lake Nipissing. The statute set boundaries subdividing it into three districts, and assigned legal names for each. “Nipissing” for the northern district recognized the First Nation community dwelling around the large lake which also bore their name. “Parry Sound” was named for the middle district’s most distinguishing feature – the world’s deepest freshwater port, certain to become a pivotal harbor connecting all three districts with Great Lakes shipping. Retaining “Muskoka” for the most southerly and smallest of these districts
was pragmatic public policy because that’s how the place was already known. Early in the 1800s, fur trader maps identified the area as “Misquuckkey’s Hunting Grounds.” Given that usage, British officials began designating the territory this way also. In 1829 Alexander Shirreff explored the tract of land from the Ottawa River to Penetanguishene and used the name “Muskoka” on his map and in his reports about the Ojibwe hunting ground. This anglicized corruption of Chief Musquakie’s name increasingly came into use by English-speaking people. In 1847 surveyor Robert Bell ran an east-west line for a colonization road from Renfrew into these hunting grounds that he called “the Muskoka Road” because that is where it headed. An 1857 map in the National Archives shows this winding road as Bell surveyed it, with the name “Muskoka” appearing on both the Muskoka River and Lake Muskoka by that date. In 1863, Musquakie was in his late 90s when he enjoyed coming north to Muskoka for a mid-winter hunting trip. Returning to Rama after a successful hunt, he took ill and died January 11, 1864. A large assembly of Ojibwe and whites crowded St. James’ Church in Orillia for his funeral. Published accounts emphasized the whites were present “out of respect for this influential chief who had often stressed his loyalty to the British Crown.” Mention was not made of his belief that the British were simply safer than the Americans to cohabit with, nor that he believed he was sharing land with them rather than that it had been entirely and irreversible transferred to settler society. Musquakie’s Will assigned his reserve lands at Lake Couchiching and his Muskoka hunting grounds to his nephew Isaac Yellowhead. In tandem with that disposition, Musquakie also designated Isaac his heir and successor as “Head Chief of the Chippewa tribe of Indians.” However, things played out differently. From the 1830s to 1860s, the name of chief Thomas Naingishkung (also spelled Nenageshkiung and Naningiskung) appeared on many Ojibwe documents, indicative of his active role in the community. He was a lesser chief than Musquakie, the head chief, yet his work was important and he was respected by the Chippewas. In August 1858 he had transferred his authority to his son, Joseph Benson Naingishkung. Strong, experienced, and hard-working, it was Joseph Benson \ Musquakie’s people chose, rather than Isaac Yellowhead, to succeed their greatest of chiefs. A district called “Muskoka” became a magnet for southern Ontarians and Americans whose trips onto the rugged Canadian Shield northland constituted, at some conscious or instinctive level, entrance into unknown realms of the “dark silent forests” Orillia’s Gordon Lightfoot knew and sang about, echoing traces of Indigenous truths. The chief’s compelling “Indian” name is intrinsic to Muskoka’s Mystique.
Chiefs and Warriors from Chippewas of Lakes Huron & Simcoe at Holland Landing 1839
Chiefs and Warriors from Chippewas of Lakes Huron & Simcoe at Holland Landing 1839
The Upper Canada Rebellion was an insurrection against the oligcarghic government in the British Colony of Upper Canada (which later became Ontario). The Rebellion took place from 1837-1839, and was led by William Lyon Mackenzie. Mackenzie was the first mayor of Toronto and was a critic of the power structure within early Upper Canada, as well as the government’s refusal to grant rights to American settlers. Mackenzie was influential and persuaded his followers to attempt to seize control of Upper Canada from the British, and even drafted a constitution based on the US constitution. Mackenzie organized armed followers (“rebels”) and launched a series of failed raids and attacks on goverment loyalists and militia. Many of the rebels were not soldiers, simply farmers and men who agreed with Mackenzie, and their inexperience led to chaos and abandonment of the rebellion. The rebels often clashed with volunteers loyal to the government, easily repelling the rebels. Nonetheless, the Crown was still worried about the rebels, as well as a potential American invasion. As a result, loyalists and militia were stationed at posts across Ontario. First Nations warriors were sought
because of their knowledge and ability. First Nations warriors who agreed to join and fight against the rebellion were provided with guns, and were promised they could keep them after the Rebellion ended. This proved to be a huge incentive to join up. Furthermore, the men would receive clothing and food during their time serving; another incentive in an economically depressed time. Lastly, resisting potential invasion of Upper Canada meant American Indian removal policies wouldn’t be applied in Upper Canada. Similar to the the War of 1812 a couple decades earlier, First Nations warriors played an important role in resisting the Rebellion. Nearly 170 warriors were stationed at Holland Landing, and many more warriors served at different posts throughout the province. The rebellion has been deemed rather pointless, and had few long-standing effects, although historians say it did ultimately expedite what would have been a slower process of unifying Upper and Lower Canada, and creating the Province of Canada in 1841. Work cited: The Central Ontario Anishinaabe and the Rebellion, 1830-40, Rhonda Telford Miigwech to researcher Laurie Leclair for the discovery of Holland Landing Warriors List
From the Archives: Mzinaazwinan pictures
A collection of mzinaazwinan from the Rama First Nation community archives. If you’ve got a story to share about these pictures, please let us know!
