OUR HOME ON NATIVE LAND

‘The acquisition of Canada…will be a mere matter of marching.” Thomas Jefferson, Past President of the newly independent United States

By the autumn of 1784, with the American Revolutionary war over, those who had been loyal to Britain were no longer safe in the new United States. They were being scorned by the newly independent Americans, their assets were being appropriated by the victors, and sometimes they were literally fleeing for their lives. The British Crown realized they needed a new home and they deserved one. Where better than on native land? But first it had to acquire land, purchased as the Indian agent said, 'by means fair or foul'. Usually, it turned out by the latter. What better way to accomplish all this at little expense, than to re-gift them native land?

           A Lieutenant William Crawford was assigned the task of getting at least some form of claim to the needed land. He called for a meeting at a small island in the St. Lawrence with those indigenous leaders who were handy. In short order he reported to his Governor General that Canada had “purchased from the Mississauga all the lands from Toniata or Onagara River to the River in the Bay of Quinté within eight leagues of the bottom of the said Bay, including all the Islands, extending from the Lake back as far as a man can travel in a day”.

Even this was soon disputed. The Chiefs themselves felt it should be only those lands within the shorter distance of the sound of a shot gun, not within a day’s travel.

Whichever description of the land involved was correct, the manifest disparity of land and compensation remains unconscionable. The price paid? In exchange for the vast and best areas of what would become Upper Canada and then Ontario, the Mississauga were to receive, guns, powder and balls, clothing for their families, cloth (red) for overcoats and lace hats. Even that was unclear. How long were the gifts to continue? Exactly what lands were really intended?  No one knows; no written record of this pivotal agreement exists.

The surveyors were sent out to stake farm boundaries none the less. However optimistic they could be, it was impossible that the land stretched back more than four Townships from Lake Ontario. Surely, no man could walk or run further than that in a day. The north limit must, however 'foully' calculated, stop at the north limit of the new Township of Rawdon. It was inescapable that the lands beyond were still outside the white man's grasp.

            So who owned them? They were sparsely occupied by indigenous groups who traveled and hunted with the seasons. The grand British pretense that people could 'own' lands whether or not they needed them, whether or not they used them, and that an ‘owner’ could even arbitrarily exclude others, never occurred to the First Nations. They were not traditionally so inclined. Their concepts of joint use and access were so ingrained that they seemed to have believed that whatever treaties they signed would still leave them with all the rights their lifestyle needed in the lands they had 'sold'.

For those who think this is all ancient history and that we must have, at the very least, have settled the boundaries between ceded and un-ceded lands, you are wrong. We point to the disclaimer commonly attached to the Ontario Government's Treaty maps

The information contained in this map does not necessarily reflect Ontario’s understanding of, or position on, Treaty boundaries or the existing or asserted Treaty or Aboriginal rights of any Aboriginal group. The information contained in this map does not constitute an admission by Ontario of any sort, and does not limit Ontario’s rights in any way.

Rather defensive we might say. What does the map reflect then? What is a map for anyway, if not to show borders?

         As Upper Canada grew after the American Revolution, an imperative became clear. It would never thrive without an industry, and the industry most needed was to create the product most needed for progress - IRON. Nothing else was so versatile. It could be made into almost anything. In the hands of the blacksmith it could become a caldron or a kettle, a plow or a shovel, or a stove or a pan. It could even perhaps become a rifle barrel or a cannon. But to make iron you needed not just ore, you needed a forest for fuel and capital to build the enormous furnaces to melt it down. You needed a village of workers and you needed water for transportation and for power from river falls.

  It happened that Marmora was just the place. But it was also too far from everywhere else and just very slightly too far from Lake Ontario to be covered by Crawford's Treaty. It was north of the Rawdon boundary. Something had to be done to wrest more land  from its indigenous possessors. Another Treaty with another set of chiefs was needed and quickly.

Another great project, the proposed Rideau Canal was also largely on un-ceded lands. To cover both in one an enormous 2,400,000 acre purchase would simplify matters. But first we had to determine who 'owned' it, or alternatively at least who was willing to say they did. This time a total of thirteen first nations were prepared to agree that it was theirs. This may have appeared a daunting number but the negotiators were able to determine that together these groups amounted to only 245 individuals. It didn't take much in the way of gifts to convince so small a group to get acceptance on a document they likely found unintelligible. And anyway the negotiator made it abundantly clear, in the written document at least,  that the gifts would for ever be given to no more than 245 individuals.

       The British had long cultivated the image of “fatherhood” with the natives. They purchased peace with gifts and/or the promise of them. A Treaty, fair or foul was entered. Once the land was acquired, all that was missing was a rich and optimistic entrepreneur. That man was Charles Hayes, a man who was willing to take on the risky enterprise and save the colonial authorities the vast expense that would be needed . Hayes’ fortune was to be built, and later lost, on land acquired from First Nations by a process which charitably can be called, grossly questionable.

There is not a lot of information specifically about the first nations around the Marmora area although it is almost certain that they enjoyed at least, at sometime in the year, the fishing and hunting opportunities it offered. Folklore relates that a small band of perhaps 30 indigenous natives within an extended family gave their name to Crowe Lake and Crowe River. For communities further west, travel from settlements at Hiawatha and even Curve Lake was within reasonable reach. Going back further in time  the Algonkiaks had a sacred site not so far away at the Peterborough Petroglyphs near Stoney Lake. At Keene a much older culture had created the Serpent Mounds perhaps as early as the second century A.D.

Central to the area's indigenous culture, and reflected in the  Petroglyphs was a belief in a half fish, half snake creature, inhabiting many lakes. The serpents' nemesis is the Thunderbird who announces his presence by thunder, of course. He then hunts the serpents and guards mankind most particularly against the Great Horned Serpent. His effigy goes back to the ancient times when the Serpent Mounds were created.