From the Archives: Mzinaazwinan pictures
A collection of mzinaazwinan from the Rama First Nation community archives. If you’ve got a story to share about these pictures, please get in touch!
A Complete* List of Chiefs and Councillors of Rama First Nation, from 1776-1933
(*according to federal government records)
Year
Chief
Pre-1776 1813
1885 1886-1887 1888 1889 1890
Yellowhead Yellowhead (Musquakie), William Yellowhead (died 1864) Thomas Nanigishkung (died 1873) Joseph Benson Nanigishkung (resigned 1896) James Benson Nanigishkung (died 1918) James Benson Nanigishkung James Benson Nanigishkung James Benson Nanigishkung James Benson Nanigishkung James Benson Nanigishkung
1891
James Benson Nanigishkung
1892 1893 1894 1896 1900 1903-1909 1909-1915 1915 1918 1921
James Benson Nanigishkung James Benson Nanigishkung James Benson Nanigishkung John Kenice John Kenice (died 1902) Samuel B. Nanigishkung James Bunting Stinson Alder York Alder York Alder York (resigned 1922)
1924 1927
Alder York Alder York
1930 1933
Alder York Samuel Snache
Pre-1830 1848 1858
Councillors
John Kenice; James B. Nanigishkung; Sampson Ingersoll Gilbert Williams; John Kenice; James B. Nanigishkung John Kenice; Joseph Yellowhead; John Williams John Kenice; Gilbert Williams; Joseph Yellowhead John Kenice; Joseph Yellowhead; John B. Nanigishkung James B. Nanigishkung; Gilbert Williams; Sampson Ingersoll John Kenice; Gilbert Williams; James B. Nanigishkung John Kenice; James A. Nanigishkung; Gilbert Williams John Kenice; Joseph Yellowhead; Bunting Stinson Sampson George; Bunting Stinson William Snake; Bunting Stinson; Peter York Jacob Shilling; Sampson Ingersoll; Sampson George Joseph Yellowhead; Alfred Williams; Alder York Sampson George; James York; Alfred Williams Alfred Williams; Sampson George; David Simcoe Fred Benson Nanigishkung; Samuel Williams; J. B. Stinson J. B. Stinson; Alfred Williams; Fred Benson Wilfred Benson; Charles George; Alfred Williams; Frederick William Benson Samuel Williams; William Martell; Gilbert Williams Robert Stinson; Charles George; William Martell; Samuel Williams
A Complete* List of Chiefs and Councillors of Rama First Nation, from 1936-1990
(*according to federal government records)
Year
Chief
Councillors
1936 1939 1942 1945 1948 1951 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1972 1974 1976 1978 1980 1982
Alder York Samuel Williams Wilfred Benson Alder York Alder York Gordon Douglas Emelius Benson George Sawyer Irvin J. Douglas Irvin J. Douglas Irvin J. Douglas Irvin J. Douglas Irvin J. Douglas Norman Stinson Irvin J. Douglas Norman Stinson Norman Stinson Norman Stinson Norman Stinson Norman Stinson Norman Stinson
1984
Norman Stinson
1986
Edward Williams
1988
Norman Stinson
1990
George St. Germaine
Robert Stinson; Sanford Ingersoll; James York Robert Stinson; Clifford Sandy; Kenneth Snache Sanford Ingersoll; Ben Sawyer; Ryerson Snache Lome Ingersol; Howard Simcoe; Norman Snache Wilfred Benson; Lome Ingersoll; Marshall Noganosh George Allister Sawyer; George H. Simcoe; Everett Leland Williams Harvey Anderson; Carl Fawn; Alder Shilling Christopher Anderson; Harvey Anderson; Irvin J. Douglas Stewart G. Comego; Emilius Benson; Lome Ingersoll; Samuel Williams Florence Shilling; Lewis Snache; Samuel Snache; Joseph Yellowhead Harvey Anderson; George Sawyer; Lewis Snache; Leland Williams Harvey Anderson; Stewart Comego; John St. Germaine; Joan Simcoe Stewart Comego; Hubert Fawn; John St. Germaine; Kenneth Snache Sandy Benson; Elwood Simcoe; Gordon Simcoe; Kenneth Snache Gordon Douglas; Elwood Simcoe; Gordon Simcoe; Kenneth Snache Gordon Douglas; Elwood Simcoe; Kenneth Snache; Leland Williams Kenneth Snache; Gordon Douglas; Leland Williams; George St. Germaine Kenneth Snache; Gregory Sawyer; Leland Williams; George St. Germaine Kenneth Snache; Melvin Simcoe Sr.; Leland Williams; George St. Germaine Kenneth L Snache; Joan E. Simcoe; Sherry L. Douglas; George St. Germaine Kenneth L Snache; Joan E. Simcoe; Edward Williams; George St. Germaine; Melville R. Simcoe Sr. Kenneth L Snache; Arnold P. Ingersoll; Edward Williams; George St. Germaine; Melville R. Simcoe Sr. Kenneth L Snache; Sharon Douglas; Robert T. Stinson; George St. Germaine; Melville R. Simcoe Sr. Kenneth L Snache; Frances P. Masterson; Robert T. Stinson; George St. Germaine; E. Leland Williams; Allan T. Simcoe Kenneth L. Snache; Kathryn R. Simcoe; Allan T. Simcoe; Vernon Yellowhead Leland E. Williams; Robert T. Stinson
Source: Chiefs and Councils Volume 1; AANDC, 1992
Whose Territory Is It Anyways? Recently, there have been some questions within the community regarding the Huron-Wendat and their history in our territory. This article was written by Ben Cousineau in 2019 to briefly explain the Huron-Wendat’s historical presence in Rama territory, particularly in regards to Mnjikaning. Mnjikaning is Ojibwe for “place of the fish fence”. It refers to a place that is and has been very important to First Nations people for a very long time. Between Lakes Simcoe and Couchiching in Orillia is the Atherley Narrows. Within these narrows, and in the marshy area around them, are a set of fish weirs (aka fish fence). Most people know very little about the fish fence, despite it being a National Historic Site of Canada and one of the oldest human developments in Canada.
years old. This falls within a time period referred to by archaeologists as the Late Archaic. Little is known about this area in this period of time, and so archaeologists cannot describe the cultural affiliations of the earliest people who used the weirs. Another cluster of 12 radiocarbon dates falls within the time that the Huron-Wendat and their immediate ancestors lived in the area around the Narrows.
The fish weirs are an ancient indigenous way of fishing. Small trees and tree limbs were harvested, and one end was sharpened. They became wooden stakes. Then, these wooden stakes were driven into the bottom of the water. The wooden stakes were arranged in a pattern that gradually funneled fish into a narrower and narrower passage, until finally, they were trapped. At this point, it was easy to simply spear them (the water was only a few feet deep) and pull them out of the water. It was a very efficient way to fish and thus feed an entire village in a fairly quick way. The fish fence remains there today, although in a much different state than 150+ years ago. Over history, it was damaged by dredging, by boats, by fishermen, and naturally through via currents and erosion. Some of the wooden stakes were removed by Parks Canada for study and preservation. They were radiocarbon dated to be over 5,000 years old.
Rama’s oral history tells us that the Huron-Wendat moved into the area in the 13th century. An elder and storyteller in our community talks about how before the Huron-Wendat arrived, this area (modern day Simcoe County and central Ontario) was Anishinaabe land. We were allies with the Wendat; we considered them brothers. The Anishinaabeg and Huron-Wendat frequently traded together, lived together, and even went to war in support of each other.
Parks Canada oversee all Historic Sites in Canada. Parks Canada’s rationale for designating the weirs a historic site is as follows: Mnjikaning Fish Weirs was designated a national historic site of Canada in 1982 because: - the site contains the largest and best preserved wooden fish weirs known in eastern North America, in use from about 3300 B.C. until the recent past; - the site was cared for and used by the Huron-Wendat in the centuries immediately before A.D. 1650, and today the Anishinaabeg are stewards of the site; and, - for these two groups, this is a sacred place that represents an ancient and ongoing spiritual bond between the Creator and all living things. The spirits of people, water, animals, birds and fish are seen as all coming together in respect and gratitude at Mnjikaning.
The oldest wooden stakes are clustered in the east channel, and samples taken from the stakes have provided carbon dates in excess of 5,000 calendar
(Sources: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, Minutes, October 2005 and March 2006.)
Further south, the Wendat were at war with the Haudenosaunee. The Wendat had to flee southern Ontario, and the Anishinaabeg allowed them to move into part of their territory. The Anishinaabeg of the area then moved further north to accommodate the Wendat. Over a period of about 400 years, the Wendat grew into a massive and powerful nation. The Wendat Confederacy was established and the area they moved to became known as Wendake. There were more reasons than war for the Wendat to move into the region. An agricultural-based society, the Wendat were efficient farmers. A peaceful relationship of trade and friendship existed with the Anishinaabeg further north. The Anishinaabeg were always desirous of agricultural products grown by the Wendat, such as food (corn in particular) and tobacco; the Wendat were always looking to obtain more meat, furs, and fish harvested by the Anishinaabeg. It was a symbiotic relationship. The Wendat realized that they could be closer to their trading partners, and further from their enemies, while yet still able to successfully farm in the fertile soils of Simcoe County. Thus, they slowly began migrating from southern Ontario into traditional Anishinaabeg territory, with Anishinaabeg permission.
Whose Territory Is It Anyways? Yet, even as Wendake grew to be home to as many as 30,000 Huron-Wendat, disaster was on the horizon. Due to wars with the Haudenosaunee and diseases contracted through interactions with Europeans, the Wendat were decimated. Eventually, the Wendat Confederacy fell. They made the decision to flee what they knew as their homeland, Wendake, in order to survive as a nation. They went first to Christian Island, enduring a harsh and hungry time trying to survive, before carrying on to Quebec and the United States. The Huron-Wendat Nation continues to exist today due to their decision to leave Wendake. What followed in the region was a period of intense war between the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabeg, until the Anishinaabeg won and the Haudenosaunee agreed to retreat to southern Ontario and upstate New York. Peace treaty was made and wampum was exchanged, and the two nations have been at peace ever since (note, this war is described in detail in an article shared in previous issues of the Mzinigan, called the The Ojibwa-Iroquois War: The War 5 Nations Did Not Win). The Anishinaabeg took control of the region in towards the end of the 1600’s, and the area remains traditional Anishinaabeg territory today. The Huron-Wendat spent roughly 400 years in Simcoe County, from the 1200’s to the early 1600’s. This region before Huron-Wendat was not a vacant, empty place. Mnjikaning and the many archaeology sites throughout the region are a testament to this fact. It is impossible to accurately state who installed, used, and maintained the weirs throughout most of their 5,000-year existence. They were first “noted” by Europeans, specifically Samuel de Champlain, in the early 1600’s. Champlain recorded seeing Hurons using the fish weirs at the narrows. Perhaps because of those early accounts, it was assumed by settler society that the Huron-Wendat were the original people of the (Nadouek is another term for Iroquoian, which the Wendat are labelled as due to their language). No Wendat/Nadouek territory. Sometimes the fish fence has been (erroneously) village sites are located anywhere near Simcoe County. referred to as “Huron Fish Weirs”, as seen on the Ontario Heritage Plaque on the Atherley Narrows. However, it is clear that the fish weirs have been in their exact place significantly earlier than when the Huron-Wendat migrated to Simcoe County. Regardless of whether it was Anishinaabeg or some long-extinct people who installed the fish fence, this territory was, is, and always will be Anishinaabeg land. We were and remain the traditional stewards of Mnjikaning. The three maps on this page are from the book called Huron-Wendat, Heritage of the Circle, written by Wendat academic Georges E. Sioui. The maps were created by Dr. Gary Warrick. These maps show the migration of the Huron-Wendat into Simcoe County. The earliest village sites begin appearing between 10001200AD. This serves as additional evidence of the fact that the Mnjikaning Fish Fence predates Wendat occupation of Simcoe County by about 3,000 years.
Between 1300-1330 Wendat village sites begin appearing in the region. The source, Gary Warrick, uses the term Uren to describe the period in which the Wendats move to what becomes their heartland: Wendake.
The 90 years between 1330-1420 is called the Middleport period by the source, Gary Warrick. During this time Wendat population explodes, from 11,000 to 29,000 people
This map shows how our ancestors would travel from Rama into our traditional hunting and harvesting territories. A series of routes via rivers, lakes, and portages could help us traverse our entire territory in several days. This map is found at the Muskoka Discovery Centre in Gravenhurst, ON.
gchi miigwech for reading!